Same old same old problems

Hi I am hoping you can assist. I am with Plusnet and they have done all they can to assist me in sorting out my problems. Sadly they can't. Having just moved the company gave me 0.78 to 1.2 download. Sadly 0.77 was achieved when we first moved in just over 2 months ago for less than 2 days. I have had BT here several times and they have tried to patch up but not give me a a constant link. In fact its now a none existent connection. Plusnet told me of a customer who had a 6m line and resolved it with a better router. I brought this Billion 7800N on their advice and also on the tech dept of Billion. Sadly with Billions help and PLN I still can't access a constant link. Our line is both above and under ground and is 7.5 KM's. With advice from Billion tech dept I have tried to adjust the SNR at different levels and nothing has worked. I am using a friends link to work on as now our worlds are connected to the web. If I lose broadband we could not buy and do our banking, insurance and many many other things. Yes we looked into all other possibilities, like line of site, satellite and mobile phone modems. The line of site by Quickline could not be achieved as its behind a woods and small hill. Other methods are too expensive. These costs are about a £1 a GB! Here is the crucial fact. The last time BT came and metered the line his machine registered a constant
link. And yet PLN two modems (they sent me their latest router) I have could not register the link and neither could Plusnet at the HQ. So why do they get a constant and I cannot achieve this? I am tearing out my hair. Any resolution ideas would be gratefully received - Thank you
PS the reason I am able to be on here is due to an amazing friend with more money than I have. He has lent me his 4G EE unit. It costs him I believe about £64 a month! Ouch. Living on morphine in large mounts daily means my money is tight and my wife has a basic pension.

Because test gear is expensive and may only be doing part of the job, and not doing a full end to end link complete with IP traffic.

What are the actual line stats from the modems you have tried?
Connection Speeds
Attenuation
SNR Margin
(6 figures, 3 for downstream and 3 for upstream)

After 16 years, I think the number of people with ADSL reportedly running on 10km long lines can still be counted on one hand.

Another factor may be the exchange you are on, since the longer lines tend to be on older exchanges which suffer from IPStream Max so, name the exchange, or at least the village and county so someone can figure it out for you.

If you can get 4G from EE then maybe the 10GB package at £25/m will let you do the crucial stuff at least. also check if any voucher scheme is mentioned on https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/postcode-search it may mean you can get a free satellite install done, and just pay the monthly costs (usage allowances like mobile - but unmetered overnight does help)

Thanks for the input. I have a voucher code already for alternative BB towards the hardware. Then comes the larger costs of allocated GB's. As I said Quickline was the cheaper of the deals and affordable as it worked out at about £25 a month unlimited and a download speed of 10mb! Sad to say the line of sight was not good due to damn trees. I will get the stats when I talk to Plusnet tomorrow. And then post them. Sad to say I can't do a test now as its been down for days. But I guess that is because the unstable link degrades the snr. I know the download seed was 0.13mb as for the other details I as yet don't have them. I may have images of the tests on an external hard drive, which I can't access as my USB cable link broke. Is there anything I can do to with my existing Billion or shall I send it back as it is not going to do the job? Or is there a possibility there could be a way to tweak it?
Oh and yes the exchange is an old one at Horsington. BT have stated they will not be upgrading this line, despite saying that we will have a better and faster UK.

The primary issue sounds to be very high attenuation due to a long line. When a line is unstable, tweaking the signal to noise ratio margin can sacrifice speed for increased stability - but the high attenuation means you have almost nothing to sacrifice in the first place. BT getting sync when they tested the line is a relative red herring, especially if this test did not stretch over several days. The line sounds just too marginal to be reliable, especially if the 0.13 speed (128kbit/s?) was the downstream sync speed when it did sync on the test gear.

Unfortunately your remedies in this case are very limited. DSL is a 'best efforts' service; if the line cannot reliably hold sync, your remedy is limited to cancellation of service and almost certainly a refund for the period when the line didn't work. The sub 1Mbit/s predicted speed should have alerted you to the possibility that the line wasn't going to work at all, but I appreciate that there's a big difference to you between a slow connection and no connection at all, also you might not have appreciated that such a low predicted speed means the possible outcome is no service.


It sounds as if you are outside the footprint of any BDUK funded fibre work as you have been offered a voucher for satellite. Unfortunately, I think you are in a location where wired Internet is not available. I'm guessing Quickline is fixed wireless - and if they cannot offer you service because of obstructed line of sight, your only options are mobile, satellite or bringing an alternative service to a location from where you access it over Wi-Fi (which might just overcome the line of sight barrier at your location).

At a guess down near the River Witham (if its the Lincolnshire Horsington) which has some speed tests in the 0.1 down and 0.2 up which fits in with estimates of distance.

Lincolnshire is keen on fixed wireless to help with a lot of the coverage not spots, so they likely that until exactly how the USO is dealt with is known that satellite or 4G is the best solution (4G is technically best but usage allowance at £50 to £75 for 100GB a month is the kicker.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

At a guess down near the River Witham (if its the Lincolnshire Horsington) which has some speed tests in the 0.1 down and 0.2 up which fits in with estimates of distance.

You are right on location. Lincolnshire is keen on fixed wireless to help with a lot of the coverage not spots, so they likely that until exactly how the USO is dealt with is known that satellite or 4G is the best solution (4G is technically best but usage allowance at £50 to £75 for 100GB a month is the kicker.

Yep all expensive stuff. I am cheesed off with the system as I love internet TV as one of them is GAIA TV which is important for us. As you state its a £1 a GB, until you get to £75.