We as village residents do not seem to get benefits of the VDSL broadband introduction, what to do?

[peterbr]

Hello

I've recently been upgraded from ADSL+ to VDSL and hardly got any speed increase 18 to 20Mb.

So decided to look into this a bit further. 

We live in a village consisting of houses along one straight road with the regional telephone exchange (Ford) about a mile down the road from us. Distance between first and last house is probably also a mile. When FTC was introduced in the area BT placed ( by what I can determine) just one cabinet for the whole village ( Edgehead) just outside the exchange, about 600m from the first house . So most houses in the village are far above the 200-800 meter range in which the VDSL performance drops significantly to 20Mb, see following article https://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/2013/chart-bt-fttc-vdsl2-speed-against-distance.

So who do we need to contact in BT to get at least one more cabinet in the village that is located in the middle of the village so that we as residents can get the benefit of the introduction of VDSL!!

Regards

Peter Brouwer

[imjolly]

openreach are the people who you need to contact but the fact you can get about 20mb connection speed you really have no chance of openreach building a new cab closer to you

[peterbr]

There are a lot of houses further up the road which will even get a worse connection, so it is strange that BT open reach choose the location of the cabinet as it is in the first place!

Am I right in that openreach does not directly deal with customers and referring us back to BT. So should BT not pick this issue up and support their customers in getting the proper product experience? What was the point in upgrading people in the village from ADSL to VDSL ? There are residents in the village that struggle to even get 8Mb download speeds.

[imjolly]

enter your phone number and post results  remember delete number but leave exchange and cab   https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome

from your description it appears you were connected direct to exchange hence very good adsl speed but that meant you were unable to get a fibre connection as you need to be connected to a cabinet to get fibre    To give you fibre openreach erected a new cabinet outside the exchange which enabled all the customers to now get a fibre connection.  openreach are not going to install another cab just so you can get a bit faster speed

[brookheather]

"What was the point in upgrading people in the village from ADSL to VDSL"

ADSL is being turned off so BT and other ISPs are migrating people to FTTC (VDSL) or FTTP.  In some cases people may get slower or similar speeds.  This migration is being done to allow removal of ADSL equipment and the copper connections between cabinets and exchanges.

[pippincp]

The BT USO broadband started today and ( as mandated by Ofcom) is for a 10Mb down, 1Mb upload. According to Ofcom 10Mb is the minimum speed currently needed to meet an average household’s digital needs. It should be fast enough for multiple people in a household to be online at once.

[peterbr]

So mostly beneficial to BT/Openreach...

[pompey1898]

Hi
@peterbr,

This is true of many villages, including mine.  I think PCP's were located at the end of villages nearest to the exchange when the only concern was telephony - broadband never even thought of.

So, like you, we have residents close to their cabinet with good speeds , those at some distance with 1 to 5 Mbps, and some with no broadband connection at all.

Your only hope is to pester your BDUK scheme to get FTTP.

PS - Good to see you using my mate's website - he definitely knows his onions !!

[imjolly]

post the results using checker link and lets see what your estimated speed range is and whether your hub stats which you can also post shows speed within range

maybe there is something you can do to improve your connection - what have you tried?

[peterbr]

I have the latest BT connection box directly at the incoming line, with the split off for VDSL in the box. The modern (BT) is directly attached to it. It ran reliable on ADSL+ for years ( 18Mb link limited on exchange fully utilised with very low error rate).

Now I get daily disconnects. When is BT going to roll out sw for VDSL vector support?

Noise signal margin settings for download seem to be creeping up over time.

There is an open Fault report for this issue. Speaking to various neighbours in the village, confirms that there is a general speed problem with VDSL in the village.

Result on modem:

DSL Status

Line State: UP [0x0]
Line Mode: G.993.2 (VDSL2)
Line Uptime: 14h 21m 58s
Annex: B
Profile: 17a
Data Rate: 19.135 Mb/s / 5.627 Mb/s
Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR): 28.016 Mb/s / 5.633 Mb/s
Latency: 0.13 ms / 0.0 ms
Line Attenuation (LATN): 28.8 dB / 32.3 dB
Signal Attenuation (SATN): 25.2 dB / 32.1 dB
Noise Margin (SNR): 11.5 dB / 5.8 dB
Aggregate Transmit Power(ACTATP): 7.1 dB / 12.3 dB
Forward Error Correction Seconds (FECS): 0 / 0
Errored seconds (ES): 1639 / 5476
Severely Errored Seconds (SES): 873 / 28
Loss of Signal Seconds (LOSS): 6 / 0
Unavailable Seconds (UAS): 2481 / 2481
Header Error Code Errors (HEC): 0 / 0
Non Pre-emtive CRC errors (CRC_P): 759 / 0
Pre-emtive CRC errors (CRCP_P): 0 / 0
ATU-C System Vendor ID: Broadcom 164.154
Power Management Mode: L0 - Synchronized

Result from speed checker page:

Exchange FORD is served by Cabinet 3Featured ProductsDownstream Line Rate(Mbps)Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)Downstream Handback Threshold(Mbps)WBC FTTC Availability DateWBC SOGEA Availability DateLeft in Jumper  High Low High Low        Featured ProductsDownstream Line Rate(Mbps)Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)Downstream Range(Mbps)WBC FTTP Availability Date ADSL ProductsDownstream Line Rate(Mbps)Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)Downstream Range(Mbps)ADSL Availability DateWBC SOADSL Availability DateLeft in JumperObserved SpeedsVDSLADSLOther Offerings Availability Date Premise environmentStatus VDSL Range A (Clean) 29.2 20.6 3 1.6 18 Available Available --   VDSL Range B (Impacted) 28.4 17.8 3 1.3 13.1 Available Available --   FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- Available -- --   WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 13.5 -- 10.5 to 16.5 Available Available Yes   WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 13.5 Up to 1 10.5 to 16.5 Available Available Yes   ADSL Max Up to 8 -- 7 to 8 Available Available --   WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available Available Yes   Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available -- --   Max Observed Downstream Speed (Mbps) 22.39 18.53           Max Upstream Observed Speed (Mbps) 5.22 1.11           Observed Date 2020-03-09 2019-09-29           VDSL Multicast -- -- -- Available -- --   ADSL Multicast -- -- -- Available -- --   Bridge Tap N             VRI N             NTEFaceplate N             Last Test Date 04-03-2020

FTTP is not available. For all ADSL and WBC Fibre to the Cabinet (VDSL or G.fast) services, the stable line rate will be determined during the first 10 days of service usage. This line is on a Market A Exchange. For VDSL or G.fast Ranges A and B, the term "Clean" relates to a line which is free from any wiring issues (e.g. Bridge Taps) and/or Copper line conditions, and the term "Impacted" relates to a line which may have wiring issues (e.g. Bridge Taps) and/or Copper line condi