FTTC 40/10 vs 80/20

Hi, any Openreach aficianados out there?
We're paying Vodafone for superfast "unlimited fibre 76" broadband, we had a very flaky connection until we had the master socket moved to the front of the house, much closer to the junction box where the telephone wire surfaces from the ground. It works much better now, speed bursts up to 37 mbs late at night when everyone else is in bed.

The Openreach guy checked the connection at the junction box and said he was getting 40 mbs on his machine. He said that at the streetside cabinet our connecton was set to 40/10 and said it should be set to 80/20 if we wanted "up to" 76 mbs. He said he couldn't change it without a request from Vodafone

I've just been chatting with Vodafone and the guy said he couldn't help, the max speed of our line was 40 mbs and he recommended i talk to the "second line team". Does that involve digging up the road / front garden to put a second line in? why is he refusing to ask for the cabinet to be set to 80/20 ?

Are you able to check in the router and see if the connection speed is 39,999kbps or a couple of kbs less?

This will confirm if the line is artificially limited.

It's possible that when the line was flaky, before the master socket was moved, that it caused DLM to "band" the line.

If that is the case, first-line support at Vodafone may not even know what banding is. At a major provider like yours they almost certainly wouldn't have the authority to have it reset.

An engineer fixing a fault that could have caused banding can have DLM reset by their control centre before closing off the fault report. If that doesn't happen, then things get less easy.

AIUI your best course now is through the Vodafone "second line team", on the assumption that "second line" = level 2, in the same way as I used the term first-line (= Level 1 or Tier one) above.

It's very unlikely the the support person meant a second phone line provision.

If you are able to provide the connection speeds, attenuations and noise margins from your router that might help other repliers to you, though 40/10 banding could be hard to spot as there is such a base setting as you know . Banding is often identifiable by strange fixed connection speeds that don't match the underlying maximum for the product.

You must have posted the moment I started drafting my reply, gary. So I'm not (wasn't) disagreeing with you, but I do worry a bit as I say in my post. That's why I'd like to see the attenuation values as well.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 24-Oct-20 16:55:27)

thanks for the replies, from the router.....

Bit rate

Actual data rate
Downstream 41029 (Kbps.)
Upstream 5981 (Kbps.)

Operating data

SNR Margin
Downstream 3.3 dB
Upstream 6.4 dB

Loop Attenuation
Downstream 22.2 dB
Upstream 19.2 dB


thanks

In reply to a post by c_j_holt:

Actual data rate
Downstream 41029 (Kbps.)
Upstream 5981 (Kbps.)

Then the engineer was wrong. The line is provisioned as 80/20, and the speed you're getting is the maximum your line is capable of given the distances involved.

If you were provisioned at 40/10, then you'd see 40000 or 39999.

When it comes to contract renewal, you can buy a 40/10 service instead and you'll save yourself a couple of quid per month.

thanks, we've been with Vodafone for about 5 years, nearly 3 years in the current house, so not under any restrictive contract as such. I could downgrade to "Superfast 1" (35mbs) but it only saves around £1.50 per month. I get a discount through my employer who has thousands of vodafone corporate mobiles on contract

the master socket relocation came about because they were aware that i was out of contract and free to move so i think it was the customer retention team who contacted me after we had been having problems with the landline, otherwise i would have been charged I think. Anyway, we're in a better position than we were, broadband was very patchy before, especially in wet weather

In reply to a post by c_j_holt:

thanks for the replies, from the router.....

Bit rate

Actual data rate
Downstream 41029 (Kbps.)
Upstream 5981 (Kbps.)

Operating data

SNR Margin
Downstream 3.3 dB
Upstream 6.4 dB

Loop Attenuation
Downstream 22.2 dB
Upstream 19.2 dB


thanks

Your attenuation is very similar to mine (for downstream) and I get similar downstream, but I appear to have a higher upload. So is likely all that the line is capable of, unfortunately.

Broadband Link Downstream---Upstream
Connection Speed (Kbps) 39999---7851
Line Attenuation (dB) DS1:22.3 ---US0:10.8
Noise Margin (dB) DS1:5.7---US0:6.7

Edited by gary333 (Sat 24-Oct-20 23:53:17)

If you're out of contract with Vodafone how much are you currently paying them?