TalkTalk speed has gone from 38 to 30mb over 12 months

I used to be with Plusnet fibre on their "upto 76mb" I used to get a steady 43mb. When they brought in their upto 38mb unlimited I switched to that as it was £5 a month cheaper - I then got a steady 38mb. 12 months ago I moved to TalkTalk fibre and was getting a steady 38mb - for the first few months.Since then it has been dropping first to 33mb now it is 30mb. Could this be the result of take up of fibre on the cabinet - or are TT saving a bit of capacity and tweaking peoples' speed down, bit by bit over time - would this be possible/practical?

The ISP have no control over DLM, so there's no tweaking from them.

I'd probably put it down to crosstalk. What range of speeds does the BT Wholesale DSL checker report for your line/address?

And are the speeds mentioned actual connection speeds or the results of speed tests?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

And are the speeds mentioned actual connection speeds or the results of speed tests?

I just do a speedtest every now and then.

This is a test result just done with BT Wholesale checker:

https://s32.postimg.org/lg3av1yhh/bt_test.jpg

the "Further Diagnostics" option isn't working for me at the moment.

But this is from a Plusnet test 18 months ago.

https://s32.postimg.org/easwxfbed/speed1.jpg

I'm not that concerned about the drop 30Mb is fine. I was just curious about the cause of the drop - at this rate it will probably be 25mb by the time my 18 month contract is up next February.

Nothing strange regarding the ISP.

It will most likely be crosstalk due to increased uptake and DLM will be adjusting the speed down accordingly. There is nothing you can do as such, I doubt moving ISP will change things since DLM would behave the same.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 01-Aug-16 16:45:07)

These are the broadband stats from the Router:

https://s31.postimg.org/ycmnkoh3f/broadband_stats.jpg

In reply to a post by Sir_Jasper:

This is a test result just done with BT Wholesale checker:

https://s32.postimg.org/lg3av1yhh/bt_test.jpg

the "Further Diagnostics" option isn't working for me at the moment.

But this is from a Plusnet test 18 months ago.

https://s32.postimg.org/easwxfbed/speed1.jpg

I'm not that concerned about the drop 30Mb is fine. I was just curious about the cause of the drop - at this rate it will probably be 25mb by the time my 18 month contract is up next February.

All the Further diagnostics does is retrieve your IP Profile and draw the pretty graphs. No extra diagnosing.

On a TalkTalk connection there is no IP Profile. It is entirely a BT Wholesale feature. Hence, no Further diagnostics.

I note that on Plusnet you were on an 80/20 sync'ed at ~46Mbps. (Calculated from the P Profile of 44.64Mbps). A speed test result of 35.94Mbps against that is rather poor!

I suspect that even if there is an external problem you have quite a big domestic one. That may have got worse.

Are you testing wired or wireless, and have you added or replaced any electrical or electronic kit since you were getting the 38Mbps that is to be expected on that line?

(You hadn't posted your stats when I started drafting my previous post.)

You have heavy interleaving there, which causes the sort of sync speed drop that you are experiencing. Not only downstream, but it is very rare for the upstream to be anything but fast path.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You have heavy interleaving there, which causes the sort of sync speed drop that you are experiencing.

As far as I understand interleaving on fibre and DLM has nothing to do with the ISP - it is controlled by Openreach. So,this is something I just have to accept? Is there anything I could do to try and improve things or at least stop speeds dropping any lower? Is it just coincidence that I am having this issue now that I am with TalkTalk and it would have just as likely been a problem if I were still with Plusnet? There appeared to be no such issue during my 18 months with them.

NB: All the speedtests I have done have been with a wired connection - I don't use wifi.

Edited by deleted (Mon 01-Aug-16 22:27:05)

Have you checked all your internal wiring and checked the telephone to see if there is any noise?

I would be concerned its a line fault with such aggressive interleaving.

Well, two months on, to the day, from my initial post and my Fibre speed this morning has dropped from 30mb to 25mb after a disconnection.

Here are the 2 sets of router stats from my post in August and today.

https://s14.postimg.org/46nyq7bwh/Aug_Oct_stats.jpg

So, in just over a Year (Started with TT in Aug 2015) my speed has gone from a steady 38mb for about 9 months (this follows on from a steady 18 months of 38mb with Plusnet) to 33mb for a few months then to 30mb for the past 2 months to 25mb now. Are these drops too much to be passed off as simply cross-talk?

I dug into my TT router logs to see if anything stood out: To be honest I have no idea what they are telling me. A couple of things stood out, though. The logs only go back a few days but there have been a "Drop FTP request" every day. and I also noticed a few "intrusion" warnings both are classed as "security".

https://s9.postimg.org/imqlkrhzj/router_drop_ftp.jpg

Should this be a concern?
Many Thanks.

Probably cross talk, the DLM has altered a little, less error correction so latency may be a bit lower

The logs are fine.

Can you post up full line stats - the talktalk routers give a decent amount of info.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Probably cross talk, the DLM has altered a little, less error correction so latency may be a bit lower

Is there any limit to how low cross talk can reduce line speed ? Will this drop bottom out or in theory could this still have a long way yet to fall? When I was with Plusnet I was first on their upto 76mb and got 43mb I then switched to their 38mb service as it was £5 cheaper. So I have dropped from a high of 43mb to now 25mb - a drop of 18mb.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

The logs are fine.

Can you post up full line stats - the talktalk routers give a decent amount of info.

I cant find any other line stats - other than the ones in the first screen grab I posted.

Edited by deleted (Sat 01-Oct-16 14:03:40)

Yes can you repost them

In reply to a post by Sir_Jasper:

Here are the 2 sets of router stats from my post in August and today.

https://s14.postimg.org/46nyq7bwh/Aug_Oct_stats.jpg
Are these drops too much to be passed off as simply cross-talk?

Looking at your latest stats from 1st Oct your max attainable rate is 40/2 so your router should really be syncing at that instead of 26/2. As there's a signficant difference between actual sync rate & max attainable rate I wouldn't say its cross talk, DLM has detected some instability/noise on your line and reduced your sync speed accordingly. You need to get back to the basics such as plugging your router into the test socket, checking internal wiring, trying a different router etc to see if your sync speeds can be improved upon.

I should also add that there is cross-talk on your line as your max attainable rate has gone from 47/8 to 40/6 from Aug to Oct, however as you're on TalkTalk's capped 40/2 service this won't make any difference (at least for now).

Edited by deleted (Sun 02-Oct-16 12:34:58)

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

You need to get back to the basics such as plugging your router into the test socket, checking internal wiring, trying a different router etc to see if your sync speeds can be improved upon.

Thanks for the reply. I have done a factory reset on the TT Router.. reading around the TT forum this did sort out a problem someone was having that was similar to mine..his speed dropped over time from 35mb to 9mb - two engineer visits found no problem... It was suggested he did a reset of the router and his speed went back to 35mb..the thread ended there so I assume this sorted his problem - so I've given that a go. I have beeen thinking of trying to connect my old Plusnet "technicolor" router and seperate white BT ECI modem - anyone know if this would be possible to do with TalkTalk? My 18 months with Plusnet was a solid 36mb with this set up.

Edited by deleted (Sun 02-Oct-16 20:14:21)

Do you have a HG633 or HG635?

The HG633 I cannot speak highly of whatsoever.

Also apologies I did not see the second set of stats. I wanted to do a comparison but you had already done one.

I see what the other user is suggesting with the max attainable. I do agree it should be slightly higher however we must take into account the downstream noise margin which is 6db, which is not indicative that much extra speed can be gained from this line in the present state.

What is more concerning is that in the first stats you had a faster sync and higher noise margin. Here it does appear the speed has dropped and noise margin lowered which indicates the line has substantially worsened over that period... that could be a fault, poor wiring or it could be cross talk.

Can you check here
https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s...

What speeds does it predict? I am very concerned with the affected speeds i.e. the speed predicted with crosstalk. If it is massively higher than 25Mbps I would say there is a fault otherwise you are within the predicted speeds.

Thanks for your reply.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Do you have a HG633 or HG635?

I have the HG633

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Can you check here
https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s...
What speeds does it predict? I am very concerned with the affected speeds i.e. the speed predicted with crosstalk. If it is massively higher than 25Mbps I would say there is a fault otherwise you are within the predicted speeds.

I did check my phone number but it said "no data avaiilable for this number". It only works for a BT line. As I am with TalkTalk it's not classed as a BT line.

Try the address option.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Try the address option.

I checked with my address here is result along side a result I got from this test in March 2014


https://s13.postimg.org/e2ajadinb/fibre_check.jpg

Edited by deleted (Mon 03-Oct-16 01:52:56)

In reply to a post by Sir_Jasper:

I have beeen thinking of trying to connect my old Plusnet "technicolor" router and seperate white BT ECI modem - anyone know if this would be possible to do with TalkTalk? My 18 months with Plusnet was a solid 36mb with this set up.

If your old Plusnet router isn't locked down and supports bridge mode, no reason why it shouldn't work on TT hooked up to an Openreach VDSL2 modem.

If you don't have any success with the Plusnet router then pop into your nearest Argos store and buy an el cheapo router such as this or this - latter will need connecting to the openreach modem as its a router only. Leave the replacement router connected for at least 3-4 days (do NOT change routers willy nilly as it can drive the DLM nuts!!) and if there is significant improvement it means your TT router is faulty or unstable. Of course TT will happily replace the router via their forums but you may have the same problem with the replacement, eg it may have dodgy firmware. Personally i would stick to an alternative router as TP Link kit is generally rock solid.

Let us know how you get on, good luck

Edited by deleted (Mon 03-Oct-16 05:38:41)

In reply to a post by Sir_Jasper:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Try the address option.

I checked with my address here is result along side a result I got from this test in March 2014


https://s13.postimg.org/e2ajadinb/fibre_check.jpg

Thanks for providing those stats. Looking at the HG633 sync speed and the wholesale checker, you are within the impacted range for VDSL2+. The stats you provided show an interleaved line which may be indicative of cross-talk. As for the router, the DSL up time was only 1 hour, can you confirm whether the connection up time is often resetting despite the router being kept on for a long period of time?

When the speeds were fasted, do you recall if you were on fast path as opposed to interleaved? Interleaving often causes the sync speed to drop significantly.

The ISP is unlikely to investigate a fault based on the speeds alone as they are within the expected impacted range... The TT system will have similar thresholds. If there are regular dropouts and the connection up time is regularly resetting this is indicative of a fault, the dropouts could also cause DLM (dynamic line management) to apply speed banding to your line. If the connection is not dropping there is little to be done.

As a check, is the voice line clear and free from audible noise? Voice faults usually impact the broadband side of things.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

The stats you provided show an interleaved line which may be indicative of cross-talk. As for the router, the DSL up time was only 1 hour, can you confirm whether the connection up time is often resetting despite the router being kept on for a long period of time?

Thanks for your reply.
The router time has been good when I have checked it (not that often, normally) it usually shows an uptime in weeks. That stat I posted showing a 1 hour uptime was not long after I did a re-set of the router.
Reading around it looks like it could well be cross-talk. When I first got fibre I was probably one of the first on the cabinet (I had been monitoring its install process - and was on as soon as it went live) Being a cab on the far end of the loop and getting normal BB speeds of 3 - 4 mb at best - people must have been piling on to it over the 3 years it been there. Hopefully BT will pull its finger out with Vectoring - in Rep of Ireland it looks like it has been quite successful in dealing with cross-talk. But as its BT we are talking about - I wont hold my breath!
I have posted on the TT forum - asking them if they can see any probs at their end and also asked whether the router may be faulty.

Edited by deleted (Tue 04-Oct-16 01:17:21)

Not sure if you saw my thread..

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/f/4485393-int...

My interleave was also very high, I'd had problems with my internal wiring which I fixed, but it took 2 months for the the line to bring my speed back and drop the interleave depth, I did nothing in that time just left it alone.

I was also first on my box, I confirmed this by waiting for old adsl line to drop and then ran around the corner to speak to the BT guy and he confirmed I was first and was in slot no1 I know I know - I'm not proud of myself!! anyway I went from a lovely 55mbps from memory down to today's 45mbps and that's been over a year now since I was activated.

Just checked and I seem to have dropped down to 40mbps - I really hadn't noticed, suspect it maybe related to a mirror falling off the wall onto the BT phone box and breaking it - cant afford £120 for them to come and fix it though!!

In reply to a post by solchain:

Not sure if you saw my thread..

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/f/4485393-int...

Thanks for your reply.
I have just read your thread. Interesting that you had such a dramatic drop with the Interleave figure - 3000 to 5 !
At the last check my interleave depth was 2255 which is down from 2743 in August but also it came with a 5MB drop in speed.
I may try and get a new router from TT - it is worth a try. I can't think of any other internal problem as the router connects direct to the master socket which was fitted by the engineer when I had Plusnet fibre installed a couple of years ago.

Edited by deleted (Tue 04-Oct-16 13:48:47)

The drop from 3000 interleaving depth isn't particularly surprising on FTTC, but the actual result of depth 5 is very strange.

1 for fast Path or 8 for minimal interleaving consistent with G.INP being implemented is more normal. I wonder if the youter in question is averaging out Bearer 0 and Bearer 1, and rounding up? See mine, with G.INP:-

BusyBox v1.9.1 (2014-01-21 16:44:38 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# xdslcmd info --show
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 13891 Kbps, Downstream rate = 57604 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 13835 Kbps, Downstream rate = 57825 Kbps
Bearer: 1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode: VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile: Profile 17a
TPS-TC: PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 6.4 6.5
Attn(dB): 19.9 0.0
Pwr(dBm): 13.5 7.4

VDSL2 framing

Bearer 0
MSGc: -6 26
B: 243 237
M: 1 1
T: 0 60
R: 10 16
S: 0.1344 0.5471
L: 15123 3714
D: 8 1
I: 254 127
N: 254 254
Q: 8 0
V: 0 0
RxQueue: 45 0
TxQueue: 15 0
G.INP Framing: 18 0
G.INP lookback: 15 0
RRC bits: 0 24

Bearer 1
MSGc: 122 -6
B: 0 0
M: 2 0
T: 2 0
R: 16 0
S: 8.0000 0.0000
L: 32 0
D: 1 0
I: 32 0
N: 32 0
Q: 0 0
V: 0 0
RxQueue: 0 0
TxQueue: 0 0
G.INP Framing: 0 0
G.INP lookback: 0 0
RRC bits: 0 0
Counters

Bearer 0
OHF: 0 2045197
OHFErr: 1288 379
RS: 204823512 4293461
RSCorr: 8108918 4659
RSUnCorr: 0 0

Bearer 1
OHF: 334061820 0
OHFErr: 0 0
RS: 2672494070 0
RSCorr: 451 0
RSUnCorr: 0 0

Retransmit Counters
rtx_tx: 360872 0
rtx_c: 151179 0
rtx_uc: 31883 0

G.INP Counters
LEFTRS: 1669 0
minEFTR: 57809 0
errFreeBits: 437663805 0

Bearer 0
HEC: 0 0
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 3981560229 0
Data Cells: 1319772614 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

Bearer 1
HEC: 0 0
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 0 0
Data Cells: 0 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 413 277
SES: 2 0
UAS: 23 23
AS: 5365992

Bearer 0
INP: 47.00 0.00
INPRein: 0.00 0.00
delay: 0 0
PER: 0.00 8.23
OR: 0.01 31.07
AgR: 57884.31 13866.02

Bearer 1
INP: 2.00 0.00
INPRein: 2.00 0.00
delay: 0 0
PER: 16.06 0.01
OR: 63.75 0.01
AgR: 63.75 0.01

Bitswap: 3470658/3470658 54122/54339

#

An update to my update.

Recap: From about Spring of this year my TalkTalk fibre speed has dropped from 38mb down to 33mb. In August to 30mb then in October to 25mb.

So, when TT put up their prices last month I took the opportunity to jump ship and got a good deal with Plusnet (Upto 38mb for £5 a month for 18 months)

I went live on 8th November. And I have been getting a solid 31mb. When I left TT I was getting 24mb.

An update to this post - over a year later.
After moving from TalkTalk to Plusnet in November 2016 my speed went back up to 38MB and it has stayed pretty much like that since. Why it dropped with TalkTalk I dont know! But it was TalkTalk's lack of an attempt to do anything I found most annoying. I just got the "your speed is within the minimum " reply.

Edited by deleted (Sat 06-Jan-18 15:17:49)

The HG633 is known for plenty of things, one being worse connection speeds, did you have the HG633?

Yes, it was the HG633.

In reply to a post by Sir_Jasper:

Yes, it was the HG633.

Mystery solved, had it been the DLINK 3782 or the HG635 I believe it would have been fine. The HG633 also has sucky WiFi. It's just a dreadful device...

EDIT: Plusnets hub is fairly good for sync speed, being a rebranded BT HomeHub 5, so makes sense to see an improvement HG633 to PlusNet.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sat 06-Jan-18 17:39:10)

Has your Upload Speed improved as well?

It was extremely low in your 2016 images.

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Has your Upload Speed improved as well?

It was extremely low in your 2016 images.

TalkTalk fibre medium used to be 2Mbps upload, so that was to be expected.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 07-Jan-18 08:01:59)

Thanks, I was unaware of that.

In reply to a post by Sir_Jasper:

Yes, it was the HG633.

If you haven't already done so register at the address below then in the fibre forum tell them you are having problems with the HG633 speeds and ask if you could be sent a D-Link router for test purposes, they did this with me and it was an improvement over the HG633 which in my and many others view is utter [censored].

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/

.

In reply to a post by Chippy_Tea_:

In reply to a post by Sir_Jasper:

Yes, it was the HG633.

If you haven't already done so register at the address below then in the fibre forum tell them you are having problems with the HG633 speeds and ask if you could be sent a D-Link router for test purposes, they did this with me and it was an improvement over the HG633 which in my and many others view is utter [censored].

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/

.

I very much doubt TalkTalk would send their router to a Plusnet customer

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Has your Upload Speed improved as well?

It was extremely low in your 2016 images.

As mentioned the TT upload speed was a max 2Mbps. When I moved to Plusnet they also had a max upload speed of 2Mbps - So i saw no change there. In November 2017 Plusnet increased the upload speed to 10Mbps - I get 7Mbps.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by Chippy_Tea_:

In reply to a post by Sir_Jasper:

Yes, it was the HG633.

If you haven't already done so register at the address below then in the fibre forum tell them you are having problems with the HG633 speeds and ask if you could be sent a D-Link router for test purposes, they did this with me and it was an improvement over the HG633 which in my and many others view is utter [censored].

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/

.

I very much doubt TalkTalk would send their router to a Plusnet customer

Doh.

.