Line speed capable of 60mbit, but ISP capped it at 40

I've just been upgraded to FTTC and my ISP offers 80/20. The BT engineer said my line max rate is 60mbit, but in reality would be about 55, but that the line had been capped at 40mbit. See screenshot from his test device after he had installed it:

http://i.imgur.com/Bquob9u.jpg

He said I should ask my ISP to remove the cap. I asked the ISP to do that, and I got this reply:

"Hi.
According to BTW your line will not support 80/20 and so it is banded at 40/10. Maximum throughput for your line would be 46Mb downstream and 10Mb upstream.

Kind Regards"

Here's what BT Wholesale says:
http://i.imgur.com/O3AfjOF.png

Speedtest.net test is:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/4188135534.png

Am I stuck with 40mbit? Anything I can do?

Edited by keymoo (Wed 04-Mar-15 19:21:37)

Vivaciti, lol

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Vivaciti, lol

What? Been with them for a few years and they've been great so far.

Most isp charge more for the 80/20 product as they pay more. Which are you paying for?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Most isp charge more for the 80/20 product as they pay more. Which are you paying for?

Hi, yes I know that. They only have one fibre package for home use: Fibre Unlimited 80/20.

Anyway that's not the issue, as you can see from my OP they are refusing to put me on the higher BTW product just because the BT checker says my max line rate would be 46mbit, but the engineer said in practise it would be 55-60.

Their choice the I guess.

Sorry, I don't get your point.

It clear says on their site "FIBRE UNLIMITED 80/20".

The OP should be getting the full capability of his line. The line sounds similar to mine; I am on 80/20 but only get 60/20. They are effectively halfing the available upstream speed by placing it as a 40/10 connection with BTW.

OP has not been supplied what is advertised.

Edited by deleted (Wed 04-Mar-15 22:11:01)

In reply to a post by mixt:

Sorry, I don't get your point.

It clear says on their site "FIBRE UNLIMITED 80/20".

That's the package name. The description says

With speeds of up to 80Mb down and 20Mb up

You know, I was half expecting someone to come back with that argument, and it does not surprise me it was you BatBoy.

The package says "up to 80/20", so you expect it to be provisioned as up to 80/20 with BTW, not up to 40/10, right? Or am I just being a complete dumb ass? If it said "up to 40/10", then there is no issue.

Sorry, this is [censored] and you know it.

The line can easily do up to 20 outbound anyway, so they are not provisioning the full speed that the line can do.

Edited by deleted (Wed 04-Mar-15 22:35:25)

In reply to a post by mixt:

Sorry, this is [censored] and you know it.

It's Vivaciti. He has no control over Daisy, Enta, or whoever.

If there is only one package then a person is at risk of being limited in the way the OP as been.

It is a bad setup that the isp only has one package.

If the ISP is refusing to remove the cap then the only way to change it would be to move to an ISP that has multiple packages. You're probably paying more than someone on a lower speed package at another isp.

Openreach will only set up the sync rate on the DSLAM port that has been ordered by the service provider. The issue the OP is posting is their doing.

In reply to a post by keymoo:

I've just been upgraded to FTTC and my ISP offers 80/20. The BT engineer said my line max rate is 60mbit, but in reality would be about 55, but that the line had been capped at 40mbit. See screenshot from his test device after he had installed it:

http://i.imgur.com/Bquob9u.jpg

He said I should ask my ISP to remove the cap. I asked the ISP to do that, and I got this reply:

"Hi.
According to BTW your line will not support 80/20 and so it is banded at 40/10. Maximum throughput for your line would be 46Mb downstream and 10Mb upstream.

Kind Regards"

Here's what BT Wholesale says:
http://i.imgur.com/O3AfjOF.png

Speedtest.net test is:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/4188135534.png

Am I stuck with 40mbit? Anything I can do?

Presumably sending the ISP support people the picture showing the 60Mbps/13Mbps max rate values on the Openreach engineer's tester should show that their view is incorrect, together with a screen shot of the DSL checker output showing that is pessimistic by more than 30% on speeds.

It's always very possible that the ISP is allowing for expected degradation due to cross-talk and honestly expects the line not to support better then 40/10 long term.
On the other hand, if the customer is paying for 'up to 80/20' then the ISP is saving money by provisioning on 40/10 while not offering the customer any of that saving (if the OP lived nearer the cabinet then they'd provide 80/20 at the same cost) so there's no justifiable commercial reason not to provision on 80/20 (except now they've provisioned on 40/10 they would be charged for the regrade).

Presumably their cost model is based on an expected mix of 40/10 and 80/20 and therefore if everyone insisted on the 80/20 underlying provision then the charges to all users would have to go up.

Modelling this is a justifiable reason for providing 40/10. Where an ISP provides both options and charges more for the 80/20 then the justification is more difficult.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Presumably their cost model is based on an expected mix of 40/10 and 80/20 and therefore if everyone insisted on the 80/20 underlying provision then the charges to all users would have to go up.

Modelling this is a justifiable reason for providing 40/10. Where an ISP provides both options and charges more for the 80/20 then the justification is more difficult.

While not disagreeing with any of that, Vivaciti are charging more for their single offering unlimited fibre product than Zen charge for their Unlimited Fibre 2. That's extracting the urine a bit as any percentage of 40/10 connections instead of 80/20 pulls their average costs down but they're already increasing their margins.

I'm afraid that is their choice and selection of supplier is the customers choice. I am not sure why someone would go with Vivaciti rather than Zen when that is taken into account.

The question is whether Vivaciti would allow the contract to be broken based on this - if it is meeting the estimates when provided at sign up then contractually they haven't done anything wrong. They specified a speed that would be attainable and have managed it - so they haven't mis-sold.

In reply to a post by ian72:

I'm afraid that is their choice and selection of supplier is the customers choice. I am not sure why someone would go with Vivaciti rather than Zen when that is taken into account.

The question is whether Vivaciti would allow the contract to be broken based on this - if it is meeting the estimates when provided at sign up then contractually they haven't done anything wrong. They specified a speed that would be attainable and have managed it - so they haven't mis-sold.

Oh yes, I see what you're saying and indeed it is the customer's decision. However I would argue that if you order an 80/20 service (which is what Vivaciti offer irrespective of any 'up to' statement) then having it limited to 40 when the actual physical line will do 60 is a very significant reduction. The devil will be in the detail of what Vivaciti told him in the order acknowledgement.

In my case Zen gave me an estimated speed at the bottom of the Clean range on the BT checker, it turns out that my line is actually synced at 80 where the low estimate is just under 67. Of course it could reduce as take up increases, I don't know what the noise margin is now as I haven't hacked my VDSL modem to find out at present.

Roll on vectoring!

In reply to a post by ian72:

I'm afraid that is their choice and selection of supplier is the customers choice. I am not sure why someone would go with Vivaciti rather than Zen when that is taken into account.

The question is whether Vivaciti would allow the contract to be broken based on this - if it is meeting the estimates when provided at sign up then contractually they haven't done anything wrong. They specified a speed that would be attainable and have managed it - so they haven't mis-sold.

It might come down to the small print, as they have put a manual block on the line to stop it achieving what it could do. They haven't allowed it to push its limits (and let DLM manage the line properly). So unless their small print allows them to manually limit a line, then that could be a way to break the contract.

That is a pretty bad show, if this were Plusnet then they would also have put you on the 40/10 product based on your estimates, but would have moved you to 80/20 on request. I don't see why Vivaciti will not do the same.

In reply to a post by mixt:

The line can easily do up to 20 outbound anyway, so they are not provisioning the full speed that the line can do.

No it cannot. 13 maximum.

In reply to a post by rippedcotton:

While not disagreeing with any of that, Vivaciti are charging more for their single offering unlimited fibre product than Zen charge for their Unlimited Fibre 2. That's extracting the urine a bit as any percentage of 40/10 connections instead of 80/20 pulls their average costs down but they're already increasing their margins.

When FTTC became available here, I stayed with Vivaciti rather than move to Zen as the price differential was very small once "line rental" and a "special retention deal" was taken into account.
re: speeds dropping with crosstalk I was surprised how much the max attainable speed dropped over 3 weeks - 130 to 90 Mbps- due I assume to crosstalk on a newly activated cabinet..

disagree.

The "up to" means they wont do anything to artificially lower it below the advertised rates. By providing at 40/10 they have clearly breached the sales contract, even if its a low estimated speed, but bear in mind his estimate is above 40mbit anyway.

The estimate is an estimate, however they are not providing the customer with a up to 80/20 service because its impossible for the customer to get that speed due to the cap of 40mbit.

In addition up to 80/20 is breaching ASA guidelines.

This was my argument elsewhere in the thread.

However, I note this from the OP:

He said I should ask my ISP to remove the cap. I asked the ISP to do that, and I got this reply:

"Hi.
According to BTW your line will not support 80/20 and so it is banded at 40/10. Maximum throughput for your line would be 46Mb downstream and 10Mb upstream.

Kind Regards"

So, according to BTW, the line will not support 80/20 so BTW themselves will only allow a 40/10 service on the line.

So, it seems this is a BTW issue. As for whether this is actually a lie from Vivaciti or not is open for debate, but it does seem the issue is BTW rather than Vivaciti, and I would find it poor show from Vivaciti if it was a false statement purely to enable them to save some money for this connection by provisioning it at this lower speed.

Edited by deleted (Fri 06-Mar-15 11:09:43)

In reply to a post by mixt:

This was my argument elsewhere in the thread.

However, I note this from the OP:

He said I should ask my ISP to remove the cap. I asked the ISP to do that, and I got this reply:

"Hi.
According to BTW your line will not support 80/20 and so it is banded at 40/10. Maximum throughput for your line would be 46Mb downstream and 10Mb upstream.

Kind Regards"

So, according to BTW, the line will not support 80/20 so BTW themselves will only allow a 40/10 service on the line.

So, it seems this is a BTW issue. As for whether this is actually a lie from Vivaciti or not is open for debate, but it does seem the issue is BTW rather than Vivaciti, and I would find it poor show from Vivaciti if it was a false statement purely to enable them to save some money for this connection by provisioning it at this lower speed.

I read that to mean that BTW have said it will not support a full 80/20 but the ISP has limited it. I think it is the ISP playing with words and trying to unfairly blame BTW rather than accept that they have implemented the 40/10 restriction.

Why would BTW only allow a 40/10 service? A vast proportion of VDSL lines will not support 80/20 however they are still provisioned by BTW on an 80/20 service allowing the end user to have speeds above 40/10

That's exactly how I interpreted the communication from the ISP. Even the ISP acknowledged that BT Wholesale thought the line could do 46Mb/s which is faster than 40/10!

All of this bad publicity for Vivaciti for the cost £2 per month line rental extra and maybe £11 to change from 40/10 to 80/20.

My 2 cents.

Why would BTW only allow a 40/10 service? A vast proportion of VDSL lines will not support 80/20 however they are still provisioned by BTW on an 80/20 service allowing the end user to have speeds above 40/10

As an example there is Plusnet who I believe always order the 80/20 service even where the customer has only signed up for the 38Mbps service with the capping to 38Mbps being done by PlusNet.

In reply to a post by MCM:

As an example there is Plusnet who I believe always order the 80/20 service even where the customer has only signed up for the 38Mbps service with the capping to 38Mbps being done by PlusNet.

Plusnet have, in the past, provisioned on the (slightly cheaper) 40/10 product when there seemed to be no prospect of getting speeds above that. However, they would willingly change to 80/20 if the line stats showed that an increase would be possible - so they would indeed have listened in the OP's case. The distinction is that Plusnet will go by the live line statistics rather than the fixed (and possibly wrong) estimates.

Although they have recently put their lower product to 40/20 (achieved in the way MCM says), it would still make sense to only bother using the Openreach 40/10 product if the end-user can only get speeds slower than this.

In reply to a post by keymoo:

"Hi.
According to BTW your line will not support 80/20 and so it is banded at 40/10. Maximum throughput for your line would be 46Mb downstream and 10Mb upstream.
Kind Regards"

If ISPs only provided "up to 80/20MBS" on lines capable of carrying the full 80/20 speeds, there wouldn't be many in existence.

Your ISP has labelled you as a mug. My advice is not to argue, but to move elsewhere. There are good ISPs, so why not move?

nope they didnt say BTw banded the line.

BTw will provision what is ordered.

the cap is determiined by your service level -- either and upto 40 product or up to 80 meg product -- -- the line is capable of providing x Speed at an openreach network Level but its up to your servcie provider what its price points and servce points are

Edited by deleted (Sat 07-Mar-15 21:55:15)

I spoke to Karl at Vivaciti today and to summarise the conversation:

* Vivaciti do not make any more money by providing a slower service, so they are not incentivised to give a 40/10 line if the line is capable of higher speeds
* He looked into the "TAGS system" (whatever that is) and that said the line will not support anything higher than 46mbit, and therefore the line is locked at a max of 40mbit by BTW (not Vivaciti or Enta)
* In his experience the TAGS database is accurate most of the time and it's quite rare for a discrepancy this large.
* He will contact BTW to try and remove the 40/10 limit, but that requires a change to TAGS database and he cannot order the 80/20 because it is denied
* He does hold out much hope, because BTW very rarely change an entry in TAGS database.
* If BTW did update TAGS database, in reality I would probably achieve 51-52 mbit real download speed (in his opinion)
* He will get back to me when there's a response from BTW

So, if I move to Zen or plusnet, would I be told the same thing? I dunno, it's confusing to me, I don't know why it has to be so opaque and complicated.

In reply to a post by keymoo:

So, if I move to Zen or plusnet, would I be told the same thing? I dunno, it's confusing to me, I don't know why it has to be so opaque and complicated.

No. He's making it up.

This is all twaddle, Openreach/BTw will provide whatever sync rate the ISP requests, whoever you spoke to is just shining you on.

Leave 'em, all they care about is your money, show your contempt the only way they will understand.

In reply to a post by keymoo:

* He looked into the "TAGS system" (whatever that is) and that said the line will not support anything higher than 46mbit, and therefore the line is locked at a max of 40mbit by BTW (not Vivaciti or Enta)

Absolutely not true.

* In his experience the TAGS database is accurate most of the time and it's quite rare for a discrepancy this large.

It happens, and more than we would like. You, presumably only care about whether one entry is correct - your own.

Go and look at this recent thread, which is going on concurrently ...

You'll note that the DSL checker estimated his line would get 18Mbps, but everyone agreed that he was close enough to the cabinet to get more: the estimate was bad.

When first enabled, he was provisioned on the 40/2 product, because of the estimates. In reality, his modem was reporting that the line was capable of 120Mbps.

Support staff for BT Retail responded to this (via their forum), and obviously put him onto an 80/20 product. He is now synchronised at those 80/20 speeds, and achieving fast downloads.

However, the estimator still holds the 18Mbps value.

So, if I move to Zen or plusnet, would I be told the same thing? I dunno, it's confusing to me, I don't know why it has to be so opaque and complicated.

I have no idea how Zen behave, but my experience of plusnet tells me that they respond favourably to such requests.

Just thought I'd let you know that Karl spoke to BTW and they said that the line was graded incorrectly and they will do a regrade tomorrow. Karl at Vivaciti said that this is the first time this has ever happened. He seems like such a nice chap, and I don't want to think bad of him, but is this kind of thing highly unusual? He gave me the impression that it is.

In reply to a post by keymoo:

Just thought I'd let you know that Karl spoke to BTW and they said that the line was graded incorrectly and they will do a regrade tomorrow. Karl at Vivaciti said that this is the first time this has ever happened. He seems like such a nice chap, and I don't want to think bad of him, but is this kind of thing highly unusual? He gave me the impression that it is.

Everyone keeps saying BT Wholesale. But isn't it Openreach that deal with sync speeds and banding etc on FTTC?

yes final call is with Openreach who will respond and supply whatever is on the order ticket, as will BT Wholesale. How sure are we that the ISP is not dealing with another third party?

We've seen some third party wholesalers run unusual rules on the supply of services, but never come across this from BT Wholesale themselves.

In reply to a post by keymoo:

Just thought I'd let you know that Karl spoke to BTW and they said that the line was graded incorrectly and they will do a regrade tomorrow. Karl at Vivaciti said that this is the first time this has ever happened. He seems like such a nice chap, and I don't want to think bad of him, but is this kind of thing highly unusual? He gave me the impression that it is.

Glad you have it sorted, this also does show how rubbish their support (Vivaciti) is though in the sense you've had to fight to get this conclusion (Not that it is one yet though).

Also I would have thought that you'd be able to get out of the contract if they kept you on 40/10 because they haven't given you the product you've paid for.

And what that guy said is complete rubbish; they do save money by putting someone on a 40/10 product because the 80/20 product is more expensive at wholesale level... They are not going to give double the bandwidth away for the same price lol.

It would be as silly as if an ISP sold an FTTC package to ADSL users and hid behind their "Up to" claims whilst not actually giving them an FTTC service. It's near enough the same thing from an end-user point of view because they are just different products at Wholesale level most of the time, same as 40/10 and 80/20.

If you buy a car with a specified engine power range, you expect to get that engine regardless of the speed limits on the roads. You don't expect to get a smaller engine just because it will be driven on country roads all of the time despite paying the same price as someone who is getting the larger engine.

As far as I know BTw will provision the line under any available product which the ISP has available to them, which can be as high as 80/20. If the line can do over 40Mbps, there's no reason why you shouldn't be put on the 80 Meg package.

Lets hope they grade the line correctly.

In reply to a post by keymoo:

Just thought I'd let you know that Karl spoke to BTW and they said that the line was graded incorrectly and they will do a regrade tomorrow. Karl at Vivaciti said that this is the first time this has ever happened. He seems like such a nice chap, and I don't want to think bad of him, but is this kind of thing highly unusual? He gave me the impression that it is.

Not unusual for Vivaciti to have the nonsense he sprouts challenged on this forum and then he does a U-bend.

In reply to a post by chris6273:

And what that guy said is complete rubbish; they do save money by putting someone on a 40/10 product because the 80/20 product is more expensive at wholesale level...

Vivaciti are buying from Entanet (Wholesale) who buy from BT Wholesale. We don't know what the Enta pricing is.

Note I'm not contradicting the overall tenor of your post, just that detail. For instance, these days Plusnet buy the 80/20 service and cap the download themselves to create their 40/20 product. So they do pay the same for both. Though I'm not sure what they order for estimates below 40 down and also below 10 up.

Sorted

Before I got FTTC
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4186692924

After upgrade
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4188135534

After regrade
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4203677010

Edited by keymoo (Tue 10-Mar-15 19:16:58)

A huge improvement!

It could degrade a little over the next few days though. Initially it hasn't got any error history on the higher product, and there will be quite a few more than there were before.

If it drops overnight one day by about 10Mbps and the latency goes up to 15-16ms then interleaving has kicked in, and it may have been a bad move. But I think that possibility is slight. Just warning you what to look out for.

Thanks for the info.

To go from 3mbit to 52 is such a massive difference, especially in my household where there are six people using the internet. We use it for iPlayer, YouTube, downloading large ISOs (I work in IT), remote working over VPN, web browsing, off-site backups, and online gaming.

Pleased as punch.