So far so good :)

Well, been with PN for just over 3 days now and everything seems fine. In fact, the speed seems to be slightly faster than when I was with the fantastic 02 (and I thought no-one would be able to top *that*)

And the support is fantastic. The PN forum has PN staff on there literally 24/7 and they can physically adjust any settings that you need online.

Great stuff

Shhh .

No-one except another of the hundreds of thousands of happy PN customers is going to believe you.

I have been with them over 6 months and I am still very happy. Speeds are really good, the best out of any ISP I have tried (admittedly only Pipex/TT/Orange) and the connection is rock solid. I contacted them through the forums when I joined to have them tweak the settings and they were really helpful.

I hope they mean what they say about having a unlimited usage limit though because I am set to hit around 200GB this month thanks mostly to Netflix (which never buffers BTW ) and PS+.

I hope I follow on migration on Thursday (have router now, same Technicolor 582n) with same sort of speeds (or better I hope) to what I have on o2 now (not great as limited by distance from exchange).

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Have you moved phone as well? What are your stats.

In reply to a post by davetel:

Have you moved phone as well? What are your stats.

No, it's only BB that I've got. And here are the stats :

Uptime: 3 days, 3:28:07

DSL Type: ITU-T G.992.5

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 443 / 21,563

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/GB]: 945.55 / 1.22

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.8 / 0.0

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 11.9 / 23.5

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 29.9 / 3.0

System Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ----

Chipset Vendor ID (Local/Remote): BDCM / IFTN

Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 9 / 0

Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 1 / 0

Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Link (Remote): -

Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 3,586 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0

CRC Errors (Up/Down): 20 / 2,806

HEC Errors (Up/Down): 10 / 16,687

If you contact support, they can remove the upstream cap. As you seem at the moment to be on fast path I think you may get over 1Mbps instead of 443kbps. IIRC even on interleaved it would be 888kbps.

They may warn you that it could lower your downstream speed. That isn't the case these days, so far as we can tell.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

If you contact support, they can remove the upstream cap. As you seem at the moment to be on fast path I think you may get over 1Mbps instead of 443kbps. IIRC even on interleaved it would be 888kbps.

They may warn you that it could lower your downstream speed. That isn't the case these days, so far as we can tell.

Thanks but I'm not really too fussed about the upload speed. I'll bear in mind what you've said though

Day 2 on Plusnet - like this thread title - so far so good. Apart that is from o2 cutting me off on 7th and Plusnet connecting me on 8th. A whole day with no internet! was tearing hair out! There was confusion about whether migration was to be 7th or 8th. I got told 7th by staff, texts were a little unclear indicating 8th but staff said by midnight on 8th, one interpretation being by the turn of midnight just going into 8th. o2 obviously took date as 7th!

Other than that, same router make, same line, same speeds, though upload is much slower.

I like that you can get to stats (not that I really understand even after all this time) easily on admin logon.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

You should raise a ticket asking for the upload to be uncapped

In reply to a post by Oldjim:

You should raise a ticket asking for the upload to be uncapped

op say he not fussy about it.

Uh uh Max .

Aren't you confusing rob54 with Conrad3000?

what has that got to do with the post I replied to

Think you are confusing me with Conrad3000!

I'd like the upload speed uncapped as long it's not to the detriment of general performance and reliability, and have ticketed Plusnet to that effect. They replied, mentioning the 10 day training period and the upload cap is set to 448kb/s. Also that uncapping might cause a little decrease in download speed and answer if I do want them to uncap. As I don't have a blastingly fast connection (due I suppose to distance from exchange) and I don't know just how much of a difference uncapping upload will make, I think I'll at least wait until the 10 days and see how I feel about it then.

Increasing the 448 Kbps to the what ever ADSL2+ will manage will NOT rob any downstream speed, this only happens if you enable Annex M, which gives upstream potentially to 2 Mbps. So someone at PlusNet has briefed staff wrongly.

As for reliability, if the line is performing well and not noisy then no reason to expect it perform badly.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Increasing the 448 Kbps to the what ever ADSL2+ will manage will NOT rob any downstream speed, this only happens if you enable Annex M, which gives upstream potentially to 2 Mbps. So someone at PlusNet has briefed staff wrongly.

As for reliability, if the line is performing well and not noisy then no reason to expect it perform badly.

Thank you Andrew, its really useful to know that. Having said that though, how do I know that Annex M will not be enabled (he says in total ignorance). I suppose Annex M must be to do with how the asymmetry is split??

Before:

Downstream 18415K Upstream 445K

After:

Downstream 18415K Upstream 1279K

The ADSL2+ uncapped upstream will not affect your downstream, only if Plusnet enabled Annex M by BT Wholesale, then it will affect your downstream. Annex M will cost extra charge.

Any faster costs extra so you will not be put on that. A faster upload should make no difference to the download thus.

The faster upload should make things 'feel' a fair bit faster as currently that slow uploads a bit of a cap on how quick datas going out.

Data needs to send in and out for sites to load etc. I find that on 448 websites 'feel' much slower to load.

So someone at PlusNet has briefed staff wrongly.

Now there's a first! Lol

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Data needs to send in and out for sites to load etc. I find that on 448 websites 'feel' much slower to load.

Yeh that makes sense!!

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Before:

Downstream 18415K Upstream 445K

After:

Downstream 18415K Upstream 1279K

The ADSL2+ uncapped upstream will not affect your downstream, only if Plusnet enabled Annex M by BT Wholesale, then it will affect your downstream. Annex M will cost extra charge.

*Envy* at those speeds! You must live next door to the exchange!

In reply to a post by rob54:

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Data needs to send in and out for sites to load etc. I find that on 448 websites 'feel' much slower to load.

Yeh that makes sense!!

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Before:

Downstream 18415K Upstream 445K

After:

Downstream 18415K Upstream 1279K

The ADSL2+ uncapped upstream will not affect your downstream, only if Plusnet enabled Annex M by BT Wholesale, then it will affect your downstream. Annex M will cost extra charge.

*Envy* at those speeds! You must live next door to the exchange!

my exchange is half a mile away

In reply to a post by adslmax:

my exchange is half a mile away

Just looking on www.kitz.co.uk mine is 2.15km (1.34miles) straight line and 4km (2.49miles) by road. I guess there maybe more complication with wiring as we are in a small purpose built block of flats. As far as I'm aware, there's a services 'cupboard' inside the bin room so maybe phone wiring is in there. There's no telegraph poles and overhead wires here.

Annex M is a special setting on ADSL2+, that you could get on Be - I'm not sure on O2, and you can now get on some BT Wholesale ISPs.

What it does is take a chunk of the downstream frequencies to add to the ones for upstream. That increases the maximum upstream from around 1.3Mbp to around 2.5Mbps.

If the downstream sync is below 16Mbps beforehand, about 2.5Mbps of that is lost, and because the upstream attenuation is fairly high (like the downstream), you don't gain any upstream speed compared to the standard Annex A. So lose-lose.

The higher the original downstream sync the less you lose with Annex M, and you get increasing amounts of upstream. Around 20+Mbps you get upstream approaching 2.3-2.5Mbps and no loss of downstream.

As others have said, no ISP ever puts you on Annex M unless you request it. The uncapping you would be requesting is just to allow up to 1.3Mbps, except I think if interleaving is turned on it gets limited to 888kbps.

Thank you for that Bob.

Seems from their forums, Annex M is available only to business customers, at a £10 premium. So thank you folks, my question is thoroughly answered. I will feel safe in asking them to uncap me, although I will wait until the training period is over.

In reply to a post by rob54:

Thank you for that Bob.

Seems from their forums, Annex M is available only to business customers, at a £10 premium. So thank you folks, my question is thoroughly answered. I will feel safe in asking them to uncap me, although I will wait until the training period is over.

Be careful, because sometime BT Wholesale mess it up when asked to be uncapped upstream but BT did removed my fast path by mistake and put interleaving on, and increasing SNR from 3.0dB to 6.0dB and didn't uncapped upstream. Plusnet forced to re-order again and this time removed uncapped upstream then reset SNR to 3 and re-training again for 10 days. It very rare for BT to made mistake,

OK thanks.

BTW, just looked at the stats from the router. There's an awfully big number for FEC. Might that be to do with wifi not working well with my phone? I had to turn off 'n' on the o2 box, even though (cheapest Android Samsung) phone is supposed to be 'n'. Must find out how to do that again.


Uptime: 1 day, 8:05:38
DSL Type: ITU-T G.992.3
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 444 / 6,378
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 95.25 / 859.24
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.8 / 0.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 29.3 / 48.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 22.2 / 6.1
System Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ----
Chipset Vendor ID (Local/Remote): BDCM / IFTN
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 9 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 1 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): -
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 23,370 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 7,766,260
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 49 / 420
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 22 / 5,321

Somewhere you have a strange/nasty problem.

For starters you are on ADSL2 (G.992.3) not ADSL2+ (G.992.5). That should be looked into. The sync (bandwidth) itself isn't too bad.

The FEC count means you are on interleaved, not Fast Path. All pointing to a fair degree of noise. However the FEC count is high but not extreme, but the local error second count is smelly.

Were things always like this? I'm sure you would have shouted or somehow it would have been picked up while you've been on O2? Have you got any recent O2 stats?

I wouldn't expect a mobile phone to cause any issues of this kind, but its power supply might.

One you shouldn't have to turn the WiFi off and on and quite frankly it should be making no difference. If the phones acting up with that it's something you need to address with the phone. Are you out of the wireless range? With the phone being inexpensive it might struggle to get WiFi signal where other (more expensive) devices can connect fine. So your laptop may work fine but your phone may be seeing little or no signal.

FEC errors are high. I am seeing less than 10,000 a day. I would try to get the upstream uncapped and see how things are. If it's unstable etc look into it further.

I just found some stats I posted here in Nov 2012 from my o2 router. Shows G.992.5. Would there be a reason for it not being ADSL2+ (a good reason I mean), now, maybe to do with the 10 day thing? Or should I get in touch with Plusnet?

Quiet line test is quiet. I do occasionally hear what sounds like dialling noises faintly when on phone, and even fainter conversation. Comes and goes. Was like that for a few weeks then fine for ages and recently started again from time to time.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

One you shouldn't have to turn the WiFi off and on and quite frankly it should be making no difference. If the phones acting up with that it's something you need to address with the phone. Are you out of the wireless range? With the phone being inexpensive it might struggle to get WiFi signal where other (more expensive) devices can connect fine. So your laptop may work fine but your phone may be seeing little or no signal.

FEC errors are high. I am seeing less than 10,000 a day. I would try to get the upstream uncapped and see how things are. If it's unstable etc look into it further.

Disabling 'n' on the o2 router V made the wifi to the phone reliable again as it had been with the original box 1 which was not 'n' capable. Signal is OK in room where router is, but drops in another room. And this is just a single floor flat so not far away, though there is wired glass in door and partition between living room and hall which I guess ain't gonna help! I don't have a laptop. My desktop PC is Ethernet wired.

Do you reckon getting the upstream uncapped will help the FEC errors then?

I'd say the problem is showing there, but because the O2 DLM is turned off after the first few days the result is different.

How did the noise margin get to 9.5dB?

I do occasionally hear what sounds like dialling noises faintly when on phone, and even fainter conversation. Comes and goes. Was like that for a few weeks then fine for ages and recently started again from time to time.

There's your problem. Quite what causes it, and what to do about it, I'm not sure at the moment, as intermittent stuff like that is a pig for Openreach engineers to trace.

Edit - nothing at all to do with the 10-day period. Completely irrelevant, and the same with the phone problem. The 10-day period is greatly misunderstood. Have a look on my website .

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 10-Aug-13 23:45:56)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I'd say the problem is showing there, but because the O2 DLM is turned off after the first few days the result is different. Presumably DLM is not turned off with Plusnet at least in the 10 days.

How did the noise margin get to 9.5dB?

Not sure I understand you. Is it to do with the fact o2 DLM is turned off, or that that is ADSL2+ and my Plusnet stat shows ADSL2?

Interleaving sounds like a good thing (from your site and the link to kitz.co.uk), given apparent noise.

Noise margin 9.5dB? Pass.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

There's your problem. Quite what causes it, and what to do about it, I'm not sure at the moment, as intermittent stuff like that is a pig for Openreach engineers to trace.

I reckoned the same, be really difficult to trace. Bit of a worry in case other people can make out my conversations though. As far as what I can hear - I can make out the gender of the voice, and that's it.

Disabling 'n' on the o2 router V made the wifi to the phone reliable again as it had been with the original box 1 which was not 'n' capable.

This usually only helps when you are at the edge of the wireless reception and is a little hit and miss I have found. As you're only using the phone wirelessly and your speeds aren't above 20Mbps it's not going to hurt to disable wireless N. Before you do this though try the following.
1) Check for a setting in the router, usually known as channel width. If it's on auto or 40Mhz change it to 20Mhz
2) Turn of auto channel selection by trying wireless channel 11 first, then try wireless channel 6, then try wireless channel 1. It's likely the wireless channel your router is using is just experiencing some interference, so moving to another channel would help here.

Signal is OK in room where router is, but drops in another room. And this is just a single floor flat so not far away, though there is wired glass in door and partition between living room and hall which I guess ain't gonna help! I don't have a laptop. My desktop PC is Ethernet wired.

As the flat doesn't sound overly large I am really tempted to point blame to the phone, especially as it's been an issue over multiple devices. I have a 3 floor house that's fairly large and I can get signal around the whole building with the router fairly central. A cheap wireless printer does have some issues though.

Do you reckon getting the upstream uncapped will help the FEC errors then?

It's not going to help but why not get the extra speed? Also if the errors are not impacting your connection don't worry! If it's unstable etc then start to be concerned.

Having said that though, how do I know that Annex M will not be enabled (he says in total ignorance).

Because you haven't ordered it as a product for Plusnet. They won't put you on it, unless you order and pay for it.

There's your problem. Quite what causes it, and what to do about it, I'm not sure at the moment, as intermittent stuff like that is a pig for Openreach engineers to trace.

Overhearing is indeed a pig to trace, unless of course it is due to a good old fashioned battery contact fault on the line. If you speak to PN and tell them this, they will have you report it through your voice provider, and this is likely to get you nowhere, with a decent download speed, I'd say you might also struggle to get PN to get an SFI out, but it would be interesting to see what an Openreach pair quality test made of your line. Maybe low AC balance, or a small battery contact to be looked at. If you ring PN, the simplest question would be does my line test OK ?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

For starters you are on ADSL2 (G.992.3) not ADSL2+ (G.992.5). That should be looked into. The sync (bandwidth) itself isn't too bad.

On the same ticket to Plusnet re: upload, I added that stats from router show G.992.3 indicating ADSL2, not as with o2 G.992.5 indicating ADSL2+. They confirmed I am currently on ADSL2+. Now I'm proper confused!

You are on an ADSL2+ package, but the problem on the line is causing the exchange MSAN/DSLAM and your router to connect only on ADSL2. Sounds like the responder to your ticket was not the brightest cookie around.

I wonder then if its worth waiting until Plusnet take over the phone line so they can be the ones to sort line out. Or is that unfair.

Who is the line with at the moment, and when is it due to move? Fairness doesn't come into it, but reporting a line fault just before a move may not be the best thing to do, in case it isn't fixed by the time the move happens.

There's certainly no point in chasing the broadband side, at least the G.992.3. That will sort itself when/if the line is fixed. No harm in getting the upstream uncapped.

BT at the moment. Line due to move 22 Aug to Plusnet.

I'm not sure what I'd do.

Plus net has done the same to us (amongst other blunders). We've been provisioned on G.DMT (ADSL1) instead of ADSL2+.

Initially, Plus Net insisted that it had provisioned ADSL2+. When that never materialised, we were fobbed off with the claim that ADSL1 is the best that our line can achieve.(7.1Mbps/448Kbps).

In truth, before we migrated to Plus Net, we were getting a superb, rock-solid 18Mbps sync with Talk Talk. *sigh*. In hindsight we never should have migrated. We only did so for Plus Net's budget FTTC offer (which has now expired).

Talking to Plus Net customer services, however polite they are, is like talking to a brick wall. Orders have taken absolutely ages to action. Reminiscent of the pre-privatisation days of the GPO.

From migrating to Plus Net (18th June) to take up its half-price FTTC offer, we're still waiting for fibre two months later!

In the process, Plus Net left us without any internet for 8 days. The Plus Net's front office system hasn't correctly interfaced with the Openreach back office software. Consequently, services have been wrongly activated (e.g. ADSL1 instead of ADSL2+) or worse not ordered at all.

Lately, there's been another bone of contention with Plus Net's penny-pinching policy over its FTTC provisioning. That probably warrants a thread of its own.

Briefly, the BT speed estimator reckons that our line can support 38Mbps on VDSL2. However, the BT estimator is notoriously inaccurate, more often underestimating the likely speed (so as not to disappoint). Consequently, our potential line speed is probably much higher than 38Mbps. Perhaps mid-40s, maybe even 50Mbps.

Nevertheless, Plus Net still uses the results of that inaccurate BT speed estimator when provisioning a new VDSL2 service. For lines where that BT estimate is at or below 40Mbps, Plus net orders the inferior 40/20 service from Openreach, instead of the 80/20 service.

Reason?

The 40Mbps service has a wholesale price that is two pounds cheaper per month than the 80Mbps service. Kerching for Plus Net!

Since BT locks down all its VDSL modems, most punters are probably unaware that the maximum attainable rate of their line is much higher than 40Mbps. And so they're being capped at 40Mbps. And since they're paying the same as 80/20 customers, they're being short-changed to boot.

I have just migrated to PlusNet from o2, in fact it was a day earlier than they said. So far so good. I was on Plusnet before then Orange, F2s until they got taken over then o2 until they got taken over. Out of all of them I had no problems with o2 until fairly recently then the speed pages downloaded seemed to be erratic. I didn't want to be on Sky broadband anyway so here I am.

Edited by deleted (Mon 12-Aug-13 19:33:21)

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

As you're only using the phone wirelessly and your speeds aren't above 20Mbps it's not going to hurt to disable wireless N. Before you do this though try the following.
1) Check for a setting in the router, usually known as channel width. If it's on auto or 40Mhz change it to 20Mhz
2) Turn of auto channel selection by trying wireless channel 11 first, then try wireless channel 6, then try wireless channel 1. It's likely the wireless channel your router is using is just experiencing some interference, so moving to another channel would help here.

As the flat doesn't sound overly large I am really tempted to point blame to the phone, especially as it's been an issue over multiple devices. I have a 3 floor house that's fairly large and I can get signal around the whole building with the router fairly central. A cheap wireless printer does have some issues though.

Can't see a channel width setting or anything in Mhz.
I tried changing from auto to selecting various wireless channels when I had the same problems with the o2 router 5 (same Technilolor model). No difference. Even installed a wifi analyser on the phone so I could see which channels were most used. Right now I can see 11 which the router is autoselected to is the most congested, 1 being next, then 6. Like now, it would be OK for a bit, then not, then leave it, then OK for a bit, no matter near to the router.
When I had the problem before, someone suggested giving the phone a static IP. I can see a setting within 'Advanced' in Wi-fi settings and a tickbox for static IP, which then ungreys several other fields - IP address and Gateway both of which have numbers in, then Netmask, DNS1, DNS2. Don't know what to do with those or even if any of that would help (or harm). It is the cheapest (at the time in 2011) Samsung (Galaxy Apollo).

Hi there,

Really sorry to hear all that - would you be willing to PM me your Plusnet username, or post a ticket ID in the forums here? That'd enable us to look into what's happened and see what we can do to sort things out (and maybe even make it up to you if we can).

You're correct in that if a customer's estimate is below 40Mb then we provision on the 40/10 service by default, which frankly is sound business sense. Customers on Unlimited who've been provided as such are more than welcome to request an upgrade to the 80/20 service if they wish to though, it's a 24 hour modify order so completes overnight.

Deleted

Edited by kasg (Tue 13-Aug-13 12:49:16)

I phoned up support to ask about getting my upload speed uncapped and was told that this would be ordered. Over the next couple of hours I got 5 emails culminating in one that said the engineer had been booked for the fibre install. I hadn't asked for a fibre install and am not at the moment able to get fibre. There is an open ticket/question at the moment from when I phoned about this it is # 73143764. This has been open since 9.30 last night. I am just keen to make sure that a) the fibre appointment is cancelled and b) my uploads are uncapped. Any help from the PlusNet reps on here would be much appreciated

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Aug-13 18:32:19)

If you post a ticket number from the account the Plusnet reps will know who you are

In reply to a post by MarkFR:

I phoned up support to ask about getting my upload speed uncapped and was told that this would be ordered. Over the next couple of hours I got 5 emails culminating in one that said the engineer had been booked for the fibre install. I hadn't asked for a fibre install and am not at the moment able to get fibre. There is an open ticket/question at the moment from when I phoned about this it is # 73143764. This has been open since 9.30 last night. I am just keen to make sure that a) the fibre appointment is cancelled and b) my uploads are uncapped. Any help from the PlusNet reps on here would be much appreciated

Sounds about par for the course!

Snipe, snipe, snipe! Boring and unhelpful!

But unfortunately, every one of the snipes is when another of the seemingly daily cockups occur. Unpleasant though it is, he is right.

I see nothing right in it. It helps no one to sneer at every cockup w/out offering anything constuctive. It's not as tho' PN is unaware of these issues.

You are obviously oblivious of the fact that you have excellent technical support. particularly the PN reps here, that are [jealous] knowledgeable of BB technology and directly address points raised with them rather than beat about the bush, reading irrelevant scripts and 'swap filters and clear cookies' stabs in the dark [/jealous] , that others on other ISPs would give their eye-teeth for.

I remember some sneers and snipes toward me in the form of "possibly we should run a table comparing BT to PN cockups" when previously mentioned. I stand by my previous comment, that despite a much higher number of subscribers, you don't see so many embarrassing connection cock-ups with BT - And yes, I know it's all down to BT OR much of the time, but it does make you wonder and it's not a very good advert. As for the snipes, I'm not really sniping, just having a little fun with those with a sense of humor failure I know will rise to the bait. You have to admit, that the better PN reps here, are all too often embarrassed by the incompetent advice given out by others.

Edited by professor973 (Tue 13-Aug-13 23:40:35)

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

You are obviously oblivious of the fact that ....

You know very well that is utter balderdash. You read every post I make in the broadband forums.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 14-Aug-13 01:21:04)

Hi there, looks like the agent who responded to the ticket you mention had intended the reply to be on a different account :/ Really sorry about that, I've let him know.

I've also placed an order to uncap your upstream for you, that should complete tomorrow.

Thanks Matthew.