WiFi From Cabinet in Street

JSmithy45AD

DavidAC said:

Oh, rom what I searched I thought it was good. What other information should I look for on the router? It is NOW Hub 2.

I had it connected in the socket nearest the master socket for better WiFi. I have connected it to the master socket before and it made no difference. This is it connected to the master socket. The feed through to the phone sockets in the hose is disconnected. I am using the filter as shown for my socket type.

Broadband Link	Downstream	Upstream
Connection Speed (Kbps)	16494	2296
Line Attenuation (dB)	DS1:7.3    DS2:14.8    DS3:22.3	US0:2.4    US1:10.7    US2:15.3
Noise Margin (dB)	DS1:24.4    DS2:24.5    DS3:24.4	US0:26.9    US1:25.2    US2:25.6

If you take the front of the master socket off (two small screws), you will see a socket behind it that bypasses any filters. Test it plugged in directly, do not use any filter in-between.

iniltous

Post the item in your router stats that is the maximum attainable rate , that gives the potential speed your line is capable of , the connection rate or sync rate is always below this , but should be reasonably close to it on a clean ( not faulty ) line , your connection speed is way below your predicted rate at around 16.5Mb down , the DSL checker states it should be in the region of 72Mb to 80Mb .

NM , noise margin is the gap between the signal and noise , SNR is noise to signal ratio  , they are not the same although some seem to conflate them together ….a reasonable explanation, if just you and someone else were at separate sides of a  large room talking ( the signal )  , you wouldn’t need to shout at each other to be heard , if the room filled up with other people all talking to each other , the ‘noise’ of those other conversations would  mean that you would have to speak louder or even shout to be head by the person you were speaking to , there is a limit to how loud you can go , so you may need to speak less quickly ( slower ) and keep checking that the other party heard what you said , with a conversation you could move closer to each other , obviously with ADSL/VDSL the distance is fixed , you can’t move closer to the equipment so speed / clarity of your speech speak is changed to account for the noise .

Its probably not worth getting into the technical side , your line should be capable of much more ( if the DSL checker is for your address ) the fact you are so far away from what’s predicted means you probably have a ‘fault’ , that fault could be completely within your area of responsibility, like crappy internal wiring , or something connected is impacting the line , or you have electrical interference that is causing speed to be sacrificed for stability, it could be an external issue , that requires your ISP to get involved, that may include them getting Openreach to intervene ( if the issue is what’s on the elements that OR are responsible for ) 
You are not really provided the necessary info to make a judgment….Now ( AFAIK ) supply telephony via the master socket ( not via the router ) if your line were faulty , this often presents as noise on telephone calls , is there noise / crackles, on your line during telephone calls …if your phone is via your router this doesn’t apply 

DavidAC

The telephone seems fine. The DSL checker is for my address. I have tried broadband with just the router plugged into the master socket and no pass through to the phone sockets in the house. Laptop connected to router by ethernet cable, so riles out WiFi issues. Made no difference.

I am an electronic engineer, but I don't specialise in routers and telephony.
According to Wikipedia

• In telecommunications engineering, noise margin is the ratio by which the signal exceeds the minimum acceptable amount. It is normally measured in decibels.

The 24dB reported by the router statistics in linear is 15.85, so to me that would seem very good as the link I gave previously also said. As that is what the router is reporting I see no reason why the router is not getting a faster speed. If this is not a good margin, what would be considered good?

Back in January when I reported slow speed, NOW insisted the only way to fix it was an engineer visit and booked an appointment. I reluctantly took the day off work. The engineer did not turn up. I complained to NOW and asked for the OFCOM automatic compensation.

Missed appointments

An engineer does not turn up for a scheduled appointment, or it is cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice.

£30.49 per missed appointment

They refused saying the engineer did not miss the appointment because he cancelled! I was therefore not eligible for the compensation. I argued that NOW booked the appointment and did not inform me it had been cancelled, but they did not budge. I felt like I was being mugged. That was a days pay lost for nothing. NOW told me the engineer cancelled because he did a line test and did not find a fault!

A short time after by magic I got 36Mbs, no change at my end. After a while, it feels a bit slow again. I do a speed check. Sure enough, its back down to 16Mbs. That short period is the only time I have ever got much more than 16Mbs in the six years I have been with them on my 36Mbs plan. I have not had broadband from anyone else so I don't know for sure it is NOW's fault.

I sent them the router statistics but have not had a reply or any update from NOW on this issue for a few days. Yesterday I received a £3 across the board price increase email from them "we’ve invested in growing our broadband network capacity by 24% since 2022, reducing congestion so you can get faster speeds"

Is NOW taking me for a mug, it certainly feels like it.

iniltous

You still haven’t provided the maximum attainable rate ( speed ) router statistic….your argument seems a little self defeating, if the ‘line’ is capable of 80Mb ( according to the DSL checker ) and you consider your  noise margin to be good from doing your own research , then it’s inexplicable why your connection ( sync ) rate is 16.5Mb , your ISP can ‘see’ your sync rate , if your line were banded because of some line instability , once the reason for the instability is removed , the line rate recovers….your ISP can instigate the removal of banding , but if the problem is still present , banding is soon reapplied, currently there no reason to suspect your line is banded .

if you ( as seems likely ) are on the  40Mb profile, then obviously that’s the maximum connection rate but the router still displays the maximum achievable rate , which may even be in excess of the 80Mb limit of the faster profile you don’t take , on lines really close to the ‘cabinet’ max attainable rates can be in the area of 130Mb plus ( but that speed cannot be purchased because the rates on offer from Openreach / BTw  are 40,55 and 80Mb ) .

The compensation for a failed appointment is normally for the initial visit to provide the service in the first place , compensation can also be for when an existing service has failed completely , and a repair visit is scheduled , not all repairs are appointments,  if the problem is obviously ‘outside’ your home , in other words on the Openreach network, no appointment is needed ( no need for you to be at home, an appointment is really just a period in time when you are expected to be at home ) for that repair to be made , there is a date the repair should be done by ( Now take the cheapest service level agreement, SLA , ) so that is three days not including the date of the report and not including weekends .
 If the fault is within your home and a visit is arranged ( appointment) , then it’s quite likely a chargable event because Openreach are only responsible up-to the master socket , but ultimately that’s between you and your ISP .
TBH , I don’t know if Now a ‘member’ of the Ofcom compensation scheme or not , compensation is normally only worked out after the issue is resolved, they don’t make interim payments, so if you are still not ‘working’ correctly, any compensation won’t yet be worked out .

Im not sure why you are so keen on sticking with your current ISP 

brewerdave

DavidAC said:

The telephone seems fine. The DSL checker is for my address. I have tried broadband with just the router plugged into the master socket and no pass through to the phone sockets in the house. Laptop connected to router by ethernet cable, so riles out WiFi issues. Made no difference.

Have you done as suggested  by JSmithy45AD above and actually removed the front plate and plugged into the test socket ?
 I wasn't using an extension socket upstairs ie nothing plugged in , but water had somehow got into the cable to this socket causing a slow down of my connection - cured by using the test socket.

DavidAC

My master socket is connected to another socket next to it with a very short cable. My telephone sockets go dead when I disconnect this cable so it must be isolating them. The problem persists with the router plugged into the master socket with the NOW supplied filter and the telephone lines disconnected. I tried plugging the router into the test socket, but the connector moulded onto the filter would not reach far enough.

I could noy find the maximum attainable rate router statistic.

NOW is a member of Ofcom compensation. They insisted on booking the engineer who then did not turn up so I feel hard done by with them not paying £30 compensation, I lost a lot more than that taking a day off waiting.

I have only stuck with NOW because of the free anytime calls (which I don't use much begause I work full time) and not wanting to risk losing internet connection for too long. My negotiated price for 36Mbs and anytime calls is £26.49 no contract. Looks like it is going up to £29.49. I am looking at switch to Plusnet £25.99 67Mb to 72Mb, 61Mb minimum guaranteed speed. and RWG mobile £3.50 per month SIM Unlimited calls (much more useful). Even if I only get the speed I am on now it looks like I will be no worse off. Two year contract puts me off a bit though.

Onestream is a lot cheaper, but they look like skarks, Engineer visit £199 first hour! Auto enrolment in free Mcafee and another plan that costs a lot if you forget to cancel.

Vodafone, TalkTalk, BT all show arount 12Mbs guaranteed minimum and customer services cannot explain why.

Update: I have just phoned NOW again. They cannot see any reason for the slow speed, they can see I am only getting just under 16Mbs. The engineer (I presume Open reach) cannot see any fault with the line. I am home on Wednesday so they are arranging a no line fault, but slow speed visit. I have been assured (over the phone, I have requested in writing) that I will not be charges for the visit.

DavidAC

FIXED
Just got text from SKY saying it is fixed. Run speed check, 33.7Mbs. NOW / Sky need to explain why after months of complaining and being told I need an engineer visit and finally agreeing to a second one (first being no show from them) and being told there is nothing more they can do, how have they fixed it without an engineer visit. This happend once before and some time later I noticed it slow, did a speed check and it was back down again.

Update:
NOW have told me previous slow speed was due to a bad line. This time it was due to a bad connection. They have now connected me to multiple lines(I think that is what he said), say it is permanently fixed and assure me it will not happen again. Only took them six years and a lot of complaints from me then, with no engineer visit into my house required.

Port	Status	TxPkts	RxPkts	Collision Pkts	Tx b/s	Rx b/s	Up Time
WAN	MER	223893	440665	0	4918	3769	00:43:01
LAN	Up	211756	137500	0	463770	18782	45:51:10
WLAN (2.4 GHz)	Up	675594	332868	0	6370	44	45:49:19
WLAN (5 GHz)	Up	19332765	10812333	0	5079	4791	45:49:13

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Broadband Link	Downstream	Upstream
Connection Speed (Kbps)	40000	9997
Line Attenuation (dB)	DS1:7.3    DS2:14.8    DS3:22.3	US0:2.4    US1:10.7    US2:15.3
Noise Margin (dB)	DS1:16.4    DS2:16.5    DS3:16.4	US0:16.5    US1:15.7    US2:15.3

DavidAC

When I look at plans from Vodafone and TalkTalk they show a much higher guaranteed minimum speed after the line was fixed. I switched to the NOW Super Fibre guaranteed minimum 56.8Mbs discounted to just over new customer rates.. Although the router shows 80Mbs connection speed I am only getting about 30Mbs out of it through an ethernet cable. NOW say it will take a few days to adjust, I hope so.

iniltous

The answer has already been given ( 19th May ) 
Why are you getting hung up on minimum speed guarantees ? , for example, if a line is capable of 80Mb ( primarily because it’s a short distance from the cab to property ) , but it has a line fault ( say the customer has some faulty extension wiring connected ) and the actual speed is reduced by this fault to 45Mb , the real world speed ‘data’ collected from that line is used to base the minimum speed guarantee, so will be below 45Mb , get the fault fixed , the real speed goes back up to 80Mb and the MSG speed ( because the real world data speed has improved) also goes up .

FYI it doesn’t take a few days to adjust, but as stated before without the appropriate router statistics ( and I appreciate you have looked ) then you may have to wait , if speed improves great , if not you will need to re report it …
There are 3 profiles, TT only use 2 , 40 Mb and 80Mb , even if your line can do 80Mb if Talk Talk have you on a 40Mb profile then obviously that  limit is applied, with Ethernet overheads etc , on this profile speed tests will typically show around 37Mb ( 3Mb overheads ) .

You were originally on the 40Mb profile, if TT have said they have upgraded you to 80Mb , you may want to check they have actually done what they said , if they still have you on 40Mb , a speed in the mid to high 30Mb’s  is the fastest speed you will see 

DavidAC

I renewed with NOW, not TalkTalk. The connection speed is much better, as it was yesterday when I moved to the NOW Super Fibre (average download speed 63Mbs) but it wasn't any faster than the NOW Fab Fibre. It must be a delay in switching over because today it is much faster. Finally I am getting the speed I am paying for. Now I need to get my WiFi faster, or run some ethernet cables, but that is not down to NOW. Thank you to all that have helped.

67.1

Mbps download

17.8

Mbps upload

System Up Time: 32:40:29

Port	Status	TxPkts	RxPkts	Collision Pkts	Tx b/s	Rx b/s	Up Time
WAN	MER	6003581	13361728	0	2804	1891	32:38:40
LAN	Up	2495	1546	0	421886	15692	32:40:29
WLAN (2.4 GHz)	Up	2238959	1282072	0	984	0	32:38:37
WLAN (5 GHz)	Up	11344628	4702481	0	1047	0	32:38:17

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Broadband Link	Downstream	Upstream
Connection Speed (Kbps)	73640	20000
Line Attenuation (dB)	DS1:7.3    DS2:14.8    DS3:22.6	US0:2.5    US1:10.7    US2:15.3
Noise Margin (dB)	DS1:6.4    DS2:6.4    DS3:6.4	US0:9.1    US1:9.4    US2:9.2