80Mbit vs 11Mbit

I have the BT "superfast fibre" contract, which I've had for a while now but have started to get fed up with the quality of my connection.

The BT availability checker returns a result of "up to 80Mbit", with a guaranteed minimum of 68Mbit. However, I get around 11Mbit. I haven't had it any higher than 12Mbit.

Having already complained to BT, they've sent the Openreach engineers out twice without any success. They tried everything, including a new port etc but the upshot is (they tell me) that my most local cabinet doesn't have fibre directly to it, instead there is only copper between my house and the actual cabinet with fibre and the net distance is too great. Something along these lines is what I was told, anyway.

The current situation: BT are giving me a few days to explore the option of other providers. So my question is: what hope do I have with other providers? Don't they use the same network? They certainly seem to use the same speed checkers, returning the same blatantly false predictions that I don't trust. So I'm not certain what to do?

Thanks!

In reply to a post by shibbyrj:

The BT availability checker returns a result of "up to 80Mbit", with a guaranteed minimum of 68Mbit. However, I get around 11Mbit. I haven't had it any higher than 12Mbit.

Could you post the actual text here (without your number) ?

Having already complained to BT, they've sent the Openreach engineers out twice without any success. They tried everything, including a new port etc but the upshot is (they tell me) that my most local cabinet doesn't have fibre directly to it, instead there is only copper between my house and the actual cabinet with fibre and the net distance is too great. Something along these lines is what I was told, anyway.

That sounds correct. Unfortunately the idiots at the ASA have long allowed ISPs to advertise 'fibre broadband' when in fact most people have 'Fibre To The Cabinet' (FTTC) with the last few hundred metres being a copper telephone line. Unfortunately for some people that last run of copper is many hundreds of metres and that reduces the speed significantly.

It's odd though that the checker says you should get faster, especially by that amount. Are you testing with a wired connection? Do you know where your cabinet is?

The current situation: BT are giving me a few days to explore the option of other providers. So my question is: what hope do I have with other providers? Don't they use the same network? They certainly seem to use the same speed checkers, returning the same blatantly false predictions that I don't trust. So I'm not certain what to do?

Unless you have Virgin Media in your area it is unlikely that another ISP can do better.

But it's important that you eliminate problems of your own making (poor wifi setup, poor internal wiring) and a large difference between what you get and what the checker says you can get suggests something wrong inside your house. It's not unheard of for the checker to be wrong but it's fairly uncommon.

Edited by Andrue (Tue 04-Dec-18 16:53:29)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Could you post the actual text here (without your number) ?

Sure, the text is as follows:

Great news
You can get speeds up to 80Mb with Superfast Fibre 2, and you can get BT TV.

Fibre broadband

Download Speed: 74Mb-80Mb
Estimated download speed range*
Minimum Speed: 68Mb

Standard broadband

Download Speed: 8.5Mb-19Mb
Estimated download speed range*

Minimum Speed:3.5Mb

As you can see, I may as well have ADSL!

One other thing I've remembered, they did say on the phone that "the point of sale figure was 22Mbit" but I don't really have any way to prove/disprove that as it was a long time ago now, currently the checker returns the above.

It's odd though that the checker says you should get faster, especially by that amount. Are you testing with a wired connection? Do you know where your cabinet is?

Odd and frustrating! My nearest cabinet is ~100m away, but that receives copper from the FTTC cabinet, which is another ~400m from that, looking at the rough locations on a map. Note this is based on my very limited understanding of cabinets and how they work. This is how they explained it to me and presumably they have a way of testing that?

But it's important that you eliminate problems of your own making (poor wifi setup, poor internal wiring) and a large difference between what you get and what the checker says you can get suggests something wrong inside your house. It's not unheard of for the checker to be wrong but it's fairly uncommon.

The engineers have done all of this. they tried a direct speed test from outside if I remember correctly.

Edited by deleted (Tue 04-Dec-18 17:18:40)

PLease could you use this checker, using your phone number, then upload a screen shot of the result after editing out your phone number on the line above the table but retaining the rest of that line .


That gives us much fuller information than you already have.

"My nearest cabinet is ~100m away, but that receives copper from the FTTC cabinet, which is another ~400m from that"

The nearest cabinet may not be the one you are connected to, it may not even be an Openreach one, can you private message me your postcode and can give some more detail and a public summary without revealing your location.

The mapping system we have does not use the Openreach estimates but our own model and this makes it possible to spot some quirks, if you are in Northern Ireland there is a history of really odd checker results.

If possible could you post the line statistics from your router please ?

Attenuation, sync rates, SNR etc.

Thanks for the help!

Here's the screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ainkcr5cz7dtlz1/dsl-cleck....

Is cabinet 25 the same thing as cabinet P25? It seems this was upgraded to FTCC in October this year. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that my connection was down altogether for 6 days in October and has been a poorer connection since.

It looks from your estimates, and the speeds you are receiving, that you may be on standard broadband and not fibre at all.

What modem/router do you use and could you give any line statistics it provides?

Regarding the cabinets. The availability checker shows your cabinet is fibre enabled.
This means your PCP cabinet (local green BT cabinet containing copper wires) has its own FTTC cabinet (shiny new green cabinet with vents on it).
The FTTC cabinet is usually placed within 20m of the PCP.
The absolute maximum distance for this is 100m. Having the FTTC cabinet that far away from the PCP is not common.

There is no way your cabinet can be fed from an FTTC cabinet 400m away.

The line stats should help tell us what's what. If you have a very old Home hub that would be an indicator.

edit: definitely FTTC if you get 4Mb upload. The screenshot you added suggests FTTC.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 04-Dec-18 20:19:51)

His number has a left in jumper for ADSL2+, so that would suggest he at least was on VDSL. Plus, a recent observed speed test shows VDSL results, not ADSL ones.

Edited by deleted (Tue 04-Dec-18 20:20:20)

Do you know where Cabinet 25/PCP25 is in relation to yourself?

Can you check your direct neighbours estimates, by full address, and see if they get estimated speeds as high as you.

The map here shows P25 as just behind my house (on a different street). But I know cabinet 25 is down the street in front of my house, maybe 100m away.

Are you able to paste line stats from your router? I'm pretty sure you're on VDSL, but can't be sure.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.5186009,-0.2676999...

Believe cabinet 25 otherwise known as P25 is at this location or very close.

Cabinet 25 only went live at the start of November, but not sure if it was infill or an exchange only conversion. If infill then it may be that you are still connected to an older cabinet for VDSL2 that is further away

All the lines on cabinet 25 are well within reach for superfast speeds, so something is wrong, hence asking for the stats from you router

One thought - you can make phone calls over the landline, there is a fault condition where one wire is disconnected that will stop the phone working and broadband will be slow.

Other possibility is home wiring, and testing at the test socket which disables all the extensions is a good way of checking that is not an issue

Here's the figures from the router:

6. Data rate: 4895 / 13158
7. Maximum data rate: 4894 / 13880
8. Noise margin: 6.0 / 3.8
9. Line attenuation: 35.1 / 30.2
10. Signal attenuation: 35.2 / 22.6

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Other possibility is home wiring, and testing at the test socket which disables all the extensions is a good way of checking that is not an issue

I disconnected all the extensions some time ago, which did help a bit at the time. The engineers tested the line from outside - the service socket? - and confirmed the line was healthy but their test results only gave 11mbit.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Cabinet 25 only went live at the start of November, but not sure if it was infill or an exchange only conversion. If infill then it may be that you are still connected to an older cabinet for VDSL2 that is further away

I feel like that may well the case. The distant cabinet I mentioned earlier is the one the engineer mentioned my line comes from - and that's on Broadway. As I understand, you can't be moved from one cabinet to another? I'm not sure what the different cabinet types are you mention, but 25 does have FTTC right?

25 refers to the copper cabinet

The VDSL2 cabinet has a longer string based definition that there is no point in knowing

Cabinet 24 is close to the physical exchange building on broadway and that should deliver around 30 Mbps even at that further distance

Cabinet 10 is close to the junction of Cock View Close and Broadway but is closer so likely to go faster than 30 Mbps.

Everything is pointing to a problem.

It may be you're on the further cabinet.
They place an "infill" cabinet between you and the further cabinet and connect you to the nearer cabinet.

It's possible the records say you are on the nearer P25, hence the high estimates, but you are still on the further cabinet.

Your attenuation in the 30's shows the FTTC cabinet is quite a distance away. Sounds like you aren't on P25 and the estimates are wrong at the moment.

If the nearby P25 is now active it sounds like you aren't going to be connected to it.
They move customers from the old cabinet to the new, called a "live to live migration", before taking orders on the new infill cabinet.

The attenuation levels are pretty high and in line 11 Mbps sync, suggesting fed from around 1.5km away, or there is a wiring problem at cabinet 25 and its VDSL2 twin meaning only one wire of the pair is supplying VDSL2

In theory can try rolling back databases to find out what we thought served the postcode earlier in 2018 but will take an hour or so to do that

What router are you using? Have you tried a different one?

Edited by Michael_Chare (Tue 04-Dec-18 23:47:48)

It is certainly odd that the screenshot from the BTW Checker shows the poster on PCP 25 with the high estimates you would expect at 100 metres plus FTTC cab link. Could the line perhaps have failed to be physically reconnected to PCP 25? Left on 24?

Even if left on 24 would expect higher speeds

Okay rolled back the time machine and postcode used to be served by Yaxley 23 which is close or just outside exchange

Knowing which other postcodes 23 serves also gives an idea of possible cable routes and estimates would be in the region of 20 Mbps, so an infill to make more premises superfast hence cabinet 25 makes some sense i.e. suspect wiring went from exchange along broadway up London Road and turned into Brunel Drive. Estimates from BT Wholesale are a bit hit and miss so maybe area has some aluminium present.

In summary - the poster needs to email me at [email protected] and remind me that this is the line still on Yaxley 23 when 25 is present. Need address and telephone number so that can raise with Openreach to get them to chase down - looks like a live to live migration has gone wrong or it is actually still to happen but checkers have already updated.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It is certainly odd that the screenshot from the BTW Checker shows the poster on PCP 25 with the high estimates you would expect at 100 metres plus FTTC cab link. Could the line perhaps have failed to be physically reconnected to PCP 25? Left on 24?

I wonder if, the 6 days my connection was down at around the time the new cabinet was added, they had tried to connect us to 25 and it didn't work? Can only guess I suppose.

It's a fair possibility.