Good honest broadband. Really?

My parents live in quite some way from the exchange, but on a good day can see a sync speed of around 2mbps.

However, even though an engineer has been out numerous times they can never find/detect any line faults (however on wet and windy days the performance drops off so that that does suggest there is something amiss). At the moment my fathers connection is syncing at 1.4, but the IP profile has been lowered to 0.14 (they do have the odd power cut, but they aren't that frequent).

Dad phone plusnet (and they answered after about 30 minutes) and they have set his IP profile to 7.15 (this was said verbally, and I can see it according to the Portal), but this hasn't rippled through to BT, as the BT wholesale speed test is still reporting 0.14, with up and down speeds of 0.12.

PlusNet are blaming the router, a DrayTek 2820 running the long line profile, which is reporting the following stats:
up 192000
down 1440000
snr margin 13
loop atten 63

and have suggested he try another router (which he doesn't have to hand), and it won't make a blind bit of difference if the IP profile is so low.

Router was rebooted at the request of plusnet, so I'm not sure of the stats beforehand, but on past experience I would imagine they were broadly similar

I've got a spare Vigor 120 which I can drop onto his WAN port of the 2820, but I feel like this isn't going to solve the problem. They had no internal wiring, and the router is plugged directly into a BT v3 faceplate (along with a BT cordless phone).

These issues of poor performance have been going for many years. I know they live a long way from the exchange, but performance is gradually getting worse. They aren't heavy web users, but it would be nice if a webpage loaded in a few seconds rather than being frustratingly slow. Streaming content is fine if you don't mind watching the buffering wheel - a lot!!

Previously I have run a 2800 on that line, and a xywell unit too, all of which seem to suffer similar issues

Other than moving, what can they do? I know the line can work faster, but it just seems so unstable

Thanks.

Edited by mbames (Sun 04-Oct-15 14:07:21)

High noise margin is killing the speeds, is this IPStream Max (ADSL) or is WBC ADSL2+ available on the exchange?

A few years ago they would have not connected a line of this length for the reasons you are seeing and it is not unknown for very line lines to be marked as not supporting ADSL.

If old IPStream Max moving to a LLU provider without an IP Profile if available may offer an improvement in speeds.

They have had an ADSL service for a good few years - can't quite remember how long. Think my father has been with names.co.uk to start with, then plusnet, then BT, and then back to plusnet. He probably would have stuck with names, but I think they folded? As both my brother and I had had good experiences with plusnet back in the early days he went them then, and they were fine back then, but since they have become part of BT it has got much worse.

To be fair, it might not be the ISP (but their customer service isn't great - which is a tad surprising as that is what they sell them selves on), but a gradually degrading line, but I have no idea how to resolve that?

https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SSWHP

You are approximately 4.06km from the exchange. Note that this is the straight line distance - the actual cable length will be longer!

If a draw a line along the main roads from my parents house to the telephone change, that gives about 3.2 miles if that helps to shed any light on if the line is performing really badly or not.

The Plusnet line speed is set automatically to match the BT IP Profile, not the other way round. Though the auto-update can often fail.

Altering the PN line speed manually has no effect at all on the BT IP. It does not "ripple through". It should only ever be altered manually to match the IP Profile, when that update has failed.

An IP Profile of 0.14 will actually be 135kbps rounded. The lowest possible, and indicating a sync of 160kbps or lower to cause it.

1440kbps which your parents have should get an IP Profile of 1250kbps but this can take up to five days to be activated by BT Wholesale. A percentage jump such as they have had normally causes an update within 24 hours, typically overnight. The greater the percentage sync jump the quicker the update occurs.

More detail, and an ADSL Max IP Profile table.

Plusnet might send a new router foc (or paybe for postage) if your parents are happy to stay with them for another year. I doubt it would make much difference to the attained speeds though.

The profile system is designed to annoy, as it ensures that a period of bad performance is extended for a few days.

In my own case with similar figures I suspect that the reduction in speed from about 2mbps was caused by cross talk from newer connections.

If there are many nearby properties with similar performance issues and not much chance of BT/BDUK doing much then maybe you could get Gigaclear to take an interest.

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

If there are many nearby properties with similar performance issues and not much chance of BT/BDUK doing much then maybe you could get Gigaclear to take an interest.

Gigaclear got approached by someone with 500 houses and no FTTC and they said no.. so don't hold your breath!. That area eventually got FTTC and GC lost out.

In reply to a post by ZenUserJP:

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

If there are many nearby properties with similar performance issues and not much chance of BT/BDUK doing much then maybe you could get Gigaclear to take an interest.

Gigaclear got approached by someone with 500 houses and no FTTC and they said no.. so don't hold your breath!. That area eventually got FTTC and GC lost out.

I think Gigaclear avoid any direct competition with BT FTTC which is what you say eventually got installed. They need a 30% take up to make an area viable.

Not sure there are enough houses around for Gigaclear to be interested. Parents live near to the Castle of Comfort (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Castle+Of+Comfort/@51.2755408,-2.6550623,17z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0000000000000000:0xc56304857496060e)

If you merge the population of the two villages East Harptree and West Harptree together you get about 1000 people, but sadly my parents about 3 miles up the road from there, and there are only a few house there, so I very much doubt that gigaclear would want to run in 3 miles of fibre for about 5 properties

Where I live there was one property which I think Gigaclear have omitted. No doubt because they would have had to lay several hundred yards of cable. I don't know if the occupiers ever wanted a connection.

Completely OT but your mention of the Castle of Comfort brought back memories. My parents retired to Shipham and I often popped down for the weekend and we'd walk across the Mendips. It must be 30 years since I've been that way.