I get 71mbit on a 400m line and did intially have 110 attainable. Plus I know 85-90 is possible, but something somewhere is causing bad interference, crosstalk probably.

So both your speeds are dire in my opinion and I refuse to believe the OPS line is 500m, no chance unless the cable is string like ali.

eg. see this graph to see the source was momentarily off yesterday.

attainable 12 march, 85 spike

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 13-Mar-13 05:43:54)

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

Didn't somebody mention that if your speed is less than half the estimate then it's considered a fault?

Who mentioned that or is this just hearsay? Either way, it's bad, incorrect advice.

Lets be clear here, the OP is not reporting a speed issue, but instead reporting a sync issue, which are different things.

I don't know who posted it, but I'm pretty sure it was on these forums, most likely in the fibre section as that's the only section I normally read.

And it wasn't advice, it was just a question, hence the wording and the question mark.

And in my opinion OR really need to get their act together and come up with some acceptable performance criteria depending on distance from cab, the current criteria is useless, and just excuses OR from fixing poor quality lines, which users have to pay the same to get a substandard service as people who get a first class service at the same or further distance.

Rant over.

To be fair, Martin, I think he is reporting both.

The installation engineer told him he had a 16Mbps sync.

Since then he thinks the second engineer checked at the cabinet and found 40Mbps. This second engineer then told him the speed at the pole was the same as at the faceplate, but this speed is not stated.

Later still the product was been changed from 40/2 to 80/20, and he is seeing speeds around 15Mbps, but we are not aware of the sync. Indications are an IP Profile of 15.2Mbps, equating to 15.7Mbps sync.

Throughput as low as 5Mbps is being experienced. That is unlikely to be ISP-related - reinforcing the line fault probability.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

And in my opinion OR really need to get their act together and come up with some acceptable performance criteria depending on distance from cab, the current criteria is useless, and just excuses OR from fixing poor quality lines, which users have to pay the same to get a substandard service as people who get a first class service at the same or further distance.

And I think BTw need more visibility as well. I have a recurring fault that my ISP says isn't them (and it doesn't seem likely since it seems isolated to me) and doesn't seem to be a line fault because my modem remains connected throughout and there is no change in errored seconds or anything else. The fault can be cleared eventually by rebooting my router. Unfortunately guess what happened when my ISP talked to BT and made this all clear and asked for a throughput investigation? An SFI came out and all he managed to do was saddle me with interleaving for 14 days.

I think the whole system needs a shake up. We have highly flexible criteria for fault finding(*) and we have invisible communications within BT meaning that no-on affected by a fault actually has much real control over those responsible for investigating and fixing it.

(*)Like in my case anything between 16Mb/s and 72Mb/s is considered to be normal. It's ridiculous. There should be some kind of fault threshold based off your typical connection speed. Something like 'Anything less than 75% of the average connection speed over the last two weeks is a fault if it continues for 48 hours or more'.

Just to be clear...
Install engineer said I had around 16Mbps sync, though he may have said "speed" - It wasn't me that spoke to him. I assumed "sync" because my download speeds from various testers were from 12 to 15Mbps. I don't think I have ever seen speeds over 16Mbps.

The 2nd engineer told me he had been to the cab and measured the full 40Mbps. I was on a 40/10 product (note 10 not 2, if this matters) at the time.
The 2nd engineer measured the speed at the pole and the faceplate and said they were the same, which at the time was around 16Mbps. His report suggested slightly higher speeds but I don't think I've seen things ever go above 16. - it is usually 12 to 14. In fact I feel the report is rather exaggerated in the positive sense. (I am sure I would never have said "between 15 and 20"). I've pasted his report below for interest.

Occasionally I see very slow speeds of maybe 5megs or so but it feels like a glitch and usually I have a stable 12 to 14.

currently my IP profile (from BT speed test) is 14.95Mbps and has been for over two days. the speed today was measured at 14.65Mbps



Engineers notes : Spoke to Mr O'Carroll on RA. Synch speeds of 4.9/15.6mbs at NTE. PQT/Eclipse test all good. No wiring issues identified. DLM reset by SMC speeds still same. Connected spare 80mbs circuit to D side same speed results at NTE. Checked speeds at DP same. Contacted Jackie in SMC who advised me that the line had been stable for several days at speeds between 15-20mbs and that no issues could be identified and suggested the line may only be capable of these speeds. She advised me to close FNF and refer EU back to his CP. Informed Mr O'Carroll of situation who was happy to do this. On completion line synched at 4.9/17mbs. Signature obtained.

WP Profile: Generic Speed 16000 No Time Out

Estimated Speed: 37100
Upstream: 6100

Test Outcome Pass
Test Outcome Code GTC_FTTC_SERVICE_0000
Description GEA service test completed and no fault found .
Main Fault Location OK
Sync Status In Sync
Downstream Speed 17.3 Mbps
Upstream Speed 4.6 Mbps
Appointment Required N
Fault Target Fix Time
Fault Report Advised N
Profile Name 10M-20M Downstream, Interleaving Off - 3M-6M Upstream, Interleaving Off
Time Stamp 2013-03-06T03:45:00

That's just appalling !

agreed, they need to do better than the "best efforts" policy in place now.

My opinion is either day 1 sync needs to be guarantueed for contract duration, or estimated speed should be. I would also agree with the idea of a mean average been used.

No chance of this tho as openreach will be well aware of huge variances on cable diameter, type, twists per inch, quality etc.

My line continues to decline, for large parts of the day now I hover around 68 attainable. The occasional respites where it shoots up to nearly 90mbit are very rare, that one I posted earlier was the first one after the previous one about 2 weeks ago.

Last time my attainable went up by a fair bit I went to the cabinet and a engineer was there telling me he had disconnected a line following 3 complaints, I was the 4th, yet he refused to keep it disconnected or move that user to a less obstructive pair. I asked him if he had checked joints etc. he said policy is to check end user's modem, cabinet and if nothing found then thats it. After that point he sent me on my way refusing to say anything else.

My install engineer continues to tell me I have it good and apparently some guy who started off with a 14mbit sync now has no service, due to crosstalk wiping it all out, and another who started around 40 is now getting under 20mbit.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 14-Mar-13 08:58:10)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I asked him if he had checked joints etc. he said policy is to check end user's modem, cabinet and if nothing found then thats it.

That's more than they did when they checked mine, he wasn't allowed to check the cabinet, not even change the port, or swap my pairs, complete waste of time to be honest!

RE. 50% of the estimated speed equals a fault.

It seems that 50% of estimated speed level is not exactly considered a fault a such, but it must be considered as an unusual outcome. Otherwise Open Reach would not be promising this (taken from their website)...

In reference to www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/updates/briefings/super-fastfibreacce...:

What if the speed predicted for an 80/20 line does not live up to expectations?
An end user may cease their GEA over FTTC service within 90 days of installation if the line does not achieve at least 50% of the speed predicted at the point of sale. We will provide a refund of the standard connection, rental and cease charges and no early termination charge will apply. This refund will only be provided if we were given the opportunity, either at installation, or through a fault investigation, to correct any line conditions which might have caused the performance issue. This policy applies to all GEA over FTTC lines and more information can be found in section 3.10.1 of the GEA over FTTC product description.