FTTC Speed drop after neighbour connected

Had no problems with ADSL2 for 2 years, switched to FTTC Jan 9th, took the engineer over 3 hours to get a signal, had a perfect 80Mb sync at the cabinet but no signal at all at my socket. Eventually he said he'd added an extra pair of cables and I got a sync of 63Mb. Engineer said it should improve over the next 10 days to around 70 or better. We are about 150-200m from the cabinet with underground cabling.

After a week or so it dropped to 60Mb and remained very stable from then on. About 2 weeks go my next door neighbour got FTTC connected (at 56Mb) my connection immediately dropped to around 8Mb!, eventually it came back up to around 40Mb and stayed there, I understand there may be a drop due to crosstalk but a 33% drop seems very excessive.

PlusNet have looked at it and an Openreach engineer came out last week, he couldn't get anywhere with it and suggested moving to a different cable may or may not improve it but advised not to as it may be more unstable. The last communication I got from PlusNet said that the speedchecker said I should expect a speed of 33Mb so nothing was wrong!, when I originally signed up I was told it should be around 60Mb (which is why I paid for the higher speed package) and that's what I got.

Interestingly my neighbours connection went off for a few days last week and my speed went back up to around 55Mb.

So, what's going on?, surely having one extra connection to the cabinet shouldn't drop my speed by over 30%?, no doubt it's down to the quality of the underground cabling (as they couldn't get any signal when first connected), is it possible to get new cabling or even FTTP instead?.

Easy enough to show if its cross talk, ask neighbours to power down their modem and see what difference it makes, i.e. try repeating the time when the connection was off.

One presumes the engineer swapped your pair, rather than adding an extra pair to the standard pair (which would be very odd).

Cross talk can be a funny beast and large drops do sometimes show up. Less about the cable quality, more about how close the two pairs of wires are running in the cable bundle and the higher frequencies of VDSL2.

As for possible to get FTTP, not unless the checker says WBC FTTP is available. If it says Fibre on Demand is available, then a 3 year contract a £1500 install bill and £150+ per month to pay for it.

This problem is happening all over the Fibre network - my line speed has been steadily dropping roughly every 3 months until 2 weeks back when it went into free fall, which coincided with a massive jump in latency. PN don't or can't do anything about it - jumping ship to another Fibre ISP is not going to help either. My options are either risk it and go with VM or to downgrade - which will affect the devices the kids use when they are home - my son is already moaning about the signal to his lap top.

Downgrading wont make the signal any worse... I assume he means WiFi signal.

It will just make the speeds 40Mbps.

Thanks for the replies.

The original engineer definitely said he'd had to add another pair or wires as there was no signal at all at my socket, phone line check was OK and ADSL2 had been very stable for around 2 years.

If I can persuade my neighbour to disconnect do I do a disconnect/reconnect here and then test the speed?

While yes crosstalk is an issue when you look at the overall national picture then no sign speeds are in free fall.

See http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2015/02/delving-deepe...

The cable vs FTTC chart shows what happens when a provider has a big drop in performance for a month or two.

doesnt show the true picture, as users upgrading from adsl to vdsl will generate speed growth.

My line started capable of 110mbit, within a month it dropped to about 73, and at one point it went below 50 but I managed to get a pair swap to recover it to above 70 again. I am lucky that much of my speed drop is above the cap.

I think cable quality has at least some affect, e..g. lower density of twists probably means more crosstalk, higher density cable probably means more crosstalk, according to a openreach engineer, ali generates much more crosstalk than copper. I also suspect the diameter of the cable may have an impact as well.

Then issues like split pairs will cause massive crosstalk issues.

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 27-Feb-15 01:48:17)

Still no further forward, neighbour was off for over a week, BT finally sent an OR engineer on Monday and he's now back on but not happy, originally he was getting 56Mb, now he's down to around 30Mb. Looks like we could do with new cabling between the box and our houses!. No doubt that won't be happening as it's underground.

Interestingly, Plusnet say my expected line speed is only 33Mb, this was 60Mb when I first rang them and that's why I opted for the higher more expensive package, I've just looked on My Plusnet and found this from the OR engineer,

"Summary

WLR3 NFF

Estimate changed after installation, current sync is within current estimate."

So, being unable to get it back to the 60-63Mb I originally got it looks like someone has changed the speed estimate from 60 to 33Mb so it now looks like I'm getting a faster speed than the estimate!.

Edited by jeff1106uk (Thu 05-Mar-15 16:12:14)

In reply to a post by jeff1106uk:

So, being unable to get it back to the 60-63Mb I originally got it looks like someone has changed the speed estimate from 60 to 33Mb so it now looks like I'm getting a faster speed than the estimate!.

Openreach have been doing this for years.

In ADSLx days the adjustment, (sometimes up which mine did, not just down), used to happen over a longish period. On FTTC it seems to be as soon as a drop in sync that would require expenditure to fix happens. Simple things like a joint repair or a pair swap, even a replacement cable from a pole, are done, but anything much bigger is on dodgy round.

Not good . Downright dishonest really.

Dishonest or a reaction to those who used to complain in the past that the checker did not match connection speeds, so algorithm/feedback updates happen a lot faster now.

It might be dishonest, it might not.

Certainly it is good where the update feedback happens because the database had a genuine error - and the "live" line characteristics represent a perfectly reasonable line.

Obviously not so good if the feedback results in an estimate based on actual statistics of a faulty line.

In this case there seems to be some strange interplay between the two neighbours. Perhaps the pairs aren't twisted.

OR engineer back next door for about 90mins again today as their speed had dropped to 19Mb, eventually the engineer told him his tests were now showing around 40Mb. After he left he ran a Speedtest,net test and big surprise, it's down to 19Mb again, luckily mine is still hanging in at 43Mb.

Makes we feel almost fortunate to have only lost 10Mb (72 to 62) in 2 years.

TheFunkySpy,

You are lucky, I have lost 10Mb+ in less than 8 months.

I also have been through the 'lets change the estimates so your sync speed is acceptable'.

What options do I have to chase this when the estimates are being changed ?

I had an original estimate of 72Mb and got 78Mb consistently. (Aug 2014)
Roughly 6 weeks ago the speed dropped and did not recover.
DLM bounced the line up then down to 60Mb and dropping..
Engineer came out and fixed a HR fault and got 68Mb (although he said the line tested at 78Mb !!!)
Still not recovered back to 78Mb
Two days ago G.INP has kicked on the line and I get 65Mb (!!!) and estimates are now 'changed to fit'.

What are the chances of getting a pair change on the line ?