About to leave PlusNet

I have speed issues yet again. BT have been tinkering in South London and there have been several problems that PlusNet know about -- I've not noticed them much myself. Except my Internet connection appeared to go down around 2pm on Aug 24th so I rebooted my router (Vigor 2820vn, latest f/w) and when it came back up I'd gone from 11MB to 3MB within the time it took to reboot. Now I know that if the BT exchange equipment see a problem they lower the line sync speed to create a more stable line. Thing is, my line was completely stable at 3dB and now it's jumped massively to ~21dB. When this happened back in March it took forever for PlusNet to pull their finger out and get it fixed. Six days of dicking around until the call was finally passed to someone who could actually help (press the right buttons). Now I'm in the same situation. PlusNet boast they will reply to tickets within 5 hours - I logged mine before 10am and they haven't even bothered to acknowledge it.

Question #34882553. Previous problem was 32502466. (btw, PlusNet make it very hard to even find the place to create a ticket -- bad, bad, bad little humons).

So I looked at Virgin's offerings and it'll cost me more money, but I'll have TV as an extra (from Freeview now), but at least I won't be scared [censored] to reboot my router and suffer from 10+ days of low speeds. I'm already paying £20/month for my package (it's an old one).

We seriously can't have a situation where rates drop to stupid speeds and stay there for 10 days whilst the system has a little think about it. This isn't progress - this rubbish needs to be ripped out and replaced by ADSL1 - at least that worked consistently. I'm now frightened to even look at my router, let alone do a firmware update where I might have to reboot it. I spent £170 on a router to make sure I avoided ANY problems, but in the end, the BT system takes away 80% of my usual bandwidth for 10 days. In fact, in my last experience, it was only with my intervention in raising a ticket that things improved. I seem to remember it was at a low speed for well over 10 days. For all I know it might have remained there if I hadn't kicked up a fuss. And it took PlusNet over a week to fix it last time. The only way to fix speed problems is to talk directly to Sheffield support staff and hope you get the one who has the magic button next to his keyboard.

Is anyone else fed up with systems which drop your sync speeds like an atomic bomb going off and only restore them (sync, then IP profile) if you're really really good for a couple of weeks ? Is that enough to make you leave ?

No LLU at your exchange? I don't have the option of cable and went to LLU for BB because I wanted nothing to do with BTs daft system.

Honestly... this place already has the outlet on the wall, and the green Virgin street box is on the other side on my fence at the front. The cable from it to my socket can't be more than 15m if that. I got BB when it was first available and paid BT £265 to install the socket --- that's how BB was done in the old days; none of this DIY stuff They were great ish at the start but within a few years it went downhill and they paid me £60 to stop bothering their CEO with my complaints -- which incidentally was the £60 I needed to activate Bulldog. Bulldog were ok for a while, until they lost the plot, so I moved to PlusNet and they were great for almost all the time until BT took over. Now we have PlusNet blaming BT, BT saying ... "so what, who cares ... we're BT you know" *sighs*

Well there you go -- apparently there is nothing wrong with my line -- PLUSNET said so. Just received this email.
---------------------------------
We are pleased to be able to inform you that a member of our Customer Support Centre has now escalated your Question [number 34882553 ] for further investigation.

The following comment was added to the Question Dear Mr Swift, Apologies for the delay in getting back to you - we work through all questions raised on a first com, first served basis and aim to respond as soon as is possible.

The results of your BT speed test show that although lower than previously your speeds are well within the acceptable limit for your line, "For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 1000-7150 Kbps.". This means that we will not be able to raise a speed fault query with BT as they would reject it as the line is, in their opinion, offering an acceptable speed.

You may be able to increase your speeds by plugging your router directly into the test socket, a guide for doing so can be found by clicking the link below.
--------------------------------------------------
I'm speechless. Those idiots over at BT screw up my line with their tinkering - it was working absolutely fine before, but it's apparently OK to go from 11MB to 3MB in a few minutes. [censored]. [censored]. I've got 25 years experience in I.T. If you think this is acceptable behaviour for PlusNet, and for BT (same company), then I need a very large bottle of Jack Daniels (and I don't really like alcohol!!!)

My line was completely stable at 11MB and 3dB SNR since March. ALL of this was in the call details - I've worked the other end long enough to know what details they need and give 1.5x that. PLUSNET need a good kick up the [censored].

If your noise margin is at 21dB you need to reboot the router.

The highest automatic settig by the DLM is 15dB, so the last reconnection took place during high noise.

We have no idea of the true state of affairs until you reboot or at least resync and get new stats, which it would be a good idea to post.

With your experience in IT I'm sure you will appreciate the best thing would be to switch the router off for perhaps 30 minutes. The power cycle would remove any confusion in the running version of the firmware, and the time gap should allow the session to expire.

You didn't really reply to TheHorseman re LLU at your exchange, which could be an option worth considering.

This all started with BT traffic problems, so I rebooted my router, and it happened after that. I agree that such an incredible change from 3dB to 21dB could have been because it re-connected during a very noisy period. However, there is no audible noise on my line, nor has there ever been. From the BT inlet I have CAT6 cable for a further 5m, terminating in BT faceplace. All input power is filtered and I suffer no power problems, glitches, etc., in this building otherwise it would be picked up by one of my UPSs. I've started a fault ticket with PlusNet so now can't reboot my router, and reboots / glitches / line noise are what appear to cause the exchange equipment to increase the SNR and lower speed. There have been no firmware changes recently, nor any need to amend the configuration. The router is totally stable and was last up for 189 days without any issues. However, I agree that another reboot "might" be worthwhile since the interleaving is zero, and it never was that way before. But surely that means BT have turned off interleaving on my line for some reason.

No "may be worthwhile" about it.

It is essential to re-sync, even if you don't reboot. I still recommend a 30-minute switch-off. The chances of that giving any more benefit than a reboot are tiny however, and the probability of a reboot being necessary is low.

It's what I would do though.

For info, this is what I have now:
> ad st
--------------------------- ATU-R Info (hw: annex A, f/w: annex A) -----------
Running Mode : ADSL2+(G.992.5) State : SHOWTIME
DS Actual Rate : 3069276 bps US Actual Rate : 1016888 bps
DS Attainable Rate : 6520000 bps US Attainable Rate : 1016000 bps
DS Path Mode : Interleave US Path Mode : Interleave
DS Interleave Depth : 0 US Interleave Depth : 0
NE Current Attenuation : 43 dB Cur SNR Margin : 21 dB
DS actual PSD : 17. 9 dB US actual PSD : 11. 3 dB
ADSL Firmware Version : 232201_A
-------------------------------- ATU-C Info ---------------------------------
Far Current Attenuation : 22 dB Far SNR Margin : 6 dB
CO ITU Version[0] : 00004946 CO ITU Version[1] : 0000544e
DSLAM CHIPSET VENDOR : < IFTN >
>
This is what I had before:
--------------------------- ATU-R Info (hw: annex A, f/w: annex A) -----------
Running Mode : ADSL2+(G.992.5) State : SHOWTIME
DS Actual Rate : 12473000 bps US Actual Rate : 888000 bps
DS Attainable Rate : 12284000 bps US Attainable Rate : 888000 bps
DS Path Mode : Interleave US Path Mode : Interleave
DS Interleave Depth : 64 US Interleave Depth : 8
NE Current Attenuation : 42 dB Cur SNR Margin : 2 dB
DS actual PSD : 20. 6 dB US actual PSD : 12. 6 dB
ADSL Firmware Version : 232201_A
-------------------------------- ATU-C Info ---------------------------------
Far Current Attenuation : 22 dB Far SNR Margin : 11 dB
CO ITU Version[0] : 00004946 CO ITU Version[1] : 0000544e
DSLAM CHIPSET VENDOR : < IFTN >

Darn you RobertS - ok, I will power down for 30 mins - what harm can it do. Thanks for giving me the nerve to pour petrol on my router !! Back in 30.

Some more info which might be interesting in the meantime:

Phone exchange: SYDENHAM
Estimated line speed: 5 - Checked on 2010-08-26 21:26:52
Current line speed: 2500

http://usertools.plus.net/@gateway/

You are currently connected to the gateway known as ptn-ag01.
This is located in Telehouse North.

My SNR did originally go to ~15dB after the reboot / problem, then went to 6db, then 21db when BT started overnight work (which they didn�t tell PlusNet about) at about 00:45 on August 26th. I remote (exchange end) was terminated every few minutes. It lasted right up until 6am, and it was them doing it because the addresses weren�t valid for PlusNet, it was �Own IP Address : 172.16.12.238�, which wasn�t going to give me Internet access. So it was BT that caused the initial problems, and BT whose work in the exchange, affecting my line, caused that 15dB to jump to 21dB. The fault lies squarely with BT.

PlusNet sent at email early AM confirming this. They said �resolved� but they never sent any previous email saying there was a fault, nor was this scheduled work which was previously emailed out to customers.
26/08/2010 @ 08:13 Problems connecting on 21CN in Greater London (63234) - Resolved
We have been informed that maintenance work on 21CN in the Greater London area during the early hours of this morning have affected a number of customers. This is now resolved and we would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. Should you still be experiencing difficulties then we would advise you to power down your router for 60 minutes before trying to reconnect.

Watching the clock, and waiting with baited breath. It's exciting stuff!