Graph interpretation - Plusnet

Hi,

My Broadband Ping

Background: Upgraded to plusnet fibre about 2 months ago from their regular broadband to make working from home better, but it's been a disaster.

It now regularly drops out for c.10 seconds every c.half hour, which makes using Teams for work impossible. I hotspot on my phone for meetings now, which isn't what I expected when upgrading to fibre.

Minimum Guaranteed Speed is 40Mbps, but line speed is showing as 36Mbps, and actual test results are c.20Mbps.

I'm using the stock plusnet one router, so have put a firestick in a DMZ in order for it to respond to the pings (perhaps this is the cause of the strange graph?)

I called plusnet, and they told me to switch off 2.4GHz wifi and move to 5GHz only. I tried to explain why on so many levels this wouldn't work, but the guy told me to call back (30 minute wait) in a few days if it doesn't fix the issue. When I said, "so moving to 5GHz wifi will definitely help improve the line speed I see displayed in the router settings?" he replied "yes", so I had no choice but to say "see you in a couple of days when it doesn't fix the problem".

Perhaps the graph will help diagnose the problem, as it seem plusnet need to be spoon-fed the solution.

If the solution is get out of the contract on the basis of the minimum speed not being met and get a new supplier, then that's the solution, but I'd rather the product just worked as advertised.

Thanks in advance

Can you post the stats from the router - I believe they should be available from the PlusNet hub (attenuation, SNR, connection rate).

The latency looks terrible - I am assuming you don't have a device constantly uploading/downloading something? However, it could be the Firestick itself - not sure what they are like for responding to pings - if you ping it internally does it have a 0ms response?

Switching to 5GHz is going to do nothing for any of that.

Hi Ian - here are the only stats I can find in the router. No sign of the stats you asked for unfortunately. It's a plusnet hub one.

Line state: Connected
Connection time: 0 days, 17:51:59
Downstream: 33.48 Mbps
Upstream: 8.307 Mbps

It's a normal home, so nothing major uploading all the time, and I would expect all would be quiet at night.

Is the best way to ping the firestick with cmd on my laptop?

Pinging the router in cmd with my laptop gives average 4ms. Pinging any other device gives a c.50ms ping.

Is this long for a wifi ping, which would indicate that the main problem is the router? Even with my laptop and phone right next to the router, the ping time is still c.50ms.

Doing a speedtest whilst ethernet-ed to the router gives the same result as whilst on wifi.

CMD is correct for doing the ping.

I would say you shouldn't be getting 50ms to other devices on the network and so if that is what is happening with the firestick then you aren't going to get proper results. It is most likely something to do with the router either not prioritising the ping traffic or maybe has problems of its own. What it does mean is that your graph is probably not representative of your connection and therefore is quite likely misleading. It also means there may actually be no actual problem to solve and it may just be the router doesn't handle pings well.

However, given your problems with dropouts then it is still possible the router or connection has other issues. But, doing a BQM to the firestick is probably not going to help with diagnosing them at present.

For stats try this that I got from a quick google:
"Go to http://192.168.1.254 then click troubleshooting and then help desk. You'll see what speed you are connected at there."

The router stats can be found on the Troubleshooting->Helpdesk tab.