Upload speed less than 200Kb? Please advise me...

This new house had a new phone line and broadband with BT for about a year. Right at the start I installed a faceplate splitter to optimise performance. Speed has been excellent, about 6Mb connection. Recently BT emailed to say they were making changes at the exchange (01803-) and when I checked the connection speed after that it was just under 8Mb. Very happy.

Until yesterday afternoon. The broadband died and the phone had beep beep beep noises on it. After 30 minutes the phone line started working normally and the broadband came back to life. But logging in to the BT Home Hub 2 shows downstream connection about 3500Kb and upstream just 191Kb.

I spoke with BT Broadband support yesterday and they claimed it would all be fine in 2 hours.

Today no change. First I spoke to BT phone line support and they tested the line (which sounds fine) and said there is no fault. So I spoke to Broadband support again. Thery forced me to plug into the test socket, use two different filters and so on. No change of course. Then they said they were testing the line and could see a fault, which they were reporting. They said it would take 10 days before it would work and they were requesting reprofiling. They gave me a reference number.

I'm out of date on this but I though reprofiling was just resetting the IP profile (after the connection speed was low and then increased again) and that was automatic.

I can live with 3Mb downstream, but 200Kb upsteam seems very poor to me! What upstream speed would one expect (I get about 400Kb upstream at another location where the downstream is only 0.75Mb.) Please can you advise me?

Here is what the BT Home Hub 2 says:
Line state Connected
Connection time 0 days, 0:26:44
Downstream 3,542 Kbps
Upstream 191 Kbps

ADSL settings
VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation ITU-T G.992.5
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 3.3 dB / 5.9 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 40.0 dB / 23.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 0.0 dBm / 12.8 dBm

Here are the BT speed test results:
Download speedachieved during the test was - 2930 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 1200-4000 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3542 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 191 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 3124 Kbps

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 135 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 191 Kbps

Edited by Growltiger (Fri 10-Feb-12 16:24:45)

Something close to a 1Meg from that attenuation and a downstream around the 8Meg mark

Does the phone have the beep beep noises when all ADSL hardware and filters are unplugged from the line

Thanks for the information.

No, the beeps only continued for 30 minutes. During that time the broadband wouldn't work at all.

I've tested it using the engineer socket and the broadband and phone is exactly the same. Today it is down to 2Mb but noise margin is up to 6. So same conditions on the line I guess.

A clue is that sometimes I have heard crosstalk on the line. Ringing tone and voices but very quiet. Unfortunately most of the time it sounds perfect.

I've had more phone calls with BT. They found they were unable to test the line and have passed it to a different team who can test it at night using some other method! I asked them what the upstream speed should be but they didn't understand the question! They say they might fix it and to wait until Wednesday.

BT now claim that their line test shows a problem in the premises, with threats of £130. How this can be the case when the broadband gives the same poor connection speed when plugged directly into the engineer test socket I don't understand. The line sounds OK now.

How is this Home Networking?

Have you tried BT Quiet Line Test on 17070 Opt 2 at test socket with all BB kit disconnected?

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

How is this Home Networking?

Have you tried BT Quiet Line Test on 17070 Opt 2 at test socket with all BB kit disconnected?

The quiet line test is pretty quiet at the moment, even with the broadband kit working. But I'll try it again a few times, to see if I hear things again.

The home has a faceplate splitter. The BT Home Hub 2 plugs into it, and is connected to a Netgear 8 port gigabit switch. That is connected by Cat 6 to various rooms. The main room has another identical switch with three computers,a network printer, another wireless router and a Vodafone Suresignal plugged into it. I'm not using the wireless at the moment, everything is wired. There are phones in various rooms, all connected in a star arrangement with Cat 6 cable to a plug panel. None of this means much as what matters is that I'm logged in to the Home Hub to see the speed, and I have also tried plugging it directly (with a filter) into the engineer socket.

Everything worked perfectly for the last year, on Thursday pm something suddenly happened and now things are not right. Upstream speed of 200Kb is quite frustrating. BT's response is also frustrating. I just don't see how it can possibly be a problem on the premises.

The main socket is connected to an underground cable in a conduit that leads all the way out to the phone pole. The cable and conduit were supplied by Openreach. I've examined the connecting box at the base of the pole, which serves this house and one other. I opened it and cleaned out the snails, but it all looked OK and this made no difference.

Edited by Growltiger (Sat 11-Feb-12 17:01:19)

If the test socket disables all other sockets in the house, then you can be fairly sure that the £130 charge wont be levied.

The £130 and engineer visit warning is merely just the next step down the Q&A sheet, once engineer appears hopefully they will see something is amiss.

Here is an update. All the news is bad.

Today the BT phone (not broadband) engineer came.

The first thing he did was test the internal wiring and claimed that he had found a short circuit. I went and unplugged the three phones, no difference. Then while I was watching he jiggled his connecting leads and magically the fault totally vanished. He could not explain it. I plugged everything in again, still no fault.

Of course all this was irrelevant because the broadband fault is there when plugged directly into the engineer test socket. Will they charge me £130? Who knows, but I'm ready to argue if they try.

So next he tested the line and claimed it had no problem and I should contact BT broadband faults. I have to agree the line sounds fine.

I phoned broadband faults and spoke to someone who had never heard of faceplate splitters and thought I should have a microfilter on every phone. It took some time to explain what it meant. Next they tested the line and claimed there was a fault. Next they said they would "reset the line" and phone me back on Monday. I don't know what resetting the line means but as you may imagine there is absolutely no difference.

The broadband only works 90% of the time, uploads are very slow (183Kb). I'm no nearer getting this fixed. I am unhappy and will be even more unhappy if I get charged £130.

What does resetting the line mean? It just seemed a way to get rid of me.

Here are the current readings from the router:
Line state Connected
Connection time 0 days, 0:10:20
Downstream 1,651 Kbps
Upstream 183 Kbps

ADSL settings
VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation ITU-T G.992.5
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 6.3 dB / 5.9 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 40.0 dB / 23.8 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 0.0 dBm / 12.8 dBm

Reset the line is just a reset of target noise margins and any banding on WBC. So will do nothing for you.

You appear to have a fault that is affecting ADSL, but is showing clear for voice tests. Which is no surprise given how ADSL works.

Jiggling connector, explanation - dirty or loose contact.
Charge depends on what engineer writes on job sheet. If the fault was present with test socket, then should be no charge, but if it was a lead beyond test socket, then it may cost you.

Who booked a voice engineer?

I was told to book the voice engineer by the broadband people when they closed the broadband fault. So it was me.

What is WBC?

Edited by Growltiger (Fri 24-Feb-12 20:25:47)