Plusnet problem

Robisere

I am hoping that the PN rep who often appears here, will provide answers.

I have been with PN FTTC from last October, service was OK initially and I was receiving around 9 MB download, which was great after the 1.5 MB (on a good day) that I had via all copper line. Then after a couple of months, speed dropped and is now around 5 MB. I have complained several times about this and all I get is "Your Line Speed is .... " to which I answer "In that case, why was it more than that when I take the service?"

I then got the 'Contention Issues" answer, which of course does not apply to FTTC. Back came the next Stock response, 'Distance from the Cabinet', but I have obtained a table which shows what I should get at my house. I am less than 500 metres from the cabinet and there is an underground cable from that to the pole which carries the last 40 metres or so of copper to my connection. This line was renewed a few years ago, it is still green and shows up against older cables.

I have 2 questions for the Plusnet representative - the first is the one I keep asking his company - Why was the speed 9 MB THEN, and 5MB NOW?

The second is more serious in implication - Is Plusnet reducing my speed at source?

I have carried out all the stock tests that Plusnet asked of me in the Help section (Many times!) I would also like to know what it would cost me to move to another ISP. I paid upfront for a year's phone service.

oldagetraveller

You might receive a quicker response from Plusnet if you registered on their forum. http://community.plus.net/forum/
They have resident staff on there.
You'll probably not get any of the upfront line rental back and there will, no doubt, be an early termination charge depending on how much is left of your contract.

Basil1234

robisere your sure your on fttc not an llu? its just i'm am on a 598m line and bt estimate my speed at to be at 48MB, i think you maybe on wrong product by sound of it. if im wrong and you are on fttc have you considered crosstalk interference slowing you down! either way doesn't sound good.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/4002231-will-fttc-result-in-a-crosstalk-crisis.html?fpart=all&vc=1

check here for speed estimate and cabinet number you on
https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html

hope it helps
basil

spud17

Basil1234 wrote: »

robisere your sure your on fttc not an llu? its just i'm am on a 598m line and bt estimate my speed at to be at 48MB,...........
hope it helps
basil

It does seem slow.
I was under the impression that FTTC would only be installed where a minimum speed of 15Mbps was available.

Robisere

Thanks for your help & advice, but:
* I have been on the Forum since I started with PN. No useful help there.

* I am certain I am on FTTC. The engineer who originally fitted the Open reach modem & the PN router, assured me of that. So did the OR engineer working down the street this morning, who took out his laptop and also assured me of that. In addition, he gave me the bad news that there is almost 2 Km. of line between my pole , which carries the line to my connection, and the Fibre cabinet.

* The BT wholesale table gives this: -
WBC FTTC - up to 4.6 Mbps Download, up to 0.9 Mbps Up load.
EVEN ADSL is - up to 1Mbps up, no figure at all for Down.

I live in a rural Lincolnshire village near Louth. Apparently, the line goes from Louth (all cabled-up) exchange, down the A157 towards our village, then about 750 Metres before reaching us, it goes up to a small (wealthy) hamlet. Then it comes back to our village, via underground cables and lines, to us. In other words, we are truly stuffed.

SPUD: do you have any source for this please:
I was under the impression that FTTC would only be installed where a minimum speed of 15Mbps was available.

I would dearly love something like that to wave at PN!

BTW, I would not ever like to leave my beautiful country village just to be able to receive higher speeds. Our quality of life here, is more important than that.I believe that the 'Fibre Option' was waved at us here, without giving us the full picture.

Robisere

So I have no input from the PN rep who has commented on this forum.

spud17

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.html

Specifically the paragraph 'How fast is Fibre Broadband'.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2010/01/27/bt-uk-clarifies-minimum-15mbps-fttc-fibre-optic-broadband-speeds.html

Note Hermes comment in the link above.

The above suggest to me that BTW makes 15Mbps the minimum, though it can temporarily drop to 12Mbps.

ciderboy2009

Robisere wrote: »

So I have no input from the PN rep who has commented on this forum.

They don't tend to post on weekends - presumably they only work Mon-Fri

Robisere

SPUD:
thank you very much for that second link, I have waved it at PN and am awaiting response.

Also, for the first link: I have been aware of, and using, Thinkbroadband, for some time now, I now carry out all speedtests with them.

I will continue to batter away at them. I am one of those people who does not give up, especially if I believe that I am in the right.

espresso

Not sure why you believe that the link posted above here will help you, because that was dated Jan 2010 and you switched to PN FTTC in Oct 2012.

In Nov 2010 BT decided to spread fiber further afield to reach more customers see here this would have applied to your line due to the distance to the nearest cabinet.

Read about Fault Threshold Rate here

If you sign-up to a line that can only deliver speeds of between 5Mbps to 15Mbps then you’d typically come under the 5Mbps Threshold (i.e. sub-5Mbps is considered a fault that should be investigated).

mattyprice4004

First of all, I think you need to let down your 'I know it all' walls a little - the impression I'm getting is that you think you know FTTC inside out, which from your posts I'm afraid isn't the case.

I work as a technical supervisor for a relatively large ISP, and deal with issues like this on a regular basis.

1. FTTC DOES suffer contention issues. Due to the limited uptake it's not actually a set ratio in most areas, but there most certainly ARE contention issues present.

2. Just because the line is new, doesn't mean it's not faulty. Joints can be poorly sealed and can hold moisture, likewise how do you know the condition of the 460m of underground cable? It could all be 40 years old and knackered.

It sounds like a copper line fault to me, but not yet bad enough to affect your service to the point of dropout.

I would suggest requesting a fault is raised.

I've given advice like this in the past on MSE and been shouted down, so I'm not going to be too surprised if that happens again...

Good luck in getting it sorted out.