Broadband Speeds have dropped

[DavidTunstall]

Over the last few years, I have had an acceptable broadband connection of 38mbps download, and 7 mbps upload. My min speed guarantee was 32mbps

In March this year, my router died, and BT replaced it (Smart Hub2).

Immediately it connected back to i/net, the download speed was 26mbps.

It stabilised and improved a bit, but now won't connect higher than 32mbps.
BT then sent me a contract renewal offer emasil, saying 'Your package is currently 29mbps down and 5mbps up, with 24mbps min speed guarantee!.All of this is 25% down on what I contracted and paid for.

When I complained, I was told 'oh, Openreach have reassesed your broadband area as poor, and as such, you wont get better.

My service was FINE before the new router, and nothing has changed, apart from a new master socket when I kept reporting speed problems.

Very weird that my line is now 'poorer' simply because I have a new router. And I wasn't told that my service was of poorer spec since March, despite paying the original contract price.

Any thoughts on how to approach this?

Router log fields shown below, if that helps any

DSL uptime:0 days,04 Hours11 Mins17 Secs
Data rate:4.999 Mbps / 32.4 Mbps
Maximum data rate:7.588 Mbps / 38.310 Mbps
Full Fibre (FTTP) Mode:Off
Noise margin:11.1 / 8.7
Line attenuation:9.5 / 23.2
Signal attenuation:9.5 / 31.3

[licquorice]

Your uptime is very low and your line has been banded by DLM at 32.4Mbps due to instability (or repeated hub reboots in an attempt to improve your speed). Until the cause of the instability is resolved, your speed won't improve to it's 38Mbps capability.

[Steve_M]

DM me your Account Number and I can access some data/graphs for you

[DavidTunstall]

I have rebooted the router numerous times, while trying to take certain things out of the equation, to see if they were causing problems (such as our BT phone which was recently transferred to Digital Voice service.I didn't think it could have anything to do  with the problem, but thought it worth a go.

Since the last BT call agent I spoke to told me that my area had been downgraded and that was why I no longer received the speeds I was originally getting.

What annoys me is that muy offer of a new contract for 2 years states that the best I can get is 29/5 mbps down and up, with a minimum speed guarantee of 24, as opposed to what I signed up for (and was getting before March when the router died) of 38/7mbps with a minimum speed of 32mbps.

And they weren't going to tell me of this downgrade? Just hope I hadn't noticed?

[DavidTunstall]

Incidentally, I don't really understand the data/stats of my router. Whata tells you that its been 'banded' (and is that the same as capped, or throttled?) 

[licquorice]

Forget what the agent told you, they were talking nonsense.

DLM is a system that monitors your line for stability and reduces speed to try and stabilise the line when it sees faults. Multiple reboots of the hub is seen as line instability and thus your speed us reduced in an effort to stabilise it. 32.4Mbps is one of the banded speeds it applies.

With a stable line your speed will increase to 38/40 Mbps but it can take DLM several weeks to decide your line is stable.

I suggest you take up @Steve_M  offer of assistance.

[Steve_M · Accepted solution]

Hi David, Thanks for confirming your account details via DM.

Your summary seems to align with what my data shows. It was 34,999Kb for a long time before the blip in March, recovering to 32,399Kb 

You say the master socket was changed so, presuming that has improved something, I've ordered a DLM reset which should take place shortly and we can see if this removes the cap.

Steve

[DavidTunstall]

Well Steve,

Whatever you did has made an immediate improvement.

My router now reports:

Downstream sync speed: 36.883 Mbps

Upstream sync speed: 7.503 Mbps

Network uptime: 0 Days, 20 Hours 32 Minutes

System uptime: 0 Days, 20 Hours 34 Minutes

Basically back to the speeds I was getting.

Can't say how impressed I was with your helpfulness. And the speed of response was brilliant

Delighted

[DavidTunstall]

Many thanks to Steve_M for looking at my slow speed issue.

Hpw do I give a Kudo for your assistance?