Impacted Line

I am subscribed to FTTC broadband. The cabinet is a long way from my house so I understandably get a download speed well below the rated speed of the service I am buying. I have always been unclear about Impacted and Non-impacted (or Clean) lines. My current speed is now below that predicted for an Impacted line and has at best been at the rock bottom of the Impacted range. I therefore conclude my line is 'Impacted'. Am I right to presume that as a consumer I can do nothing to make the line 'Clean'? Is it possible for Openreach to remove the 'Impact'? If so, is there any way I can persuade them to do so?
Finally I assume that the speed reduction due to being 'Impacted' is completely separate from the speed reduction caused by being a long way from the cabinet? IE. I have lost in 2 postcode lotteries firstly by being a long way from the cabinet and secondly by being connected to it by an Impacted line.

Could the techies amongst you please be gentle with me as I am an user rather than a provider of telecommunications services. Thank you.

A clean line is one where the router is connected to standalone NTE with no extension wiring connected ...

Or one where there is a faceplate filter on the NTE, and you connect via that.

Impacted means there is extension wiring connected to creating a �bridge tap�.

Describe your set up please.

Impacted lines, typically means various factors inside and more often outside of the property that can cause problems. From bridge taps to interference.

There is a handover speed, if you are below that, then there is an issue and also you have a right to terminate your contract and go back to adsl. As you have lower speeds than you expect. Have you done

Done a test via the test socket?
Tried alternative microfilters?
Is your master socket have a face plate on it ?
Have you added anything to the phone system?

I disagree, the �impacted line� message is just in reference to internal wiring being connected.

The clean/impacted figures mean nothing.
They are simply estimates that OpenReach provide to your ISP.

Your ISP decide on what estimates to quote you at the time of your order or contract renewal.
It's only if yoursync speed (not speed test results) goes below the minimum guarantee quoted by the ISP that they are likely to ask OpenReach to check your line.

Some ISP's provide high estimates similar to the clean estimates.
Some ISP's provide estimates that match the impacted estimates and you would need to drop below the impacted range before they will intervene.

You need to hunt out the letter/email sent to you when you ordered FTTC and find your estimates.
Then you need to compare those estimates to your sync speed, not speed test results.
The sync speed will be higher than speed tests.

The BTWholesale estimates go up and down and could also have changed since your FTTC went live.

There are (at least) three things in your home that could be causing a very low speed.

First, are you connecting your modem/router to the master socket, or to an extension socket?

Second, do you have a modern master socket similar to any on this page? Note the horizontal split on the single-socket where the bottom half can be removed. The twin-socket ones may have the sockets one above the other or be a lot more curvy than that example of an old type.

The third question comes when we know exactly what sort of master socket you have. If you upload a photo of it to one of the free sites and then post a link here to it that would be great .

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 19-Aug-19 15:26:07)

Thanks for replies so far. Struggling to understand them all but please bear with me!

There seems to be a difference of opinion as to whether Impacted refers to inside my home (which I can do something about) or somewhere in the fields between my house and the cabinet (about which I can do nothing). This seems a fundamental question to me.

I take the point about repeating my speed test from the test socket. But I don't know what synch speed is or how I can measure it. Can anyone help?

Will consider other points in due course. Thanks for all your help.

.

We need to know what hub/modem you are using to help you get the sync speed.

Things that put the line in the impacted range can be in the home or between your home and the cabinet.
As you are only allowed to touch the wiring in the home other posters have focused on that.

Plus of course the most common cause of slow speeds (other than distance) has always been sub-optimal home wiring.

I don't have microfilters - I used to have them but I think my latest modem incorporates them.

I think the master socket has a faceplate on it. It says BTOpenreach MK2 on it .

The phone system used to have three extension sockets but as these are redundant with wireless handsets they have been disconnected. I have a Hive Home Hub connected to the broadband router and an ethernet connection to a Powerline adapter to route broadband to my Smart TVs over the electricity cables.