Previously excellent ADSL connection speeds, now extremely low. Last resort - asking for help :D

[OwenMc]

Background

At current address 3+ years, which after an initial period of poor connection speed got sorted by Openreach engineer fixing something for one of us in the area.

Since then, 2.5 years of frankly excellent speeds, 5-7 Mbps was the norm.

Since November that has all changed.

Max <600 Kbps till mid last week, when it is now at  274 Kbps.

That was 1/2 way through my most recent 10 day settle down attempt.

Stuff I've tried

Reboot router: Currently just started 4th 10 day settle down attempt. None made any difference.

Master socket: Yes, plugged in directly since this saga started. Not showing any difference. 

Speed test: Ran when last I had a Windows machine at home - 5-8Mbps expected

Router: Belkin - see pic below for stats available to me.

   (Noise margin was around 20s when I was getting the 600Kbps rate reported)

   Also tried a Pirelli for 24 hrs - lovely interface, no change on data reported though.

   I do not have a home hub to test with - after helping someone set up their BBand a few years back my own Belkin showed itself up to the job at the time, so when I moved to BT I decided to decline the option.

   It has been fine for me up till this current situation started.

Quiet line test: All ok

No BT problems reported in the area.

Read as many other articles as I could over the past month, trying all the suggestions - nothing changed.

4 'check the connection requests' via BT - all came back clean.

STD area: 01794

At this point I can see nothing left to try except an engineer callout, unless any of you good support people can suggest any other self-help option I've missed?

Owen

[OwenMc]

One extra bit of info.
Monitoring the connection over the last 10 day test, I had one night with 33 connection dropped events (night 2), as reported on my computer which was running the test (wired connection to router, not WiFi).

Is that a normal amount of BT/Openreach initiated events? Or more likely a sign of 'something up in the HW'?

[john46]

If your connection is dropping your speed will never improve  have you tried connecting with a new filter to the test socket as this will eliminate any internal wiring problems can you please post your routers connection time as that will show the stability of the connection BT or Openreach do not initiate events to disconnect users

[OwenMc]

I removed the faceplate and plugged a different filter into the test socket in November. One I used at previous address with no built-in to the NTE splitter/filter.

Sadly Belkin doesn't report connection time via its UI, so relying in monitoring it from the computer, which ain't ideal. No further disconnects between Mon am last until the speed dropped last Thursday.

I left the router powered on and 'unmolested' for 8 days up to yesterday, and no power outages occurred in thta period so I'm assuming it remained up for that period

[john46]

Unfortunately you cannot rely on assumptions you need facts to see any possible disconnections

[OwenMc]

Not being that familiar with the router logs, here are the most recent 2 examples of what the router logs show on these disconnect events - both since this thread started - in case this provides any clues: 12/18/2016 21:56:48 If(ATM1) PPP connection ok ! 12/18/2016 21:56:47 ATM1 get IP:31.54.57.240 12/18/2016 21:56:47 ATM1 start PPP 12/18/2016 21:56:47 If(ATM1) PPP fail : Peer terminate 12/18/2016 21:56:45 ATM1 start PPP 12/18/2016 19:51:10 Can't find NTP time. 12/19/2016 01:50:40 Can't find NTP time. 12/19/2016 01:50:34 If(ATM1) PPP connection ok ! 12/19/2016 01:50:33 ATM1 get IP:31.54.57.240 12/19/2016 01:50:33 ATM1 start PPP 12/19/2016 01:50:10 Can't find NTP time. Firewall logs show no entries at these times. A quick search for those strings in the forum shows up a) Belkin, a lot b) 'probably the router' comments, e.g. from this pretty similar case from a few years back (https://community.bt.com/t5/ADSL-Copper-Broadband-Speed/Frequent-IP-changes/td-p/650660/page/2) , so I'll get a 3rd router and leave it stabilise over Xmas to see how it goes. thanks

[OwenMc]

Well I made a right dog's dinner of that cut'n'paste. 2 browsers later at this speed is not letting me edit the above, so I'll just stick with the conclusion and try a 3rd router before any other steps.

[OwenMc]

Right, well an update on this with the new Modem/Router (TPLink W9970)

- First 1.5 days = stable with no hiccups

- 2nd 1.5 days = intermittent PPP issues & 'line drops'

Reflashed it 23/12 with the most recent firmware, and left it running for 5.5 days now:

System Up Time:5 day(s) 12:57:16

- 3 line drops widely spaced:

1 2016-12-25 18:25:36 PPP Error ppp1
2 2016-12-25 18:25:36 PPP Error ppp1 Timeout waiting for PADO packets
3 2016-12-25 18:24:14 PPP Error ppp1
4 2016-12-25 18:24:14 PPP Error ppp1 User request
5 2016-12-25 18:24:14 PPP Error ppp1 User request
6 2016-12-25 18:24:14 PPP Error ppp1 LCP down
7 2016-12-25 18:24:08 PPP Error ppp1 User request

8 2016-12-25 09:18:35 PPP Error ppp1

....

15 2016-12-24 00:15:56 PPP Error ppp1

- None since then

- Still no improvement in the downstream speed.

- Current stats:

Line Status:Connected
DSL Modulation Type:ADSL_2plus
Annex Type:Annex A/L
                             Upstream Downstream
Current Rate (Kbps) 291          288
Max Rate (Kbps)      298         5236
SNR Margin (dB)       6.4          38.3
Line Attenuation (dB) 27.4         45
Errors (Pkts)               0            0

Now 

- anytime I've monitored the status page the reported Max Rate, while variable, has never been <3000

- which I'm taking as indicative of the line rate 

- so by now I'd've expected to be well past 3 days of consistently higher rates than 288

Is the 3-day window an all-automated control, or might lines with recent long-term problems such as my own somehow require some human intervention in the process? 

If so, well I'm outta luck given the holidays, but at least I know that 🙂

[OwenMc]

One missing piece of usually-requested info:

[john46]

I have asked a forum moderator to help you they will post their contact link here