On WBC ADSL 2+ but capped at 448K Upstream

So I went live with Plusnet recently and noticed that my line was connecting at ADSL MAX speeds - with the upstream at 448K.

I called plusnet and spoke to their provisioning team and they can see I was indeed provisioned on ADSL Max and not WBC.

They put through a modify order and my router is now syncing with an ADSL 2+ modulation type but the sync rates are still capped at ADSL Max rates - the Upstream is capped at 448K.

Any ideas?

Seems a common experience. I had to put in two requests after migration. The first to move from Max to 21CN, then the second to remove the upload cap. Both were actioned within 24 hours.

In reply to a post by bgriffiths:

Seems a common experience. I had to put in two requests after migration. The first to move from Max to 21CN, then the second to remove the upload cap. Both were actioned within 24 hours.

Yep, quick call, they've arranged for it to be uncapped, thanks for the heads up!

I'm absolutely amazed with the competence of their support, straight away they know exactly what I'm asking for. Lesser ISPs could learn a lot!

In reply to a post by izools:

I'm absolutely amazed with the competence of their support, straight away they know exactly what I'm asking for. Lesser ISPs could learn a lot!

The support are OK, but this is a very long-standing problem. It's time somebody fixed things so that it doesn't happen.

In reply to a post by izools:

I'm absolutely amazed with the competence of their support, straight away they know exactly what I'm asking for.

That's cuz it happens every day!

Provisioning 21CN ADSL uncapped is a request in with our engineering teams to change. Not actually as straight forward as it should be to change it, but it is down there.

But it was literally months ago that was said Kelly .

It's one of the things that is highly visible to prospective customers. And the cap could very well cause unhappiness and that be spread by word of mouth outside these forums by large numbers of customers.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But it was literally months ago that was said Kelly .

Or maybe years: http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/3777851-ups...

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But it was literally months ago that was said Kelly .

It's one of the things that is highly visible to prospective customers. And the cap could very well cause unhappiness and that be spread by word of mouth outside these forums by large numbers of customers.

It must be said though that it isn't necessarily whether a problem exists that's an issue, rather how it is handled.

I much prefer being with PlusNet who may have a minor provisioning issue in their systems, but are aware of how to fix it and happy to do so literally overnight when someone mentions it to them, versus an ISP like Sky or Orange who wouldn't understand DLM or provisioning issues if you beat them round the head with it!

Yep. Appreciate how long it's taking.

In reply to a post by izools:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But it was literally months ago that was said Kelly .

It's one of the things that is highly visible to prospective customers. And the cap could very well cause unhappiness and that be spread by word of mouth outside these forums by large numbers of customers.

It must be said though that it isn't necessarily whether a problem exists that's an issue, rather how it is handled.

My point was that the vast majority of customers, if they are savvy enough to find out that their upstream is far slower than everyone else they know, (even without knowing what a sync speed is or what theirs is), will normally not be savvy enough to come somewhere like this and ask about it. Or even contact support.

They'll just moan to their friends that Plusnet upstream speed is very poor.

RobertoS you are absolutely right. I migrate to PlusNet Unlimited Broadband from O2 and went live on Thursday 18th April and have the same problem, the upstream being capped at 448 k Upstream when just the day before I had 1.13 Mbps, although the Downstream remained at 6.0.
Have raised a ticket with PlusNet, I'll wait to see how long it takes the to answer and uncap the Upstream!!

yeh I raised as ticket as well

as soon as I download anything my connection becomes unusable, I need more upstream

by which I assume you are using P2P to download without a restriction on the upstream

In answer to my ticket/query, PlusNet support say that they do currently cap the upstream rates at 448Kbps. Reason is to provide a higher downstream rate. They have agreed to uncap my upstream to about 1Mbps in the next few days.
All these proves that if you do have a problem, support staff are there to help and answer any queries, a well worth service to have with any ISP. I can only praise PlusNet for answering and getting things moving quickly and efficiently. Well done PlusNet Support Team.

Just to pop in here before the inevitable

Yes, we've mentioned this (it doesn't degrade downstream to have a faster upstream) to our support team, and will do so again.

Sorry you got that answer, but I'm glad the order for the uncap has been placed for you.

Thanks for the clarification.

It's a dead simple change to make - I can't imagine you need to do anything more than change the XML you submit to the BTW systems.

At least, that's all the rest of us do.

Let's face it, you hold it up for some stupid commercial reason, and not for any technical consideration at all.

Just like your parent company.

Well, it's uncapped...

To a whopping 512K!

Now I know I don't have a great line, but I am connecting at 512k up with a 12dB noise margin on the upstream so seems some capping is still in force.

I don't think it's due to having a high target SNR set by DLM though as the downstream SNR trains at 6.0dB.

Weird.

And in case anyone's wondering, NTE5 master socket, filtered faceplate, and standard (short) RJ11 cable straight in to the router. No extensions.

My experience is that the upstream noise margin is 11dB with the sync speed varying between 800kbps and 888kbps and this is with the upstream interleaved - this is set automatically by the exchange

In reply to a post by Oldjim:

My experience is that the upstream noise margin is 11dB with the sync speed varying between 800kbps and 888kbps and this is with the upstream interleaved - this is set automatically by the exchange

I miss BE LLU.

still waiting for mine to be uncapped

Sorry to hear you are still waiting to be uncapped, perhaps you ought to give CS a reminder. I was uncapped within 4 days. My stats at this very moment are;
Downstream
Noise Margin: 2.8 dB
Bandwidth: 20011 kbps
Attenuation: 19.0 dB
Power: 0.0 dBm
Errors:
FEC: 0
CRC: 461
HEC: 3480
Failures since last reset:
LOF: 2
LOS: 18
LPR: 0
ES : 599
Upstream
Noise Margin: 6.0 dB
Bandwidth: 1235 kbps
Attenuation: 10.5 dB
Power: 12.4 dBm
Errors:
FEC: 0
CRC: 35
HEC: N/A

I suspect it would be a minority who would actually know or care (and if they shoot off to some other ISP as they may well be the heaviest traffic users, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest)

I know my download speed has tested at around 10 Mbps (though I have to say I was slightly annoyed to have buffering when using iPlayer to watch some snooker {not a live game, but a previous broadcast} just a day or two ago), but as for my upload speed, I've no idea, and for many, unless they're doing online backups etc, it's probably a low priority...

what makes you come to that conclusion ?

I could imagine someone using wireless (rather than a wired connection) hitting some problems, as there can only be one device transmitting at once, or packets of data will clash and need to be resent, and the higher the download traffic, the less chance of any upload traffic finding a spare slot (depending on number of devices, age of hardware and protocols/standards being used).

Hi Stanman_24,

Feel free to PM your username over and I'll take a look at that for you.

Regards,

From experience
One morning everything ground down to almost a standstill - browsing was impossible despite everything appearing to be OK
I went to check the other computers which were connected to see if it was only on my machine.
I found that my daughter had a P2P application running with no restriction on the upload so it was maxing out the connection. It had finished downloading so it wasn't that and in any case the Plusnet traffic shaping would have sorted it by restricting the speed/priority
I stopped the application and everything was back to normal

G.dmt framing
--stats
adslctl: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 1
Max: Upstream rate = 23564 Kbps, Downstream rate = 21076 Kbps
Path: 0, Upstream rate = 1048 Kbps, Downstream rate = 17995 Kbps

Link Power State: L0
Mode: ADSL2+
TPS-TC: ATM Mode
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 3.1 5.4
Attn(dB): 23.0 13.1
Pwr(dBm): 21.1 12.4

ADSL2 framing

MSGc: 51 14
B: 213 131
M: 1 1
T: 3 1
R: 0 0
S: 0.3799 4.0000
L: 4506 264
D: 1 1


been uncapped

I'm in the same boat.

Ticket was updated Friday 26th to say the uncap order had been placed. I'm still waiting for something to happen this end.

Anyone have any idea how long this sort of thing should take normally. It's just a database change right?

7-10 days

Or 24 hours, depending on how the order is placed.

24 hours - I wish.

It looks like my order is one of the slow ones that probably has to be sent via Outer Mongolia or something.

*sigh* I guess I'll just have to be patient then. It's the little things like this that make me regret the move from O2.