Finally FTTC has come @ 0.2 mi to cab what speeds to expect?

After 10+ years of waiting on an Exchange Only Line I have been finally upgraded to FTTC here in Central London, Commercial Street Bishopsgate Exchange. Yesterday I saw it switch to Available from Planned.
https://i.imgur.com/EXWQxfkl.jpg

High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean)80 68.2 20 19 62.1 Available --
VDSL Range B (Impacted)80 64.8 20 19 56.6 Available --

I have also just located the cabinet earlier ago today and it is exactly located in 46 Frostic Walk, Shadwell, London E1 5LT.

It is approximately 0.2 miles to my home in E1 6DJ ~ 321.869 meters. Now I have a couple of questions to ask. According to the checker my lowest expected speeds should be between 64.8 - 68.2 Mbps with the highest at 80 Mbps.

I�m worried that with a 322 meters or so copper cable length my internet might not be stable to maintain those speeds. What if the internet drops out and the line cannot cope with such speed? Will the connection speed drop to below the lowest levels?

As I�m aware it is not about just getting those speeds, if noise margin drops and disconnects DLM will re-sync to a lower speed and the speed may get to something below the lowest estimate.

I�m still with Plusnet ADSL and already paid year upfront in advance on January. I have until January 2020 for the 12 month contract to end.
For example with ADSL I got once 18.07 Mbps in speed test but at 3dB noise margin. Line could never maintain stability! In both cases with Sky and Plusnet I had to tell them to increase the SNR to 9dB manually for the connection to be stable. Only at 12 Mbps ~ 9dB noise margin my connection is stable and that's between a maximum of 34-56 days. This has always been my headache, that�s why I am worried that FTTC may carry on the same problems if cabinet is not so close to my building�

Can someone tell me from your experiences living around 300-400 meters away from your street fibre cabinet whether you are able to sync at such speeds without connection dropping out? What's the highest connection up-time you get on average? Obviously without me ordering, I will never know what to expect. But I'm afraid what if the internet drops out and the line cannot cope with 64-68 Mbps speeds and drops to something significantly lower than that?

Do you think I will be able to quit the ISP penalty free? I�m more positive about the 35 Mbps package as that will be more friendly on the line. FTTC will be my only option for now as my building management team seemed to have refused wayleave consent with Hyperoptic last 4 years as discussed previously last year...

Many thanks!

I would think many people at that sort of distance will reply that they have no problems with high speeds. I�m posting to ask whether you have ever looked into the detail of your internal home extension wiring.

Problems with that could very well be what is causing your long-standing disconnection problem.

There are two main suspects if you have any extension sockets, whether or not they are in use. First is the ring/bell wire, and second is star wiring. That is when extensions are connected in the circuit between the point the line reaches the property and the master socket.

Also see this page for some other possible causes of instability on the premises.

We are similarly about 0.2m from our FTTC cabinet. The connection is underground for the first 200 yards, completed by 100 yards on dual use poles with the main electric wiring about 3 feet above the telephone wiring.

We have a comparatively clean bill of health internally with nothing connected at the master socket and a single extension which feeds phone and modem/router through a "soap-on-a-rope" filter.

We were one of the first adopters on the cabinet and sync'd at 79999/20000 once DLM had done its work. G.INP was also enabled once the connection had settled down. As more people have connected, the speed has dropped due to cross-talk. We had a bout of errors a couple of months ago which I think was caused by something external and got forced onto retransmission high. Since then the downstream SNR has settled at 3.3dB and we have been sync'd at 73000 to 74000 downstream and 17000 to 18000 upstream. The only dropouts or disconnections have been due to interference on my part.

If the connection from your cabinet to the property is clean and you have no internal problems there is no reason why you shouldn't maintain a connection in the high 60s/low 70s (subject to any cross-talk issues at a greater level than we see on our connection).

I sync at 45Mb at a touch over 1km from the cabinet.
I used to get 55Mb before crosstalk took a little.

My line remains in sync for months at a time with 0 or 1 Error Seconds a day.

The technology is designed to sync at a stable rate. You're worrying about nothing.

The OpenReach DLM (line management) will tweak the line if necessary to add more speed if it's stable enough or lower the speed if it's not.
Just don't tinker with the modem/hub once the line is live/synced.
It can be quickly capped if you resync too often.

Not bad, I'm around 840m from the Cabinet (Openreach confirmed line length recently at a visit) and sync at 36Mbps on a good day. Crosstalk unfortunately on a full ECI cabinet is the main cause for that one.

You sit in the middle of 3 exchanges area there, Bishopsgate, Wapping and Monument so not ideal but luckily they are all a stone throw away

From your previous adsl, (well current stats) you are also very close to exchange. I would do as other have said, check your internal wiring and microfilters.

I would have said, there might have been issues with the cabling beyond the cabinet but with vdsl the copper doesn't go beyond the cabinet. But as you are so close to the exchange any or network cabling issues would be small.

So that leads me back to your own internal cabling

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Do you think I will be able to quit the ISP penalty free?

It doesn't make much difference even if you can. All ISPs will be using the same FTTC infrastructure (the same DSLAM in the cabinet, the same copper cabling to your building) so your sync speed and line stability will be the same with them all.

But any decent ISP should give you a minimum speed guarantee of some sorts, and if you don't meet the agreed minimum speed then you'll get an engineer visit to sort it and/or cash back and/or the right to leave, depending on the ISP.

Plusnet should be able to offer you an in-contract upgrade, so I'd be inclined to go with them. If a 40/10 service is fast enough for your needs then you'll save a 4 quid a month by taking that service, and as you say it'll be rock solid. However at your distance, I'd say an 80/20 service is likely to work very well indeed. Although Plusnet's advertised prices are for new customers, if they don't offer them to you then threaten to walk and they'll likely match them (or if not, then walk anyway).

Another possible cause of instability is your ADSL router - but you'll get a new VDSL router as part of the FTTC upgrade.

Final note: you should be prepared that your sync speed will drop over time, as more and more people on your cabinet take the FTTC service and crosstalk starts to have an impact.

I had an ADSL2+ connection in the exchange building that couldn't get more than 20Mbits with a 3dB margin.
Some exchanges just have a lot of internal 'noise' than others and tie cables maybe unavoidably routed internally near to noise sources.
The OP may well find that just like most others with similar line lengths that they will get a stable, fast connection.
I have a similar D side length. Sync @ 70/18 Mbits with a 6dB margin, connection uptime 28days.

Edited by witchunt (Thu 03-Oct-19 11:18:53)

You're closer than me and I get 68mbps down and 14mbps up so I think you'll be looking at low seventies, possibly higher.