Low fibre estimate?

Hey folks

Much to my surprise not long after our exchange was fibre enabled they built 3 new pairs of cabinets to service exchange only lines. It's taken a while but our cabinet (cabinet 6) has finally been activated. The fibre estimate to my whole street seems low though (between 9 and 15 Mbps for me, lower than my current ADSL2+ sync of 16.2). My brother has been hooked up to the same cabinet and lives just round the corner and his estimate is between 52.9 and 79.6 which is much faster than his current sync of ~17Mbps.

Edit: When I entered my number into TalkTalks website just now to see about upgrading they estimated between 5 and 12 Mbps

Here is my estimate (well it's my next door neighbours, I'm with TalkTalk so this page doesn't work for me, my side of the street all get similar stats though): http://abload.de/img/fibre25huzn.png

This is my brothers estimate: http://abload.de/img/fibre135umq.png

Here my current line stats if that helps:

Sync Speed 16196 kbps Down 1019 kbps Up
Attenuation 16.5 Down 5.8 Up

I live in the low numbers on the even numbered side of my street. The odd numbered side of the street is serviced by a different cabinet (cabinet 5) and the higher numbers in the street are served by a different cabinet again (cabinet 2). Both cabinet 2 and cabinet 5 give much larger speed estimates than cabinet 6 for the same street, it's odd :/

With all this info does 9-15 Mbps sound right or are BT estimating a lower speed than I'd get? I've been looking forward to fibre for ages but I'm hesitant to order it if there's a chance it'll be slower than my current connection.

Cheers in advance for any help/info!

Edited by Findlay (Tue 10-Mar-15 12:32:57)

Downstream attenuation on ADSL is a good guide to line length. Since you and your brother are connected to the same cabinet, and his estimate is much higher than yours, he should have a lower attenuation than you if the estimate is accurate. Can you post your brother's downstream attenuation?

Initial thoughts are that the cable may run totally differently for the two sides of the street. However, given the similarities of ADSL2+ speeds that might not be the case.

There is a very good chance it is an error. What are the approximate distances to the cabinet and exchange?

In reply to a post by ip75:

and his estimate is much higher than yours,

The ADSL estimate are identical, the ADSL2+ are very close. 1Mbps difference in 20Mbps - I would not class that as "much higher"

I meant his FTTC estimate

Edit to clarify: If we know the difference in their attenuation on ADSL, then we know the difference in their line lengths..

Edited by ip75 (Tue 10-Mar-15 11:09:32)

In reply to a post by ip75:

Downstream attenuation on ADSL is a good guide to line length. Since you and your brother are connected to the same cabinet, and his estimate is much higher than yours, he should have a lower attenuation than you if the estimate is accurate. Can you post your brother's downstream attenuation?

I'm not sure what his attenuation is and he'll have no idea how to find it on his Home Hub haha, I'll try to check next time I'm round

In reply to a post by MHC:

Initial thoughts are that the cable may run totally differently for the two sides of the street. However, given the similarities of ADSL2+ speeds that might not be the case.

There is a very good chance it is an error. What are the approximate distances to the cabinet and exchange?

The new cabinets are just outside the exchange which is about 200m from my house as the crow flies, Google says the length of the streets to my house is 620m.

Edited by Findlay (Tue 10-Mar-15 15:00:53)

Ah, OK, so if your new cabinet is outside the exchange then your current line length to the exchange is a good indication of the line length to the cabinet. For an attenuation of 16dB you're looking at about 1.2km of line to the exchange, and thus slightly less than that to the new cabinet.

Based on that distance, for VDSL, I think the estimate looks about right.

In theory can figure it all out, but would need the addresses of the two properties, and just round the corner if its 400-500m makes a big difference to VDSL2.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

In theory can figure it all out, but would need the addresses of the two properties, and just round the corner if its 400-500m makes a big difference to VDSL2.

Just around the corner is a minutes walk I can pm you the addresses if you like? Not really comfortable posting my exact address online.

About to deal with my inbox ones for other queries so its the right time to PM them

Thanks for looking into it for me! I've pm'd you

It is down to the length from Cabinet to house ... if your estimate is correct and the cable follows the route you believe then the estimate is well down. At 600m you should be looking at 40Mbps or above.

See what Mr S comes back with after you have PM's addresses to him.

Exchange and new cabinets are in Market Street, and the two postcodes for the homes are a couple of hundred metres apart, so if the cables are routed down the optimal route then estimates are wrong,

BUT

Looking at the maps there is no guarantee that the cable routing follows the logic that would be used today, ie. shortest route. This is particularly the case for old EO conversions, so I can easily envisage a scenario where the route may include Duff St and Souter St and this would match the estimates that are being given in terms of line length.

Only way to really know is to order or kidnap Openreach staff who have access to the full in ground copper records for the area to confirm exact routing.

Does't the attenuation tell us what we need to know here? Line length ~1km?

If the attenuation is suggesting 1km, then it is likely the line is not routed optimally, and thus agrees with what I suspect may be the case from a peek of area on map and streetview.

1km should manage actual speed tests around 20 Mbps, but it does not take much variation for this to dip into the 15 Mbps area.

75% happy that the estimates are reasonable and that the original poster is not in line for 70 Mbps and faster.

Looks like the estimates are right and my side of the street is probably out of luck until G.Fast or something similar is rolled out? Oh well, the wait continues!

Edit: It's really frustrating that 3 cabinets service my street and 2 are offering 60+ Mbps speeds, it's typical that mine is the one that doesn't

Edit 2:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

75% happy that the estimates are reasonable and that the original poster is not in line for 70 Mbps and faster.

If not 70 Mbps do you think there's any chance of fibre being higher than my current 16.2 Mbps?

Edited by Findlay (Tue 10-Mar-15 15:09:37)

In the meantime, you should easilty be getting 20+ meg sync on ADSL2+ @ 16 db attenuation - i was gettiing nearly 18 meg with TT on my 29db attenuation line (@6db SNR)

1) if not already done, ask Talktalk to put you on a "24FSNR6" profile - this will put you on a fastpath 6db profile as i suspect you're still on TT's default 12db snr. Do this via the TT forums.

2) To squeeze every bit of speed from your line, consider using an Draytek 120 v2 ADSL2+ modem with your router. In my experience this gave me nearly 2 meg higher sync than a broadcom chipset based router. If it doesn't improve your speed then you can always send it back to Amazon for a full refund.

You may not miss VDSL2 after all

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately my line has always underperformed compared to the stats, my line actually syncs closer to 12 meg normally and I had to tweak my SNR a bit to to get the speed up. I'm on the 24FSNR6 profile with my SNR tweaked down to 3 it never drops connection and has a very low error rate even at SNR 3 but it syncs low for some reason.

I've had BT out twice over the years to look at it but they said everything was fine, they repaired some damaged wiring before the master socket (in the 80's they ran the wire under the carpet beside my front door, decades of traffic meant bare wires and disconnections every time we walked past!) & added a BT80RF3 where the phone line comes in to my house (to reduce any possible REIN? interference) but neither have helped at all. The last engineer even went as far as to say 12 meg was the highest speed available and basically said I was lying when I said my neighbour was syncing close to 19 meg :/

My internet history on this line has been a nightmare fibre was the saviour I was waiting for but no dice. G.Fast is the new hope!

Edited by Findlay (Tue 10-Mar-15 16:34:17)