And this is where factors like take-up on the cabinet, which can increase cross talk can be a factor i.e. as you may have been swapped around the cable bundle in an attempt to find a pair that tests better, it may have the effect of being closed to other VDSL2 users and thus more cross talk.

If it was me, I'd have sourced an unlocked VDSL2 modem to peek at the stats so that can track whats happening, rather than just rely on chain from Openreach to ISP.

It is not impossible that you had the best pair, but a swap to improve things did not work out, but someone else is now on your old pair.

It would not surprise me if your ISP simply decides to provide you a MAC and wish you all the best for the future.

If it was me I'd have a 2nd line installed then cancel the 1st. This would obviously force a port swap.

Andrew,

The line length according to OR is 1418 metres.

30 Mbps is available at the junction box at the opposite side of the road, a distance of 7.5 metres from the box outside my property but I do understand that OR will not carry out such work as a matter of principle.

Is 12 Mbps down and 0.5 Mbps up really reasonable for a line of 1400 metres which is apparently free of aluminium?

As far as OR are concerned a stumbling block is that they deny that any adjustments took place on 20 November when my contemporaneous notes show that the engineer in question told me that he had carried out work at the cabinet and remotely with the 'centre of excellence' in York. I have since been advised that OR engineers, as a rule, no longer keep notes of the work undertaken on-site.

As to 'what do you hope as a positive outcome from the ADR' - ideally pressure brought to bear on the ISP to encourage their suppliers to revisit the 16 Mbps especially as yesterday's engineer said that he was able to get increased performance at the cabinet.

BatBoy,

I understood that the most ISP's suppliers are very likely to be the same, if this is so would changing ISP achieve anything as far as performance is concerned?

It sounds like your ISP (who?) has given up trying to get BT to do anything. A change to a better ISP should do the trick.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband....

Download is in the ballpark, but upload is not.

I am a bit sceptical of the 30 Mbps available at a box that is just 7.5m shorter.

To be frank I believe you've gone further than you would with the majority of providers already. Openreach is within its rights to refuse the work, so long as reasonable efforts have been made to provide a service.

Reasonable efforts and best efforts are lovely phrases where the lawyers will make their money and you will go insane with probably little improvement.

I would be very wary of saying SHOULD, may would be a better choice of word.

The key really is independent analysis of the VDSL2 statistics from an unlocked modem, and information from immediate neighbours on what speeds they manage.

Andrew

The 30 Mbps has been measured on three separate occasions at the junction box on the other side of the road to the property. It is just under 1000 metres from the cabinet. The cable then runs a further 400 metres from this point around the periphery of the close until it ends up at a junction box immediately outside my place. This box is 7.5 metres (centre to centre) across the road from the one where the 30 Mbps has been verified as available. Three engineers have said that to run conduit and cable the 7.5 metres under the road would be the obvious solution and would have saved very many hours of work by them, but I do understand that is against OR policy to undertake such work.

I think that the only reason that I have got as far as I have is that I have politely pursued this and when told nothing could be done asked for the reasons. Unfortunately my recent questioning of the discrepancies between BT's answers and my notes of what actually happened do appear to have ruffled some feathers and I haven't even mentioned, as yet, the time when an engineer turned up here one Friday afternoon clearly so 'tired and emotional' that he was unable to carry out the work he was tasked with

I have an unlocked HG612 on its way.

That 400m explains the loss of speed. I am 200m from my cabinet but 600m via cabling route - that is just the way the network was designed as when it went in distances were largely irrelevant - it is literally cheaper to go round the houses than to cable direct.

The cost to put in that 7.5m of cable will depend on the environment. It could mean closing the road, digging a large trench, avoiding gas/water mains, issues with natural ground conditions, etc. Or it could just be a mole driven under the ground taking half an hour.

BT are under no obligation to do any of this work. You may be able to get them to do it if you offer to pay their costs - but it could be very expensive. The ISP can do nothing to change that (at least not economically, better to lose a customer than to spend thousands that would never be recouped).

Ian, I agree with everything you have said. It was OR engineers who said that it would be less expensive to run 7.5 metres of cable under the road than to check and remake many joints around the close. I do understand that it is against OR policy to carry out such work. When first told that it was a matter of cost I did say that as OR have a published table of costs covering work of this nature could I, if I wished, pay for the work, the story immediately changed to 'we don't do this sort of thing as it would be creating a precedent'.

When this was made clear to me I immediately gave up on the idea of achieving anything like the estimated speed and concentrated on trying to return to the stable 16 Mbps that I was getting for 5 weeks last year. Unfortunately, as indicated above, BT are saying that this is not possible as they do not believe that any adjustments were made on 20 November that resulted in the immediate drop in performance. This does not agree with my contemporaneous note of the engineer's conversation with me, so I really do doubt the effectiveness of their record keeping.