download speed is poor , upload speed still good.

[nannajan13]

Hi,

Before I start I am not very tech savvy and avoid messing with settings etc if at all possible.

BT are  supposed to be sending out an engineer to take a look but I would be grateful for any advise on questions I should ask and what tests should be done.

I have a smart hub 2 with fibre to the box which is by my front gate. I have a guaranteed download speed of 30mbps which I have been consistently receiving until recently. My download speed is now never above 3mbps although upload is the same as it was at about 7.5mbps. The problem is with both wired and wifi connection and there is only one desktop (wired) and one TV wifi which is in a spare room and rarely used.

BT have taken a look their end and confirm the very low download speed but say they were unable to rectify it from their end hence the engineer visit.

I've unplugged everything and reconnected and changed the filter on the telephone box.

At the end of May a neighbour had BT installed and Openreach dug a trench in front of my driveway and obviously had to open up the box in the ground to make the connection. All this was done in the pouring rain and ramps were put over the trench for us to drive over as they did not return to complete the job for a couple of days.

I didn't notice a drop in speed at the point the work was being done but I'm wondering whether somehow rain has penetrated to a connection there and caused a problem later? I asked if the engineer would be looking at the box outside and was told no only inside, can they tell remotely there is no problem with the connection outside? I don't see how they can.

Also the neighbours broadband wasn't activated straight away, could the activation of the neighbours broadband have an effect on my broadband? BT complaints department says not.

Thanks in advance for any questions I should ask on the engineers visit.

[NeilO]

Hi @nannajan13 welcome to the community and thanks for posting. I'm really sorry to see you're having problems with your broadband speed. It's possible that the recent work outside has disturbed your line but that would require an Openreach engineer visit, did the helpdesk say they were organising a Qube visit? If so they would be going out to check your internal set-up and can't fix external network issues.

Can you post your Home Hub router stats and we'll take a look? You'll get them by entering 192.168.1.254 in your browser, if you have a home hub 5 please go to troubleshooting then helpdesk and if it's a Smart Hub go to advanced settings then technical log information. 

I'd also recommend you do a quiet line test? - dial 17070 from your landline choose option 2 and it should be silent.

Thanks

Neil

[nannajan13]

Thanks for the prompt response, I have done the quiet line test and it is silent.

I was speaking to the complaints department on the telephone who have organised the engineer visit, I did give all the information about the external work but I got the impression they were just checking inside the house.

Is this the information from the Hub 2?

 Thank you for looking into this for me. 

The complaints department did say I could cancel the contract if they can't get me unto the promised 30mbps but I've been with BT for years and in May I was getting over 30mbps no problem so I can't understand why I can't now. I don't really want to leave anyway.

[NeilO]

Hi @nannajan13 yes that's the info I needed thanks. The SNR is very high at 30.4db it should be around 6db, so it looks like you're in a banded profile due to instability on the line. Are you noticing if the Hub is disconnecting and lights going off/changing colour as the connection time is just over 7 hours? 

Thanks

Neil

[nannajan13]

Hi,

I haven't noticed the hub going off or the lights on the hub changing, occasionally when I first click on Safari it will say you aren't connected to the internet but that stops when I click again and I think that has always happened.

Like you I have noticed the connection time is low when I've checked the hub previously.

The connection time now shows 9 hours ago , 3.20am I've checked the hub log and this was happening about that time.

 The message a device disconnected from the ethernet port and a device connects ethernet port happens quite a lot I assume this is when my desktop is put to sleep. The slow download happens both on ethernet and WiFi.

[NeilO]

@nannajan13 no problem, I'll send you a private message in a moment so you can get in touch with the moderation team and we'll be happy to help. 

You'll find the private message by clicking on the envelope on the top right of the community.

Thanks

Neil

[nannajan13]

The BT engineers came on time and were very polite and helpful. They looked at the internal set up router, incoming master socket etc and could find no problem. They did upgrade the master socket to the latest although they couldn't see a problem with the one there but by doing this they could sign off that everything inside appeared to be fine.

As NeilO the moderator suggested it does appear from the engineers tests that the router has been turning on and off frequently, although I was unaware of this. But they confirmed in their opinion it is not a router problem.

Because of the master socket change I now need to wait 72 hours to see if the system resets and download speed increases, although the engineer said he thinks this is extremely unlikely. He thinks the fault is outside and eventually an open reach visit will be necessary.

[iniltous]

It would appear that the ‘engineer’ visit wasn’t actually an Openreach visit , and whoever did visit can only check things within the property than , chances are an Openreach engineer will be required, and the previous visitor has arranged that.
You haven’t said if you have tried using a landline phone , dialing 17070 and taking the quiet line option, any noise on the line would indicate an external issue , if the call is made from the master socket test port.

[nannajan13]

Hi,

I have done the quiet line test a few times and it is silent apart from the operator saying quiet line test every so often.

From what the engineer said I should be contacted in a few days with a follow up call to see if things have improved, but he suggested I call them if I don't hear. It seems they won't do anything else until 72 hours has elapsed anyway then I will have to ask for further investigation. 

[pippincp]

If you replied to the mod's PM then you need not do anything, they will take it from here and keep you updated.