BT full fibre - Erratic speeds for a month and Openreach say no fault found

[PeteL71]

This has been reported to BT but I'm wondering if anyone else has had similar issues.

14th August 2024.  I was working at home and all of a sudden the internet speed went through the floor.  I use a wired connection (I'm an IT training instructor so need good, reliable performance as I'm streaming all day) to my laptop and instead of just below 1Gbps I was suddenly on less than 1Mbps.  My wife was working upstairs, also wired into the hub, and the same thing happened to her.  Our phones, obviously connected wirelessly, also saw the speed plummet.  

Ran the BT troubleshooter which confirmed there was an issue, said that some settings had been changed, and if it wasn't resolved I should request a callback.  It wasn't resolved, so I requested a callback.  BT guy rang back, did a test on my hub, said everything looked OK and I should see how it went.  It remained awful for the rest of the day, but the next day it seemed OK again.  

Went on holiday for a couple of weeks, came back, and found the performance was dire again.  It's not constant though - sometimes we're getting 900Mbps+ via the wired connections, but sometimes it's really low - done multiple speed tests using Ookla, Google speed test, Fast.com, and BT Wholesale speed test and had anything between 0.16Mbps (on a wired connection) and 1.1Gbps (more than we pay for!) but it's totally erratic - high one minute, then the next it's like dial-up, and even text-based web pages take forever to open.  Tried watching something on iPlayer the other day and it buffered four times during the titles.  Bizarrely though our upload speed is pretty constant at over 100Mbps.

Openreach came out on Monday, ran some tests, said everything was OK but respliced the cable at the grey box just in case.  No change.  Their performance tests were coming back at 900Mbps+ down and over 100Mbps up.  The engineer told me that if it isn't the splice, it'll be the hub.  Five minutes after he left the performance had plummeted once again.  Contacted BT, reported the fault again (the Openreach guy had closed it as fixed) and requested a replacement hub.  New hub came yesterday, plugged it in, ran speed tests, and guess what?  0.5Mbps down, and over 100Mbps up, again on the wired connection.  As the day went on it was sometimes over 900Mbps again, then a few minutes later it was back below 1Mbps, up and down all the time, completely unusable.

Had a call from BT this morning asking if the new hub had fixed it.  Told them it hadn't.  Lady told me it had to be a fault outside the house as we've now changed the hub and had similarly awful results from multiple devices, wired and wireless.  Her tests also showed that BT were getting sometimes over 900Mbps to my hub, and sometimes well below this, so they've identified there is an issue too.  

A second Openreach engineer came earlier and had a look.  Guess what?  All tests were OK, no issues found, performance was over 900Mbps down and over 100Mbps up, so there was nothing he could do and he looked at me like I was insane, despite my showing him the test results I've collected over the last few days, including screenshots of the results, proving it is erratic.  Nothing I can do, he said - everything looks OK to me - and with that he drove away.

But here's where it gets really weird.  I saw an Openreach van outside another house on my street earlier.  I knocked on the door and asked if they're also having speed issues, and they were having the same problem as me - fast one minute, dog slow the next - and since about the same time as the fault had happened to us.  Their Openreach engineer ran some tests, said everything looked OK, and again left having done nothing.

To me, the problem isn't with any particular device in my house, as it is happening with multiple devices, both wired and wireless, and we've used two different Smart Hub 2s in a week with the same problem.  The fact that a second house on my street which also uses fibre is having the same issue indicates to me that it is a problem either with the pole, or the fibre between the pole and the exchange somewhere, but Openreach are refusing to even investigate as their tests are all coming out OK.

So, has anyone else had any issues like this, and if any of the forum mods are reading this do you have any advice as to what I can do next?  It's driving us crazy, Openreach are washing their hands of it, and it's so annoying when you spend a fortune for decent broadband which you need for work and you can't rely on the speed being there.  

[iniltous]

The fibre between your ONT and the OLT ( headend ) is passive ( it’s a PON , passive optical network ) so no electronics , amplification , signal interference , so variable speeds are not likely to be the passive part of the network….if your neighbours are having similar issues that rules out the electronics at your end ( the ONT ) so that only really leaves either the OLT ( headend )  or congestion.

Unfortunately the OR tech that visit can be right and wrong simultaneously, the passive network may be fine ( the passive elements are all these type of engineers can really check ) but the OLT / headend is also Openreach but fault finding that is not within the skill set of the techs that visit you  .

The headend is also where the effective handover takes place between what Openreach are responsible for and where the ISP takes over , and the issues you are having could be on either side of that demarcation.

The neighbours having the same issue , are they also BT , or an ISP likely to use the same backhaul, so EE , Plusnet or someone else ? if they were ( for example ) Sky , chances are that wouldn’t be the same  backhaul as BT , which locates the issue to Openreach, if also BT then it could be OR or BT .

All you can do is keep reporting, AFAIR, there was a similar thread on this forum , the eventual culprit was a cable link between the OR equipment and the ISP ( BT ) equipment, but this needs a different type of tech to the ones that visit your home , 

[PeteL71]

Neighbour is with Vodafone but has a grey Openreach box on the outside of his house. Both of our fibres go overhead to the same pole on our street, so we're both convinced that the issue is nothing to do with our devices or anything in our properties. 

[iniltous]

Vodafone almost certainly don’t use the same backhaul as BT , so ( in my opinion ) the problem is likely to be on the headend itself….when reporting it again , it may be worth mentioning the issue needs passing to the appropriate type of tech , and not the people who visit your address , or if you do get a visit , explain to that tech that they need to pass the problem up to a higher level not simply close it as right when tested ….TBH , it’s not in OR’s interest to continually send the wrong type of tech , each ‘truck roll’ costs OR money , unnecessary truck rolls are a waste of their time ( and money ) as well as yours .

[PeteL71]

Further upate.....

So the problem is persisting.  Multiple calls to BT since last week and BT themselves have seen the issue while I've been on the phone - speed fluctuating between about 750mbps and 200, sometimes lower, then back up again.  Neighbour up the road is seeing the same thing.

Had an Openreach engineer round on Friday who had a look, ran a speed test, said everything was OK and no action required, then left.  BT called back on Sunday to ask how it was, and I advised that it was no different, and the speeds were often dipping down to less than 1mbps down and the same for up, but typically the upload is higher than the download much of the time which is frankly nuts.  BT Guide said they'd book an Openreach Special Fault Investigation for Tuesday morning.

Doorbell rang this morning and it was the same Openreach guy that we had on Friday.  "Are you an Openreach Special Fault Investigator?" I asked.  There's no such thing, he said.  Ran his tests, said there was no fault, at which point my wife and I - we're both working from home - exploded.  Speeds today have typicaly been lower than 10mbps down.  Openreach guy said he was going to his van (which he had parked round the corner for some reason) to phone his manager to see if he could suggest anything.  He rang us back a few minutes later, said nothing could be done, and said even though my 200+ documented speed tests using Ookla, Google, Fast, and BT all show massive fluctuations in the performance there was nothing he could do, and he hung up.

Neighbour up the road with the same issue with Vodafone said that Vodafone can see an issue on the line which is somewhere between his house and the cabinet.  BT seem to be telling me the same, but Openreach are saying "I see no ships."  Got another Openreach engineer coming tomorrow, but at the moment we're sorely tempted to cancel the whole BT contract and go elsewhere, maybe even Virgin, because this is just unusable at the moment and the attitude of the Openreach engineers stinks.

[licquorice]

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@PeteL71 wrote:

Further upate.....

Neighbour up the road with the same issue with Vodafone said that Vodafone can see an issue on the line which is somewhere between his house and the cabinet. 

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Well, they have been given a load of tosh as well, FTTP doesn't come from a cabinet!

[PeteL71]

OK, so I didn't speak to Vodafone myself - was just relaying that the neighbour was saying that Vodafone were saying they had seen there was a fault somewhere between his house and let's say "the internet".  

[iniltous]

Although frustrating all you can do is keep re-reporting the fault , SFIO ( special faults investigation officer ) is something of a throwback term back to a time before there was a regulatory ( Ofcom ) separation between all the various groups within ‘BT’ , BT Consumer your ISP , Openreach the network supplier to BT , and BTW / BT / TSO ( or whatever they are now called ) , technical, support and operations .

As stated , if a Vodafone customer is affected it’s not likely to be on the ISP side of the demarcation on the headend equipment , and the passive elements cannot really create the symptoms to are experiencing ( so the person who visits is no trained on what the issue is likely to be ) , that really  leaves headend electronics .

As you are obviously getting nowhere , you could try emailing the BT  executive complaints people ( a search should find the way to contact them ) , however once they get involved this the Mods on this forum are unable to assist ( but they haven’t offered any yet anyway )

[36ULW]

‘BT Guide said they'd book an Openreach Special Fault Investigation for Tuesday morning.

Doorbell rang this morning and it was the same Openreach guy that we had on Friday.  "Are you an Openreach Special Fault Investigator?" I asked.  There's no such thing, he said.’

The Engineer is correct, there is no such thing as a, Specialist Fault Investigator.

There is an Openreach Service called SFI, which does stand for Specialist Fault Investigation.

That Service only applies to ADSL and FTTC Services, not for FTTP. Should that not mean there is a Specialist Fault Investigator though? Technically yes but Openreach have pretty much let anyone who knew how to do it go and those that are left have most likely only done a half day Death by PowerPoint Training on it, which is worthless. 

If you report an FTTP Fault the only person you’re going to get out to help is an FTTP trained Engineer from Service Delivery and their training/knowledge will probably be limited to using a OTDR, which can only find faults on the physical fibre cable. It can’t and won’t be able to detect faults on the Head End and or any Backhaul Equipment it’s connected to.

The Only thing I can suggest you try is connecting a laptop directly to the ONT, create a PPPoE Session and see if the Speed Fluctuates then. 

[PeteL71]

You're missing one key point here... 

A house four doors away from me, also on fibre, has exactly the same issue. This isn't an issue with something in my house