Slow speeds on Plusnet following FTTC install

Hi everyone, first time poster so please bear with me!

I have been with Plusnet (as Force9) for almost 15 years now so made sense to continue with them when recently upgrading to FTTC.

The BT speedchecker estimated 27Mb on my line which was a substantial increase over the 6/7 I was seeing on ADSL. Install went fine and I was seeing around 22Mb at first although this has now dropped to a steady 18Mb. This seems way below estimate (I appreciate it's only an estimate but others report BT Speedchecker being conservative?) and so raised a ticket with Plusnet. OR engineer visited and proclaimed that there were no faults in the line and everything was how it should be. Being fairly new to all this I didn't ask how far cabinet was but did ask if IP profile (now sitting at around 18800k) could be reset. He said this must be requested by Plusnet and left! I contacted PN and they stated engineer was wrong and should have done a DLM reset......now have another OR visit booked to do just that.

Questions;

Is it normal for speed checker to overestimate an error free line by 30-40%?

Will resetting the DLM have any effect on the speeds I'm seeing?

What actually sets the IP profile? Can it be changed manually?

What questions should I be asking the OR engineer on next visit to ensure I'm getting best possible speeds out of my line? The last one admitted he wasn't "clued up" on FTTC.....does make you wonder!!

Any help/advice much appreciated

IP Profile reflects the current sync stat with FTTC, i.e. non of the slowness in it updating. How stable is the connection? i.e. is the IP Profile reported on www.speedtester.bt.com varying?

Also if you remove the faceplate from the master socket, do all the phones in the property stop working?

Hi, the IP profile changed a couple of times in the first 10 days from around 22000k to 19521k which it has been for a week or so now.

Removing the faceplate does indeed stop all the phones working

Remove the faceplate again and plug an ordinary filter into the test socket. There is nothing special about the filter in the VDSL faceplate.

Then see what you get.

Sorry Roberto, call be naive but what exactly do you want me to remove? I have a "openreach" Faceplate plugged into master socket and then a lower one plugged into the openreach plate. Do you want me to remove both? If so there are wires running from master socket to bottom face plate....what do I do with them and will it cause problems if I mess it up when the OR engineer calls?!

remove both, but when we say we remove we dont mean rip all the wires off and throw them across the room, but leave the socket dangling connected to the wires e.g.

http://www.farina1.com/faceplate/IMG_5472.JPG

As per Andrew. We want you to use the socket on the wall at the back in this pic. (Nice pic Andrew ).

As he says, be careful not to disconnect any wires.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 17-Jan-12 14:25:55)

In reply to a post by Stranex:

I have a "openreach" Faceplate plugged into master socket and then a lower one plugged into the openreach plate.

?
Is it just like the pic on this page? If not, a photo uploaded somewhere sounds a good idea.

Lol! I thought that was maybe what you meant but unfortuately there's not enough "slack" in the wires to be able to let the face hang loose and fit another plate in its place. I'd have to to remove the wires which I'm not all that sure about?

Whilst happy to follow your advice can I ask what you're trying to troubleshoot with this? The previous engineer tested the lines both to the external box and internally and said there were no faults in the wiring?

Fit what other faceplate? All you need to do is plug an ADSL filter into the test socket, and the openreach modem into that.

The possibility that there is a poor connection, or maybe even a dodgy Openreach VDSL faceplate