Great Easton - FTTC Issues

Hi, first time posting, so please be gentle!

Our village of Great Easton, Leicestershire has been live with FTTC since the 26th Jan. Our cabinet (Rockingham, Cab 1), whilst not central to the village, is close enough to everyone in the village to, in theory, provide everyone with a good connection speed - everyone is no more than 500m as the crow flies.

Whilst some of our residents are getting the speeds you would expect (i.e. I�m getting 55 down, 15 up), there are some properties in the middle of the village that are getting significantly slower speeds (around 15 down) � these properties are not the furthest from the cabinet, but the BT wholesale checker does indicate a slower speed for these properties.

The residents have had no luck initially trying to report this as a fault via their ISPs � the ISP�s won�t take into account that other, further away properties are getting better results.

I�m in the process of gathering more speed test data from around the village so we have some better data to go on, but my questions to the group are:

1. Any ideas what the problem could be
2. How do we get it resolved

Edited by timandhaylea (Thu 26-Mar-15 12:56:16)

It may be that the length of copper to the houses with slower speeds is longer. Just because the properties are 500m away as the crow flies, the copper line length may be significantly longer. Mine is a good example. I'm 250 metres from exchange but my line length is 2200 metres!

It all depends which route the line takes from the exchange or cabinet to the properties that are seeing the slower speeds.

Some VDSL modems (e.g. the Sky one) will show you the attenuation figures which can be used to give an idea whether line length is the issue alone.

The commonest cause for slower than predicted sync rates is internal wiring/set up. An iffy self install on FTTC can put the kibosh on speeds.

All, thanks for the quick replies.

@Zarjaz - Both properties that I have visited that have issues have a good installation (router into master socket with the Openreach split faceplate).

@MrSaffron - Both are BT Retail customers with HomeHub5's, so I will see what stats I can get out of them

@WelshWArrior - I take your point, but I can't see how the cable could be that much longer to this group of houses - I'll try and grab an OpenReach engineer next time I see one in the village

Don't forget that the thickness of the wire makes a difference, as does the material. If they're connected using think aluminium rather than thick copper, it can make a world of difference.

That would be reflected in a higher attenuation.

Did you also check that they are really connected to the same cabinet, and not one nearly a mile away?

Thanks @WWWombat

No idea what the cables are or which DP they are connected too yet - I'll have to wait for a friendly OpenReach engineer to turn up for that.

We are all on the same PCP - we are in rural Leicestershire and there isn't a big choice in cabinets. Also, they wouldn't have FTTC available.

The info I'm getting back from the other residents makes me think it's one DP that's the problem - but how do we get OpenReach to investigate if the ISP's are not interested?