New FTTC install - very slow speeds

I have recently had the 80mbit FTTC package installed from Zen, and the speeds I'm getting are much slower than the ones I had estimated (about 1/10th for the upload). I'm about 150 meters by road from my local cabinet and 100 meters as the crow flies. If I go to the BT wholesale availability checker, I get the following estimate:

http://postimg.org/image/lmi0h1gj7/

77.8 - 80.0 clean, 69.5 - 80.0 impacted downstream
20.0 - 20.0 clean, 19.0 - 20.0 impacted upstream.

When the Openreach guy came to install it, he made a series of errors and had to go to and from the cabinet about 3 times because he said he hadn't punched down the cable properly. I got the feeling he didn't really know what he was doing, I had to tell him what cabinet I was connected to and where it was. He was a contractor on behalf of Openreach - I was very unimpressed with his skills. He didn't check that the internet was working before he left, and left me with a flashing DSL light which flashed for about 5 hours. It then connected for 1 hour at 36mb down, 1mb up, then lost connection and wouldn't reconnect.

In the morning after the install, I went out and bought a cheap phone to see if I had a dialtone and I noticed the line was dead. I stripped down the socket to the test socket and still had no dialtone. At this point (24 hours after install) I just left the phone in the test socket and didn't bother to plug the modem back in. I raised a voice line fault with Zen and that got repaired yesterday, around 48 hours after the install. I then plugged the modem back in and it connected pretty much immediately. Now my downstream speed is 44mb and upload speed is 2.5mb, which was better than the 36 / 1 I got initially, but still far short of the speeds I was given as an estimate.

I'm getting 56.6% of the downstream I should be getting, and 12.5% of the upstream speed. I'm more concerned about the upstream speed.. Surely there is something seriously wrong here? 1/10th of the estimate?

I'm using the Openreach supplied ECI modem (my cab is also an ECI) and regardless of whether I connect directly to it with PPPoE or through my router, I get the same speeds. I'm connecting to it over Ethernet with a windows 8 laptop and I've done all the speed tests with nothing else using bandwidth. Speed is consistent at all times of the day - it's been about 17 hours since the fault was fixed and I plugged the modem back in and it has kept the same speeds. I have done a ping trace to bbc.co.uk for about an hour and lost 0.5% of the packets. The line does work well enough to stream from Netflix, but one of the main reasons I was interested in the FTTC package was the increased upload, which I am not getting. It's a shame I can't see the SNR stats for the line, that would be handy!


So my questions are as follows:

1. Seeing as I had a fault for the first 48 hours of service (no dialtone for at least 30 of those hours), it took forever for the modem to connect and it was trying to connect for many hours, does that mean that DLM would have intervened and put me at a low speed?

2. Is it normal for a prediction of 77.8 - 80 down and 19-20 up to result in 44 and 2.5?

3. Why the heck is the upload so low? I've seen people on 1400m lines with 4mb of upload, I have possibly 150-300m of line and get 2.5mb

4. Is it likely I have a fault on the line still and should report it?

5. Are my speeds likely to improve when DLM realizes my line isn't actually at fault anymore?


Part of the reason I bought this house was the promise of fast speeds. It's rather disappointing to get such slow speeds! Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Cheers guys.

As you have Zen for both phone and Internet ask them to get the DLM reset following the repair of the phone issue.

Seems like a good plan, thanks. I called yesterday to see if they could do that but they wanted me to wait for 24 hours before doing it. I will probably do that today at 4pm, which would have been 24 hours.

Does DLM act to also reduce upstream severely like that?

Phone is dead because sounds like one leg (wire) is disconnected and xDSL will still work but a lot slower.

Fix the phone and the VDSL should speed up.

Also make sure Zen report the state of the job.

Thanks - but what do you mean by "Also make sure Zen report the state of the job"?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Fix the phone and the VDSL should speed up.

In the first post the OP mentions reporting a voice fault which has been resolved...

Tell them to feed back to BT about how bad the install process was and ensure the voice fault is linked to that too.

Long paragraphs get skimmed when playing morning catch up.

If voice has been fixed and attenuation/noise margin figures are sensible, then DLM reset time

Ahh, I will do that.

For a DLM reset, does Zen have to log a fault, or is it a really simple request for them to arrange?

And where are Zen Staff to help this poor guy?

I am sure Zen see this post but cannot be bothered to help him. Or maybe Zen couldn't see his thread here.

@ Provster. Your FTTC estimated are the same as mine Clean A 80 77.8 20.0 on downstream. I am getting full sync rate 79999k/19999k as you should be getting full sync rate after your voice phone was fixed.

I suggest to move this thread to Zen pages instead.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 09-Oct-14 11:36:10)

Thanks for that, that seems like good news, I maybe can expect to go up to those rates! I'm happy for the thread to be moved to the zen page.

Maybe MrSaffron will move this thread to the right Zen pages

Edited by adslmax (Thu 09-Oct-14 11:37:52)

@adslmax - Did you get those sync speeds immediately when you first used your connection? Or did you end up with slower speeds and it went up?

I was about 200m away from FTTC cabinet. Openreach engineer installed my FTTC last February 2014. He using his special tool after replaced a new master socket MK2 fitted and saying my maximum rate was 113 Meg down and 38 Meg up as I was connected capped by the exchange at 79999k/19999k. But the max line rate is now down to 93 Meg down and 34 Meg up because of crosstalk but still sync rate at maximum 80/20.

@ Provster - u can buy unlocked openreach modem HG612 off ebay because u will be able to check full stats. ECI Openreach Modem will be very very difficult to unlock it.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 09-Oct-14 19:43:44)

Yeah, I had a look at buying one on Ebay, but I don't want to fiddle too much with the connection now, I don't want to risk DLM making me even slower. If it doesn't get resolved soon, I may have to do that to see what's going on. I used to like being able to see all my ADSL line stats, the Openreach modem is more of a black box (that happens to be white...)

I thought it was pretty weird how the engineer didn't even bother to check I actually had a dialtone or had internet before he left, and left me with a fault. Sounds like you had a better deal with your engineer!

Original poster appears to have been in contact with Zen already, so highlighting to the web team will not likely achieve anything beyond what is already been done.

Only worth shouting and pushing if the telephone support does not progress things. With FTTC as Zen have less control than with ADSL2+ the time frames for fixes can be more annoying, i.e. time it takes for Openreach to action stuff.

In reply to a post by Provster:

Yeah, I had a look at buying one on Ebay, but I don't want to fiddle too much with the connection now, I don't want to risk DLM making me even slower. If it doesn't get resolved soon, I may have to do that to see what's going on. I used to like being able to see all my ADSL line stats, the Openreach modem is more of a black box (that happens to be white...)

I thought it was pretty weird how the engineer didn't even bother to check I actually had a dialtone or had internet before he left, and left me with a fault. Sounds like you had a better deal with your engineer!

I was hit by DLM because it my own fault of swapping modem over too quickly. Kitz have advised me to power down your modem for at least 30 minutes then swap the modem over as anything over 30 minutes power down will not affect DLM. I did test it myself, been power down modem three times of each 30 minutes as the DLM didn't act it next day. I was lucky as DLM had restored me to full sync rate after 2 days.

I was with Plusnet by the way as Plusnet was ever so good.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 09-Oct-14 12:24:50)

Fair enough Mr Saffron. Zen have been pretty good at dealing with this so far, I was mostly posting to find out the chances of this resolving itself via DLM, and whether other people have had this same problem before.

A fairly disappointingly botched install unfortunately!

@ Provster Here is my first FTTC full stats last February 2014.

http://s5.postimg.org/valxei887/Openreach_Fibre_Mode...

Edited by adslmax (Thu 09-Oct-14 19:42:43)

I suggest you unlock your modem or use one that isnt locked at all which will tell you very quickly 3 things.

1 - if its a dsl issue or a isp issue.
2 - if you are DLM'd.
3 - things like attenuation which will be useful here.

without the modem sync data its a complete guessing game.

Just a quick update here - Called Zen yesterday, they did a few tests and it's come up as a LN fault, which they sent out to Openreach last night. At 8:30 am today I saw an openreach engineer at my local cabinet. I talked to him and he is working on my fault, it's apparently a problem between the cabinet and a box on my street. Hopefully it will be resolved today

That's good to hear it. Let us know how it goes and hopefully your speed should be on the maximum sync rate 80/20. Also don't forget to check quiet line test dialing 17070 choose option 2.

Edited by adslmax (Fri 10-Oct-14 11:34:25)

I guess I could give that a go! Thanks!

Also a random fact to note, the original install was done by Kelly Communications, who I hear are renowned for causing issues. I actually had to tell him where the fibre cabinet was because he had no idea. Even worse, at one point he was waiting for the DSL light to come on with the modem unplugged. I had to get him to plug it in........

However today it was a proper Openreach engineer and he seemed to know what he was talking about. I'm gonna do a speed test when I get home and see

Mine was installed by a proper openreach engineer. He even take me to the cabinet and show me. He very polite and fully understood of FTTC installation in a proper way. He removed old master socket cutting off the wiring. And replaced a new whole master socket and fitted with MK2. And before he went, he listen to the phone tone with a quiet line test and checking FTTC maximum speed. He was happy with the work, and so do I. I count myself lucky.

Well.. the openreach engineer was out today and OMG!

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

76.5 download and 18.4 upload!

Adslmax... you were right, and I'm now very happy

As a side note, I had Cat 6 cables installed around the whole house yesterday with faceplates in each room, and a 16 port gigabit switch and media server in the attic. Now I'm happy because I know that it's not a waste of time, and I am getting excellent speeds.

Yep, I told you that you will get full sync rate. Now enjoy it the most before crosstalk come along in the next few months.

Mine here: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Edited by adslmax (Fri 10-Oct-14 18:36:16)

If anyone is interested, here are my line stats from zen's portal. Can you tell when the fault was fixed?

http://postimg.org/image/m9qr3dkgz/

As far as crosstalk goes, my local cabinet is already at max capacity - you can't order FTTC anymore in my area.

Not sure if your isn't on crosstalk yet! As your is full sync rate! But the problem is cannot seeing what are your attainable rate to be 100% certain sure of crosstalk.

Mine attainable rate in Feb 2014 was around 113,000k but now is around 93000k. However if the cabinet is full then I expecting my attainable rate will fall below 80000k and that's when the crosstalk began!

Edited by adslmax (Sun 12-Oct-14 13:35:42)