Second FTTC line - issues with crosstalk?

I was considering getting a second FTTC line but wondered about issues I might have with crosstalk.

My existing FTTC line was working very well. As more and more took up the service I'd notice a slight increase in CRC errors up until my next door neighbour got FTTC and suddenly it dropped about 30Mb of attainable sync. I assume I must be sharing the same pair with them?

If I got a second FTTC connection is it likely the speed would drop further? Is it likely BT would have to run a new cable for the new line? The phone cabling is from underground ducting.

I was considering using a CISCO RV042G to load balance between the two connections. Are there better models for the same money?

Not seen enough examples of this to say what happens real world wise, but should be no worse than sharing the local loop for 200m or more with the other VDSL2 users.

Just make sure you are using twisted pair wiring through on the VDSL2 side.

Thanks Andrew. That's great advice.

So I understand that my cable comes to me from the cabinet, along with all the other telephone users. What I'm slightly less clear on is why when my opposite neighbour got FTTC all I saw was a bit more noise same with the neighbour on my right but when the left hand neighbour got FTTC loss of 30Mb. Does this mean they're closer somehow to my cable?

And seeing as I'm already with Plusnet should I go with BT? Sky? Talktalk for the second line? I know I'm just asking for opinion I already have Sky TV!

Go with another ISP then if PlusNet goes bad there's a good chance of the backup working. Sky are doing half price on 40Mbps product for 6 months (so £10) & if you give them a call they can sometimes offer even more incentives. I rang through to cancellations saying I couldn't get a good deal on fibre and first time got turned down, I re-rang and got line rental for £1 for a year At the time there was no half price etc though but worth a shot!

If you've lost 30Mbps in one hit then I think you can report that as a fault, if you lose 25% of speed in 14 days it is classed as a fault.

How much crosstalk affects your line depends on how close it is to other cables, how long they run side by side etc. The latest one may run right next to yours, where as the other may not be so close.

Of course the other reason could be that the engineer disturbed something when installing the latest connection, either way it looks like you can report it as a fault, hopefully your ISP can back this up with speed evidence.

He only said he'd lost 30 Mbps of attainable, not actual speed. Is there any actual loss? Personally I couldn't care less about the reported attainable speed, only what I actually get.

I've lost about 10Mb of sync speed and it's still 5Mb above my original estimate and now 15Mb above the current estimate.

What I'm really after is resilience - a bit more speed would be great. But I don't want to add a new FTTC line if adding it will take off another huge loss of (theoretical) speed.

Sky is certainly one of my current front runners along with BT.

Of course if I go with BT I'm being resilient to ISP loss whereas with Sky I get resilience along a different path as well as ISP.

If its resilience, then I'd have one FTTC line and one ADSL2+ line.

Thus if the FTTC cab dies your ADSL2+ still runs, then once Fibre on Demand appears order that for one of the lines.