Stuck on banded profile

I have Fibre broadband with plusnet. My router tells me I have an attainable speed of 36 Mb/s however the sync is never greater than 29999 and after plusnet ran a test it shows I am on a banded 30 Mb/s profile.

At the moment this is at a property not occupied all the time, but the broadband is used for remote monitoring & when visiting.

PlusNet say the only way this can be fixed is with a site visit. However since removing banding does not require a site visit, AND I am not there at the time they can call I am struggling to understand why this can't be fixed remotely.

Does any one have any experience of this and convincing an ISP that BT to remove the band without a visit.

They further tell me if they turn up and do not find a fault they will charge me. The test says there is no fault in my property just a banded profile.

Banding is applied by the Openreach DLM who will not remove it manually unless an Openreach engineer has found and fixed a fault. What plusnet are telling you appears to be correct.

The DLM will in time, if the line is now behaving within normal error rate paramaters, remove the banding. That can take from a few weeks to several months, from the reports of others on these forums experiencing it.

You are stuck until the auto system relents I'm afraid. The more you mess around reconnecting, if you are doing, the longer it could take.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 22-Oct-16 12:06:14)

It took nearly 2 months for mine to get unbanded after a line fault and no engineer DLM reset. I'd almost given up hope, but it happened eventually.

I just ran mine for 3 days then did a reboot - problem solved

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Banding is applied by the Openreach DLM who will not remove it manually unless an Openreach engineer has found and fixed a fault. What plusnet are telling you appears to be correct.

What Openreach appear to lack is a procedure where they always reset lines after a problem is corrected.

The DLM will in time, if the line is now behaving within normal error rate paramaters, remove the banding. That can take from a few weeks to several months, from the reports of others on these forums experiencing it.

Thereby ensuring that the adverse impact of a fault are perpetuated for much longer than necessary.

The wording on tasks clearly states that a DLM reset should only be triggered if a 'hard' fault has been found and cleared and if the max rate is significantly higher than the actual.

I'm not defending that, just informing.

But is there any procedure to ensure that resets are done where a hard fault is corrected?

My impression, based on ADSL lines, is that there is not.

Had an almost similar experience with PN.

Firstly, as is known, there were 'issues' at PN in moving users to the 55/10 setup. I was put on 40/10 having been on a 40/20. After a bit of nagging, they 'discovered' the fault and corrected it. Subsequently my speeds hit a trough and PN support worked hard and well to get OR to correct 'a line fault' on my line. I went to the high 40's, occasionally just over 50 wih a sync of 54999.

A month or so ago I 'powered down' the house for a week while I was away. Came back to the high 30's. Again, a good response from PN support who could not work out how the speed 'appeared' to be capped at 40 while they had 55 and said it would probably be a BT 'thing' and they needed a TAP3 test. Unfortunately the delivered speeds (around 37-38) were always 'just over' the BT 'minimum' so no TAP3. Last week I discovered with 'joy' I was just below the 'minimum' (in the 'red') and started a TAP3 to find 'could not connect to the server'. Damn! Tried the next day and 'amazingly' the BT minimum had dropped and was now below my speed, so again no TAP3. PN kept fully informed, and I know not what happened, but I am now back to the high 40's again. I cannot see DLM could have had any part in it, since the lower speed existed for well over 10 days.

Sync the whole time 54999. I do think the response from PN was good if time-consuming.

On an FTTC circuit, performing a reset is simplicity itself.

On ADSL, a different matter, Openreach staff can have access to test suite called WOOSH and implement a reset via that, but only on BT Wholesale based services, the reset also does not reset the IP profile unless it's a 21cn based service.

If working on an LLU service, then it takes an (often lengthy) phone call (if you've been give the correct contact details) to the owning CP, and even then they can be loathe to do it.

The line is very stable - no dropouts but it's been stuck like this for about 2 months now.....

I was the same. Another few weeks and you should be in luck!

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

But is there any procedure to ensure that resets are done where a hard fault is corrected?

My impression, based on ADSL lines, is that there is not.

ADSL experience is completely irrelevant as it is a completely different DLM owned and run and managed by BT Wholesale. It does have banding, but not the same sort of banding as the Openreach DLM used on FTTC.

An IP Profile on FTTC however is stiil a BT Wholesale thing. Completely independent of Openreach DLM which is what controls the line connection settings. The BTW IP Profile on FTTC only affects the throughput, not the connection speed, and is nothing to do with FTTC banding.

On BT Wholesale ADSLx circuits there is a procedure. ISPs can trigger a DLM reset, but whether it is a complete reset or just the SNRM I don't know. I think a lot of ISP frontline staff don't have the authority.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

On BT Wholesale ADSLx circuits there is a procedure. ISPs can trigger a DLM reset, but whether it is a complete reset or just the SNRM I don't know. I think a lot of ISP frontline staff don't have the authority.

My point is that Openreach could initiate a reset automatically for non LLU services where a line fault has been repaired. Why, as a customer, do I have to call my ISP to get this done? It took me 3 phone calls before I got to some one who could do the job properly.

But that would be open to accusations of non-equivalence .

Because on ADSLx the service itself is not provided by Openreach. Openreach cannot know whether or not it would be appropriate for them to reset the BT Wholesale DLM. Many settings in it are determined by the ISP often on request from the user, and the request passed to BTW by the ISP.

Maybe when your Internet Security system from wherever isn't up-to-date Microsoft should disable it and activate Windows Firewall and Defender instead.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Because on ADSLx the service itself is not provided by Openreach. Openreach cannot know whether or not it would be appropriate for them to reset the BT Wholesale DLM. Many settings in it are determined by the ISP often on request from the user, and the request passed to BTW by the ISP.

If the DLM can reduce the data flow immediately there is a line fault, then there is no reason not to restore the flow immediately the fault has been corrected. It may well help if the DLM system was advised of the fault correction.

Maybe when your Internet Security system from wherever isn't up-to-date Microsoft should disable it and activate Windows Firewall and Defender instead.

I am not sure that that comparison is helpful. Most systems start to work properly once faults are corrected. They don't keep you waiting for a few days before you benefit from the correction.

LLU operators are presumably told of fault corrections. They can then reset their equipment as they see fit so that their customers can benefit immediately.

Precisely. As far as Openreach are concerned all ISPs are LLU. When OR correct a fault the ISP is notified. So the ISP "can reset their equipment as they see fit so that their customers can benefit immediately".

Which rather wrecks your suggestion that Openreach should have done it for yours when you were on ADSLx.

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Most systems start to work properly once faults are corrected. They don't keep you waiting for a few days before you benefit from the correction.

Which system wasn't working properly on ADSLx, and which isn't working properly on FTTC?

Openreach and the exchange equipment are all part of BT. No reason for not having a mechanism where the correction of a fault is notified to the exchange equipment so that it can react more quickly to provide the end user with a better (i.e. correctly functioning) service sooner. Exactly how it all works is not especially important. What does matter is that the customer is not left for several days with a slow service after the original physical fault has been corrected.

I was referring to systems in general as you had made a comparison to MS Windows.

I'm surprised Ofcom and/or BT don't ask you to take over . They clearly have things sooo wrong.

I also once objected to having my phone line made into a party line. I didn't get anywhere with that one either!

I agree totally - and the only person suffering here is the customers - ie us - me as the original poster here who has a banded profile with no line fault (confirmed by a GEA report).

BT whether it's Openreach or BT wholesale need to get their act together. As has been said DLM is far to quick to reduce speed if it perceives a fault, but incredibly slow to raise and restrictions if a fault is cleared. This should be addressed ASAP.

This has been stuck on a 30 Mb/s banded profile for about 4 months so far.

The GEA report states no line fault and recommends next action is for special faults to remove banding.

So why isn't that being done? It sounds like ISP ineffectiveness.

In my case I was 'assured' by the PN man that they were unable to affect the setting BT may have applied to the line (having confirmed my PN setting was 55/10) and had to wait until/if 'Big Daddy'got his fat backside in gear. Something 'moved'.

As I said, I am now 'down' (and steady) at around 50 which is probably right for a sync of 54999.

Still stuck on a banded 34999 here for around 9 months. Error rates low, line stable for 50+ days. No sign of it going of it's own accord. SNR about 7.5.

I think I'll wait until openreach go with the 3/4/5 SNRm change, and/or virgin becomes active in my street and I jump ship.