Is this normal with FTTC speeds?

Got my FTTC connection in last Monday with Sky and was happy with the 30Mbit down 8Mbit up. A massive improvement on the 1.5Mbit down previously.

However since last Monday the speed has been diminishing. The Sky hub is reporting a speed of 26Mbit down now and any speed tests only shows about 19Mbit.

Is this normal in the opening days of the connection? Or do I have to kick the Openreach device?

Openreach box tends to start as fast as possible, then when experience of errors is built set settings to make line stable, i.e. slower but with less error packets.

The Openreach modem if there was a noise burst, e.g. lightning will stay at the slower speed till someone kicks it, so a reboot if slow and you have not rebooted it for a few days is reasonable

Restarted the Openreach box and speed dropped even more. Was advertised as 27.9 down currently getting around 24 down. On days 1-3 was connected at 30 down and it was flying.

Not anymore.

Latest test is 16Mbit

In reply to a post by da_flash:

Latest test is 16Mbit

On the plus side you'll soon be in fault territory so Sky can get an engineer out.

In reply to a post by da_flash:

Is this normal in the opening days of the connection? Or do I have to kick the Openreach device?

If you are getting errors in the VDSL2 data transfer, then DLM will intervene, and attempt to get rid of those errors - usually by adding a level of FEC and interleaving.

If the intervention isn't enough, then DLM will intervene further, setting higher levels of FEC and interleaving, until it finds a setting where the errors disappear, or at least minimise.

In the most extreme cases, it may also add "banding" where it restricts your sync speeds.

Most interventions cause a reduction in sync speed and an increase in latency.

Usually, your line is left to run free for the first two days, and DLM will only intervene on the third day. If it does, you will see a resync somewhere between 2AM and 8AM overnight. Further interventions are likely to be at similar times on subsequent days.

Kicking the Openreach modem almost never has an effect.

If the cause of errors gets removed, then it can take a number of weeks for DLM to reduce or remove the intervention. Kicking the modem won't speed this process up either.

Well a couple of my speed tests hit the 14Mbit mark. The lady in the fibre team at Sky didnt want to know. She told me to do a hard reset on the Openreach modem and said any more problems call back.

Pretty poor really.

These speed tests via wireless or wired?

Wired

Perhaps you need to unlock the modem if it's an HG612, if it's not you can pick one up off ebay pretty cheaply.

You'll then be able to collect some stats and post them on here.