Is this down to my Internet provider?

moneyistooshorttomention

I had loads of Internet problems when I first moved here - my connection was up and down like a yoyo for quite some time and I was tabling complaint after complaint to my ISP. Anyways - coincidentally or otherwise it finally seemed to "settle" after I bought a new router in desperation (as advised on here) - even though my existing router wasnt that old.

Thankfully, I do know what a normal Internet connection is like - from the Virgin broadband I had at my last house (as that was pretty trouble-free).

Unfortunately Virgin aren't in this area and I have my doubts whether they ever will be - so I had to choose another one and settled on PlusNet.

For about the last week I've been losing my internet connection frequently again and feeling like I'm "fighting" to get through reading some webpages at normal speed. I rang PlusNet a few days back and he did some fiddling from his end and it improved. He told me he needed to re-set something a bit because BT had been doing some work in the area.

But it's back to playing up and I lost that connection several times again this morning trying to get onto the Net and once since I managed it.

I wonder if this is PlusNet's fault. I have a suspicion someone is sharing some of "my" access and this is what is mucking things up for me. I don't have wireless - it's cabled-up - and so its not that. But I am wondering about my connection on my phoneline so to say and whether someone has been given a bit of "my share" of access.

So I googled to see if that was possible. Google came up with an answer to a question on a website that said that ISP's may have a "contention ratio" - ie too many people on the same street all trying at the same time to use what is a 'shared resource'. The answer said that the ISP's business model is based on how many users they can get on one share. That no-one is "stealing your bandwidth" and they are all suffering the same contention issues. It said that the ISP needs to change their ratio in my area if this is what is happening.

So - I guess the problem back along was they'd got too many other people using my "shared resource" because of having a wrong "contention ratio" and maybe it actually got sorted because of the sheer frequency of call-outs I was putting them through to get it right. But the issue being back again is down to someone else has moved into my street and chosen the same Internet provider as myself and they are one person too many for the "contention ratio"??

Does this sound about right? The fact that BT has recently been doing some work in this area (where they've told me before now there arent any spare phonelines for new households - all the spare capacity they are supposed to leave has been used up) makes me feel this is more likely.

If so - I guess I'll have to lay it on the line to my Internet provider that I am going to have a proper share of this "contention ratio" and if they have to change it they have to change it. Otherwise - I'll swop to another provider - and I guess that would sort the problem out.

Thoughts?

DoaM

Check out this PDF file

I know it talks about ADSL2+ and you may well have fibre, but the core principles (checking whether you have a phone line fault or internal wiring issues) apply equally to fibre.

moneyistooshorttomention

Thanks.

I have the standard internet. Fibre broadband is here now - but I didnt swop to it.

JJ_Egan

Check your router stats .

EssexExile

We had the same troubles until we changed to fibre.

justaquestion

DoaM wrote: »

Check out this PDF file

I know it talks about ADSL2+ and you may well have fibre, but the core principles (checking whether you have a phone line fault or internal wiring issues) apply equally to fibre.

Go for the fibre, probably not a great difference in price,used to have lots of probs with talktalk normal bb, but since I have gone with fibre with them last 4 years have never looked back.

AndyPix

This is nothing to do with contention and more to do with a faulty connection.


Stand your ground, insist on an openreach engineer to come and sort out your connection.


Do you notice "speed" differences at different times of day ?
If it were a contention issue then the symptoms would be that the speed would drop at standard busy times
eg just after tea


Even with copper (standard) broadband, you should expect around 8meg with a decent line.
If plusnt insist everything is cool at their end, then like i said, insist on an engineer visit.


The fiddling that they are doing in the background is likely turning up your speed a bit, to the point when the line cant handle it and that is when you get the drop outs.
Again, this is indicative of an iffy line to your house (assuming you have tested using the master socket etc)


Hope this helps a bit.


PS just because YOU dont use your wifi, it doesnt mean you dont have it, and it doesnt mean it cant be hacked.
Im not saying this is happening here, im just filling a gap in your knowledge


Oh, and im with the above poster - just go for fibre, the price wont be that much more

DoaM

But please first do the checks I linked to in post #2. If there's a problem internal to your property then switching to fibre will not make it go away. If you can get ADSL2+ working correctly then you can be sure that any future switch to fibre should go OK.

Please post your router stats ... the page showing speed, attenuation and noise margin.

moneyistooshorttomention

Out of interest - what are the "standard busy times" for home internet use would you say?

I have wondered about that - but this morning's persistent problem was around 7 a.m. and I wouldnt have thought that was a busy time?

So - if anyone can say what they think those times/days would most likely be it might help. I am inclined to start keeping a record for myself of what times/days I am having this problem to see if this might give some clues.

NB; I've just looked up the note I made of what Plusnet said to me when they did some fiddling around their end a few days ago. They said:

"The signal to noise ratio is too low for the length of your line. The SNR helps the line to remain stable and unaffected by noise or interference on the line....The SNR for your line was set too low for the amount of interference we'd expect to see, so by increasing this we now expect the connection to stabilise and for the information to be received without interference".

I've gone through all the stuff back along with the original problems re where my computer is in conjunction with main phone socket to house. During that time I gathered B.T. would have probably preferred that I had my computer by where the line enters my house and then goes along to main socket. But I have to have it off the second phone socket - as the main socket is in the hall by sitting room. But my computer is obviously in my study (which is at the side of the house further away from where line enters house).

But my computer has basically been okay with being where it needs to be (rather than where they want it to be) and I had a computer for years in my last house that ran off the second phone socket with no problems.

Fingers crossed that I don't have to change to fibre - as I'm the only one paying the bills here (being single) and hence hope I don't have to increase them if I can help it.

moneyistooshorttomention

DoaM wrote: »

Please post your router stats ... the page showing speed, attenuation and noise margin.

Cross-posted here.

I'm not very technically-minded. So - how would I post my router stats please? How do I get to see what they are?

EDIT; Just clicked on that pdf file link. Rather technical for me! I understood the quiet line test bit and have just done that and got a quiet line.

JJ_Egan

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Out of interest - what are the "standard busy times" for home internet use would you say?

Kids home 4pm onward , Bank Holidays ,






"The signal to noise ratio is too low for the length of your line. The SNR helps the line to remain stable and unaffected by noise or interference on the line....The SNR for your line was set too low for the amount of interference we'd expect to see, so by increasing this we now expect the connection to stabilise and for the information to be received without interference".


> Takes about 10 days to stabilize .Basically your line is getting interference slowing down the packets sent .

During that time I gathered B.T. would have probably preferred that I had my computer by where the line enters my house and then goes along to main socket. But I have to have it off the second phone socket - as the main socket is in the hall by sitting room. But my computer is obviously in my study (which is at the side of the house further away from where line enters house).

But my computer has basically been okay with being where it needs to be (rather than where they want it to be) and I had a computer for years in my last house that ran off the second phone socket with no problems.


>>Could be that simple that this second socket has poor quality cable or interference .

A BT OR call out that defined the problem as this second socket would be billed circa £130 as users problem .