Upload speed dropping

Folks

Looking for guidance as I am a fibre newbie. I've read a few threads on here about profile resets etc but not sure if it's appropriate.

From day 1 of fibre, for the first couple of weeks, I was getting about 37Mb down and 18 Mb up and was very happy. I then went on holiday for 10 days and my next speed test on my return shows 37Mb down but only 9.5Mb up. It's now been around these numbers for a few days. So it seems my upload speeds have halved whilst my download is solid.

My ISP says estimates for my line are 30Mb and 6.6Mb so therefore no fault so therefore nothing I can do. However, when I was on ADSL, I always had a much lower estimate than the reality of what I achieved so, sorry, but I take the estimates with some degree of doubt. My line is, and always has been, rock solid with no drops/disconnects, syncing solidly for days/weeks at 8Mb when ADSL. Given this, I think line quality and distance should be considered acceptable to support fast speeds.

All my speed tests are being done from the same computer (Mac), hard-wired into my router. I have done a test where I have plugged the Mac directly into the OR model - same numbers.

One thing that does spring to mind is that there were thunderstorms during the period of my holiday. Could they have affected things?

Also, it's a new cabinet and it had only been 'available' for about 24 hours when I ordered it, so had been live for 2 weeks when I had it installed at my house.

Any views? Is there a fault? Should I be getting an engineer?

Could be an effect of thunderstorms or maybe crosstalk from other new connections. If the former it may recover, if the latter it may get worse. Time will tell I guess

Any connection speed information?

Are you on a 40/10 or 80/20 product?

Plusnet?

What date (exactly) did you sign up, and what date was the FTTC connected. This could be to do with your specific product, as they have recently changed. It's too complex to explain quickly but given those dates I might be able to work out what has happened, explain and advise.

As I said, newbie so your question confused me a little because I thought I was on a 40/20-type product. Am I on an 80/20 product but limited to 40/20 in some way?

I'll tell you what I know.

I'm on PlusNet. When I ordered fibre, they said my cabinet is only enabled for 40Mb at this stage so they couldn't put me on their 80Mb product. But looking at their website it says "Up to 38Mb download speeds / Up to 19.5Mb upload speeds" - so I was deffo getting this at the start. Even now they're saying I should be getting between 7Mb and 15Mb upload according to their line speed tests.

Yes, PlusNet.

Cabinet went live about 19th June. I ordered on 20th June and got it installed on 2nd July. Speeds started to drop after 2 weeks, but hard to tell exact date because I was on holiday.

The 40/20 service is an 80/20 openreach service throttled to 40 on the downstream

My suspicion is that upstream side was re jigged to have a 10 Meg limit.

Connection speeds from a modem might help decipher

I'm suddenly in a rush, so can't check the date the 40/20 came out. You may have ordered the 40/10 allowance product and accidentally have been initially provisioned on the new unlimited 40/20. Then it got picked up and altered.

Right. I've checked the new product date, which is 10 June. So you are definitely on the latest.

Both the current fibre products are provisioned on (up to) 80/20, with the 40mbps one capped to have a maximum 40mbps downstream. There should be no capping of the upstream, whatever the estimate was.

Just to confirm they haven't been really naughty, (which sometimes they were on the previous products), please can you run the BT Wholesale Performance Test, then from the initial results page go to the Further Diagnostics page and check both the downstream and upstream IP Profiles. Post those for us please. You can ignore all the red instructions at the beginning of the test.

1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.

Download Speed
38 Mbps

0 Mbps 47.73 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 38 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 33.41 Mbps-47.73 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 47.73 Mbps

2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.

Upload Speed
9.5 Mbps

0 Mbps 20 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 9.5Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 20 Mbps


We were unable to identify any performance problem with your service at this time.
It is possible that any problem you are currently, or had previously experienced may have been caused by traffic congestion on the Internet or by the server you were accessing responding slowly.
If you continue to encounter a problem with a specific server, please contact the administrator of that server in the first instance.

How do I get these? Or do my other replies on this thread provide them?

I think that BTW Performance Test answers most questions. You are definitely on the 80/20 product, but it may be capped at 40Mbps downstream depending on which of the two you signed up for. We need to know that .

There is no obvious reason why the upstream should have fallen, but equally it is very hard to imagine from the downstream IP Profile that 18Mbps upstream was ever possible. It's strange.

Have you any speed test results showing it? I'm not doubting what you say, just looking for clues.

What are the estimates now from this checker?

I have the speedtest.net results for the period from a week before my fibre go-live (ADSL) until today. Here they are exported and copied below. The first 2 are ADSL. It was actually 1st July I went live, not 2nd as I previously stated.

IP_ADDRESS TEST_DATE TIME_ZONE DOWNLOAD_MEGABITS UPLOAD_MEGABITS LATENCY_MS SERVER_NAME DISTANCE_MILES
1/7/2014 06:16 GMT 6.36 0.27 19 London 0
1/7/2014 06:42 GMT 6.24 0.34 32 London 0

FIBRE INSTALLED - first speed test done at 08:26 BST (07:26 GMT)
1/7/2014 07:26 GMT 37.39 18.12 31 London 0
1/7/2014 07:30 GMT 37.61 18.13 31 London 0
1/7/2014 07:43 GMT 37.47 18.23 32 London 0
1/7/2014 08:35 GMT 37.59 18.08 32 London 0
1/7/2014 10:13 GMT 37.54 16.73 32 Newcastle upon Tyne 250
1/7/2014 12:40 GMT 36.99 17.74 32 London 0
1/7/2014 14:17 GMT 37.5 18.25 32 London 0
1/7/2014 15:24 GMT 37.05 17.19 10 London 0
2/7/2014 18:53 GMT 37.44 18.19 32 London 0
2/7/2014 19:43 GMT 37.12 18.16 31 London 0
2/7/2014 19:58 GMT 37.53 18.14 31 London 0
5/7/2014 14:56 GMT 37.1 15.25 32 London 0
5/7/2014 20:21 GMT 37.6 15.43 32 London 0
6/7/2014 09:18 GMT 37.47 14.14 24 London 0
6/7/2014 15:52 GMT 36.96 15.47 32 London 0
8/7/2014 07:12 GMT 37.33 17.39 31 London 0
Went on holiday came back on 20th. Left modem and router turned on.
20/7/2014 01:45 GMT 37.25 12.31 8 London 0
22/7/2014 10:16 GMT 37.31 11.01 24 London 0
22/7/2014 10:18 GMT 37.2 11 24 London 0
23/7/2014 19:43 GMT 36.34 10.82 24 London 0
24/7/2014 17:50 GMT 37.67 10.83 23 London 0
28/7/2014 20:46 GMT 36.95 9.33 31 London 0
31/7/2014 20:51 GMT 35.7 8.94 27 London 0
31/7/2014 20:58 GMT 35.03 9.55 32 London 0
1/8/2014 16:44 GMT 37.29 9.65 31 London 0
1/8/2014 16:50 GMT 37.49 9.51 31 London 0
2/8/2014 07:47 GMT 37.29 9.55 31 London 0
2/8/2014 11:56 GMT 37.43 9.6 32 London 0
3/8/2014 07:54 GMT 37.58 9.62 31 London 0
3/8/2014 08:17 GMT 36.6 9.6 31 London 0

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Aug-14 16:20:04)

BT Wholesale checker

FTTC Range A (Clean) 38.2 30 7.7 6.1 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 31.6 16.5 7.7 4.4 -- Available


If they (PlusNet?)) are capping me at 38 down, is it possible they are capping me at 10 up? So although I am on an 80/20 product, because my cabinet is only really going to give an estimated 40/10, they've capped it? Sorry if that's a naive question.

They should not be capping your downstream unless you are on the 40/20 product. You still haven't said which you signed up for and are paying for.

It didn't drop straight below 10Mbps either, so it doesn't look as though that is capped. Just sunk over time.

It's recommended that you do not post your IP address. It can be picked up by site scanners and make you a target. It would be best to delete it, all the way down, while you can.

I have checked the account and paperwork and it just says unlimited. I remember when I was signing up it was a bit confused but I know the price they eventually quoted was for their 40Mb product. They originally went for 80Mb but then found my cabinet wasn't up to that, so went for 40 and lowered the price.

We never discussed upload as I assumed I'd just get whatever the fastest for their 40Mb product was. So when I was on 17/18 upload and their web site said up to 19.5, I never gave it a second thought. When it dropped to 9.5, that's when I started to ask questions.

So, I would say I am on their Unlimited Fibre 40Mb product.

Removed. Thanks.

In reply to a post by stuchad:

So, I would say I am on their Unlimited Fibre 40Mb product.

Check on the member portal as its possible you've been provisioned on the older 40/10 settings by mistake. It looks like your line could do around 47 down and obviously 18 up, so the 40/20 would be ideal.

I'm on the 80/20 product (signed up in May) and get real speeds of 50 / 9.5 so I have a line of the opposite characteristics.

The upstream IP Profile is 20Mbps, so he isn't on 40/10.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The upstream IP Profile is 20Mbps, so he isn't on 40/10.

Okay - so something else is afoot. without a hacked modem to monitor the stats, its up to Plusnet to see what is going on from the other end.