Half speed compared to estimate

I'm getting approximately half the speed that was estimated. Will this improve?

Phone exchange:HARPENDEN
Estimated line speed:71Mb (Accurate to within +/- 1Mbit)
Current line speed: 37 Mb

It has remained solidly at 37 MB since the installation 2 days ago (Friday).

Product is PN Fibre Unlimited

That sounds suspiciously like you have been provisioned with a 40 meg product. If you run the test at
http://speedtest.btwholesale.com
after the 1st test has run, there is a 'further diagnostics' tab, which will show the IP profile for your circuit.
Can you run this and copy and past the results back here ?

Oh, and have a read through this thread on a very similar subject, could be a Plusnet issue.

Edited by Zarjaz (Sun 26-May-13 09:11:48)

Looks like I am correctly set to ~80Mb profile

TEST RESULTS

1. Best Effort Test: provides background information.

Download speedachieved during the test was - 36.52 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 16 Mbps-77.44 Mbps

Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 77.44 Mbps

2. Upstream Test: provides background information.

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 14.28Mbps

Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 20 Mbps

We were unable to identify any performance problem with your service at this time.
It is possible that any problem you are currently, or had previously experienced may have been caused by traffic congestion on the Internet or by the server you were accessing responding slowly.
If you continue to encounter a problem with a specific server, please contact the administrator of that server in the first instance.

Sounds like Plusnet's manual profile needs a bit of manual intervention - or a bigger hammer.

That bit is fine.

You are on the 80/20 product but your Plusnet Current line speed hasn't picked up on the IP Profile. IMO the best thing to do is ring support and tell them your Current line speed needs manually updating. Tell them what that BT result says.

Thanks for the tips chaps.

To help my understanding, how do these two relate (sounds a bit different to ADS), i.e. BT Sync vs. PN line speed?

BT Sync Speed = The data rate that the VDSL2 protocol can carry user data (ie your data) over your line.

However "your data" includes all the encapsulating headers that the various networking protocols add - so it is NOT the amount of data you can download (which will be lower)

BT IP Profile = The data rate at which IP packets can be carried. This is 3% smaller than the sync speed, as the IP protocol is one of the mid-level networking protocols. The 3% represent the encapsulation used by lower protocols.

PN "Current line speed" = Should equal BT IP Profile, but may be delayed before it gets updated from the BT value.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You are on the 80/20 product but your Plusnet Current line speed hasn't picked up on the IP Profile. IMO the best thing to do is ring support and tell them your Current line speed needs manually updating. Tell them what that BT result says.

Service has been provisioned at 40/10! Support are getting it changed, but might not be today as that department not in today. At least we know why now .

But in this case the update failed so manual so suppoer need to set it.

In reply to a post by aks:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You are on the 80/20 product...

Service has been provisioned at 40/10!

In reply to a post by aks:

2. Upstream Test: provides background information.

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 14.28Mbps

If you were on a 40/10 product, the 'test' upload speed is remarkable!

EDIT: Are you checking your speeds via Ethernet or radio?

Edited by JimmyBoy (Sun 26-May-13 16:22:18)

The cap stopping the download speed at 40 meg is applied by Plusnet, they don't, I believe, cap the upstream, hence Openreach have provisioned the correct product, upstream OK, and the PN cap stops the download.

Might not even be tomorrow, with it being Bank Holiday . Anyway - you've no need to worry .

It's about time they sorted this. It happens frequently and there must be an awful lot of punters who don't notice.

Correct . Jimmy obviously didn't read my earlier post .

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

.. It happens frequently and there must be an awful lot of punters who don't notice.

I agree, as I stated in the thread created by myself I thing a lot of PN users are unaware of this issue.
I think it is, in part, an product of economics: less bandwidth used = less traffic = higher profits.
Or to think of it in a different way a better service to the rest of the PN network not just the FTTC customer base IMHO

I also think its about time PN (and others) realize that the majority of their FTTC customers are more tech minded than the average punter otherwise they wont be signing up for a superfast product unless they knew a thing or two. and are going to pick up on issues like capped IP Profiles.

I mean come on what one of the first thing you do when you switch to a new service provider..?
Check you speeds.. right?

EDIT: Are you checking your speeds via Ethernet or radio?

I'm checking the line stats reported by BT and PN, so not sure of your point here?
But in any case, I'm using a wired connection to TG582n which is of course wired to the BT modem.

You could very well be correct on this, as I actually mentioned that to support when they said I was on 40/10, when clearly the upload was way higher than 10 Mb. He just said that was normal, but also knew to check my profile for the 'limited' download speed.

I'm guessing we'll know more by Tuesday.

One wonders whether this might even be a deliberate policy .

I got an email today from PN saying "I have now changed the speed on your account to match the capabilities of your line", however the current speed on the member centre still shows 37 Mb. A reboot of the modem and router changed nothing. OK, I can leave it a day to see what happens, but I ran a BT speed test and to my horror it reported:
Download speed: 15.94
Upload speed: 13.44
Ping: 35.13
What's gone wrong I thought, whilst panicking.

After reverting to my laptop, directly connecting to the router with a wire, etc, re-ran the test and all was well. Well, it was back to 37/18 or there abouts.

Back to my desktops, and a bit of messing about, and low and behold it was Kaspersky Internet Security. For some reason, it makes the BT test appear much slower than the link can run. Once Kaspersky was disabled I achieved similar results on all computers. Glad that's sorted!

Now I just need to wait for the line speed to update, or get in touch with PN support again if it doesn't improve in a day or two.

Latest test: 36/19, upload seems near the limit at 19 Mbps.

When PN support guys do this change for other requests (on their forum) it only takes 5-10 mins to take effect.

If the portal hasn't changed, post a request on the PN forum for them to look at tomorrow (and explain you've asked once, but it didn't work).

Thanks for the tip. I spoke to PN again today as it hasn't changed.

Although they closed the case, apparently they need to escalate to BT and reorder the correct service, so it will take another 24 hours to rectify.

I can accept mistakes happen, and I have been calm, but now I am getting irritating as I raised a case, they closed it, but in reality didn't resolve the issue. I'm starting to think not so great support!

PM me your username. From the speedtests you've given on here you're already provided on 80/20 and it's just a change on our side that needs making. I'm interested in finding out who here has been giving you the wrong info too.

*edit*

I think I've found your account and fixed the issue. Log in to the router and disconnect/reconnect and you should see the faster speeds.

Sorry about the duff info you've had so far from the support guys, I'll speak to their team leads to address this.

Edited by chrisparr (Tue 28-May-13 12:41:07)

I seem to be having a similar problem with Plusnet, albeit at a lesser order of magnitude.

My iprofile is 3.5Mb, sync speed is above 4Mb but any speed tests I run come back at the same result always, 2.82 indicating to me a cap at 3Mb.
I raised a ticket a few weeks back and PN said they would reset the line but I have never seen an improved throughput.
As a result of reading this thread I checked my 'current line speed' and as suspected it is 3Mb.
As I am syncing at 4608Mb this is quite a bit off the mark.

What are Plusnet playing at ?? Its bad enough having to cope with BT's crippling DLM but now the ISP is adding to speed reduction too. Grrr.

Hi Chris, thank you it's fixed:
Estimated line speed: 71Mb (Accurate to within +/- 1Mbit) - Checked on 2013-05-08 00:48:34
Current line speed: 77.4 Mb

I phoned support who passed me to order processing. I spoke with a lady, sorry don't remember her name now. I just signed up to the community pages too, as suggested in an earlier comment.

Once again, thanks. I'll also PM you my details in case you've found someone else .

Let me know your username and I'll sort that out.

In reply to a post by chrisparr:

Let me know your username and I'll sort that out.

Thanks Chris,will do.

Hi Chris,

Just received a note from the PN team they are escalating to faults team - but clearly no need to do that. I sent you PM of details and case numbers.

Thanks for helping. Great support .

Edited by aks (Tue 28-May-13 14:25:48)

Should be sorted now.

Usual changeover chaos and duff info.

Well thanks to chrisparr my current line speed setting was changed by Plusnet to 3.5Mb and my throughput increased to 3.2Mb. Its disappointing that this should be necessary but not the worst thing that holds us long line ADSL people back (think DLM).

But it has happened again, I resynced last week to 4608 and my ip profile has changed to 4Mb. Unfortunately I am unable to benefit from this, speedtests still run at 3.2Mb and current line speed has not been updated in my High Speed Broadband (sic) page in the Member Centre.

I have raised a ticket but as usual these days, in my recent experience with Plusnet, nothing seems to happen quickly. The last time I raised a ticket for this they just reset the line but did not reset the current line speed cap. Grrrr.

In reply to a post by jaba:

I seem to be having a similar problem with Plusnet, albeit at a lesser order of magnitude.

My iprofile is 3.5Mb, sync speed is above 4Mb but any speed tests I run come back at the same result always, 2.82 indicating to me a cap at 3Mb.
I raised a ticket a few weeks back and PN said they would reset the line but I have never seen an improved throughput.
As a result of reading this thread I checked my 'current line speed' and as suspected it is 3Mb.
As I am syncing at 4608Mb this is quite a bit off the mark.

What are Plusnet playing at ?? Its bad enough having to cope with BT's crippling DLM but now the ISP is adding to speed reduction too. Grrr.

Why not phone up during working hours? I think it gets dealt with immediately, rather than placed on a ticket.

It also gets you the chance to emphasise that you don't need a line reset - all you need is PN to change their "current line speed" setting to match BT's.