Line Question

[WazBrown]

Hello,

I have a question as to why this has happened. We recently moved home and I knew from testing before purchasing the property that the previous residents were getting 47-48Mbps down speed on their internet connection.

When we moved in our connection flattened out at 36-37. The online wholesale checker suggests the line could do 51. Despite numerous calls to BT they said as it was above the OR guaranteed rate of 28 they wouldn't do anything.

So as soon as the contract up we left. We're now with another major provider offering LLU  in our area (we moved as soon as the contract was up). They're delivering 45Mbps down with a guaranteed of 36. 

Therefore my question is, why is the other provider able to offer better download speeds (both actual and guaranteed) on the same line when BT said it couldn't get any faster? Surely it's all provided by OpenReach so why are BT slowing connections down?

[Paul608085]

@WazBrown 

Are the figures that you are quoting taken from your Hub's statistics for sync speed, or online speed checkers? BT's guarantees refer to sync speed, not throughput, (speed tests).

[WazBrown]

Hi @Paul608085 

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

The figures I'm quoting as received are throughput speeds delivered from the same router in both cases running a bandwidth speed test (so not affected by device connectivity over wifi).

In terms of sync speed, BT was offering 38/6, new provider 50/7.

So both sync and throughput are higher on the exact same line (and quite significantly as-well). So is that because BT are limiting the throughput to preserve bandwidth or is it down to some poor DLM management and the fact something went wrong when we moved in and they didn't want to pay OpenReach to sort it out becuase they couldn't reset the DLM themselves?

[iniltous]

As an ex BT customer, unless you are considering using BT again , then it’s a little academic asking about your old provider , but as you obviously know , the VDSL ‘kit’ is the same , regardless of the ISP as it’s provided by Openreach, so if you had significantly different results , purchasing the same wholesale product from different ISP’s, then presumably there was something wrong ( faulty ) rather than any policy or any ISP inherently better than its competitors.

FWIW, if you were with Sky or TT , they sold the 40Mb product as their lower tier , whereas BT’s ( until the introduction of ‘essential’ ) lower tier was 55Mb, so contrary to your experience, it’s entirely possible that customers on BT lower tier would outperform the others , if a  line was capable of ( for example ) 60Mb, the BT service would deliver 55 , the others would only get  40, as that was the limit on that product, obviously if you pay for the upper 80Mb , the sync would be the same regardless.

Its impossible to know for sure why you had your experience, if true, and  as you describe  , perhaps you had a faulty router, or your connection was ‘banded’ by OR due to a line issue and for whatever reason ,even after  a period of stability,  DLM didn’t remove the banding and kept your line speed artificially low, or perhaps you were on a dodgy VDSL port and when you switched provider, the port you moved to ( although in effect  identical ) was actually a better port , who knows , the next user of that old port may have been a Sky customer and they would have the same ‘problem’ you had.....you may have a valid complaint if this were the case and you asked for it to be looked at , but your ISP never investigated it , simply stating the minimum was being delivered.

The  ‘average speeds’ providers are required to publish are ( IMHO ) no better , and probably worse , than the previous ‘upto 40, or upto 80Mb’ providers previously used in adverts , providing an average of the entire user base , gives no real indication of what an individual line will deliver....throughput could vary between providers , depending on the backhaul etc, but I would be more suspicious of the cheaper end of the market in that  regard , as an obvious place to reduce costs would be there.

[WazBrown]

Thanks for your reply. You are clearly a respected voice on this forum given your status of '"Recognised Expert" so appreciate you taking the time. Your reply to my question is quite long winded so allow me to respond by breaking it down if I may:

"As an ex BT customer, unless you are considering using BT again , then it’s a little academic asking about your old provider , but as you obviously know , the VDSL ‘kit’ is the same , regardless of the ISP as it’s provided by Openreach, so if you had significantly different results , purchasing the same wholesale product from different ISP’s, then presumably there was something wrong ( faulty ) rather than any policy or any ISP inherently better than its competitors."

- Correct I am aware which is the post of my post. Yes it is academic but I would still like an answer and this is a public forum that allows experiences to be shared.

"FWIW, if you were with Sky or TT , they sold the 40Mb product as their lower tier , whereas BT’s ( until the introduction of ‘essential’ ) lower tier was 55Mb, so contrary to your experience, it’s entirely possible that customers on BT lower tier would outperform the others , if a  line was capable of ( for example ) 60Mb, the BT service would deliver 55 , the others would only get  40, as that was the limit on that product, obviously if you pay for the upper 80Mb , the sync would be the same regardless."

- Again thank you for that I am aware but not relevant in my case as I am talking about maximum throghput speeds not capped. In either case my new tariff (which I'm not naming as the purpose of this post isn't to promote a competitor) nor my old tariff had capped throughputs.

Its impossible to know for sure why you had your experience, if true, and  as you describe  , perhaps you had a faulty router, or your connection was ‘banded’ by OR due to a line issue and for whatever reason ,even after  a period of stability,  DLM didn’t remove the banding and kept your line speed artificially low, or perhaps you were on a dodgy VDSL port and when you switched provider, the port you moved to ( although in effect  identical ) was actually a better port , who knows , the next user of that old port may have been a Sky customer and they would have the same ‘problem’ you had.....you may have a valid complaint if this were the case and you asked for it to be looked at , but your ISP never investigated it , simply stating the minimum was being delivered.

- It's not impossible though is it, just a lack of willingness to investigate on BT's part clearly as the line was capable of delivering significantly more than they said...and yes it is true. No faulty router, in BT's case I used the HomeHub and my own third party, both delivered the same. In the case of my new ISP both their offered router and my own third party again both deliver the (improved) same. In terms of the minimum not being delivered...it was. The difference was my new ISP offers minimum of 36 (which is what on a good day I was getting with BT) vs 28 that BT were offering. So why were BT offering a lower minimum when it is set by OR (to my understanding)?

"The  ‘average speeds’ providers are required to publish are ( IMHO ) no better , and probably worse , than the previous ‘upto 40, or upto 80Mb’ providers previously used in adverts , providing an average of the entire user base , gives no real indication of what an individual line will deliver....throughput could vary between providers , depending on the backhaul etc, but I would be more suspicious of the cheaper end of the market in that  regard , as an obvious place to reduce costs would be there."

- Again, I'm aware of this. I may not have posted enough on this forum to become a 'Recognised Expert' but dare say I probably have more techincal knowledge in this area that you do.

[iniltous]

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