Slow Download Speeds & Low Noise MArgin

Hi,

I'm hoping someone can help me understand my broadband slow download speed issue in the hope that I can get BT to resolve our problem successfully.

For the past month we have seen poor download speeds in the house of around 0.9Mbps. A couple of weeks ago we had an Openreach engineer visit us and he discovered some resistace on the line at a junction on the outside wall of the house. He swapped the junction for some new connectors and found a 100% balanced line when retesting. He made a call to BT and managed to get a Connection speed of around 8Mbps from the exchange and we saw around 7Mbps within the house. He left and I was a happy man.

Within a week the connection speed had dropped to about 2.5Mbps and we only saw a 0.9Mbps download speed in the house. Therefore we got another Openreach engineer to visit and he found a stable line. As a precaution he ran a new shorter run of cable from the incoming line to our master socket (which he also swapped from an NTE5 to an SSFP Infinity socket to aoid the need for an ADSL fiter). He left without getting the speed up to what the previous engineer achieved but the Download Speed was stable and at about 2.5Mbps.

5 days later and the Download Speed is once again at 0.9Mbps. I can see by logging in to the BT HomeHub 3 router that the Connection speed is between 4Mbps and 5Mbps, although this fluctuates possibly because the Dynamic Line Management is tweaking the line?

My question is why are we not achieving better Download Speeds when the Connection Speed is significantly higher? Below is a read out of the router Connection data whic I have mainly included because I have noticed the Download Noise Margin fluctuates betwee 1.8dB and 4.5d which I thought was a little low. I'm hoping someone else can examine the rest of the data and point out any obvious issues.


ADSL Line Status
Connection information
Line state: Connected
Connection time: 0 day, 00:59:29
Downstream: 4,512 Kbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps

ADSL settings

VPI/VCI: 0/38
Type: PPPoA
Modulation: G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type: Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up): 2.5 dB / 17.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up): 31.5 dB / 18.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up): 19.8 dBm / 12.3 dBm
FEC Events (Down/Up): 1959517 / 0
CRC Events (Down/Up): 380 / 0
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
HEC Errors (Down/Up): 497 / 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Apologies for my ramblings and for any information I have failed to provide. Ay light hat can be shed on this would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

You see on old ipstream max and the issue will be that the line is flapping around due to bursts of noise and when it connects slow the ip profile setting gets set low but will take up to 5 days to improve again even when the connection is running better.

Following on from MrSaffron's post, the IP Profile is what determines your maximum throughput speed. It adjusts to a figure determined by the connection speed, but lower. When you get a low connection speed for whatever reason it drops almost immediately, but it can take days to rise when you get the decent connection speed back.

More information, and a table of IP Profile speeds.

You can find your IP Profile by running the BT Wholesale Performance Test, (ignore the red instructions for now, just say you've done them), and on the initial results page click Further Diagnostics near the bottom.

It's worth this time copying and pasting the full contents of the down and up text boxes of results. We don't need to see the graphics.

Many thanks for your replies MrSaffron and RobertoS.

So what you are saying is that the system is adjusting itself to find an IP Profile that is stable and providing a reasonable speed? And also that the system takes days to adjust speed upwards but drops quickly downwards if there is a problem with the line?

Over the last 24 hours the Connection speed has been fluctuating between 4.5Mbps and 0.48Mbps and is currently at 1.54Mbps (all according to the HomeHub 3)

I ran a BT Wholesale Broadband Performance Test and the results seem incredibly low. It suggests a Download Speed of 0.24Mbps, Upload Speed of 0.35Mbps and Ping Latency 49.5ms. when I selected the Further Diagnostics icon I got the following:-

"Results Image not loaded

1. Best Effort Test:

Download Speed : 0.25 Mbps


Your speed test has completed and the results are shown above, however during the test an error occurred while trying to retrieve additional details regarding your service. As a result we are unable to determine if the speed you received during the test is acceptable for your service. Please re-run the test if you require this additional information."

I re ran the test with the same results.

I'm still a bit clueless as to why the connection speed is continuing to drop. Surely if the line is fine then the connection speed should be staying constant and then in a few days it should attempt to find a faster speed.

I should also point out that there is a lot of hissing noise on the phone line too. This is still there even with the new Master socket with inbuilt ADSL filter. I can sometimes hear the digital bleeps of the broadband in the background too.

I'm happy to wait for a week to see if there is an improvement in the connection speed but if any of the information i have provided leads you to think that there is still something wrong then I'd like to get onto BT again sooner.

Thanks for any more help you can give to me.

What type of phone do you have?

The phone is a BT Freestyle 750. Whilst I have heard that cordless phones can cause interference with Wireless broadband, I have tested the broadband using an Ethernet cable and the results are still low speeds. I have also connected an older corded telephone and still hear the hissing noise on the line. BT have run line tests and have picked up no fault which has left me a bit stumped.

Hmm, there would seem to be a fair few FEC and CRC errors for a fairly short up time on the router stats. It may be you have some local REIN source causing this, and the low snr .....

From your username, I wonder if you are on a farm, are there any electric fences near to the property ? If so, it might be worth turning them off and unplugging them, then restart the router to see if you get better stats ?

Thanks again for all the help with this.

I used to work on a farm - hence the username - but I now live in a detached property beside a main road approximately 2km from the exchange in a moderately populated small town. We have no electric fences at or near the property but I like your thinking Zarjaz...

Until a few months ago I lived in Dorset in a rural house that was more than 7km from the exchange with a line Attenuation of 63dB and I still managed to achieve a pretty stable Download Speed of between 1.5 and 2 Mbps. Surely I can at least match that in the new house which is closer to the exchange.

Not exactly.

Ip profile is a function of how bt wholesale work and responds to the sync speed

Inference of all the variation is not a clever algorithm to find stable speed but intermittent noise causing problems for you. The ip profile when waiting to rise just makes the slow speeds more apparent

Just a quick update as I'm busy working away at the moment but last night the connection speed had dropped to 160kbps. It has stayed this low for 12 and a half hours. The Home Hub readout is as follows

ADSL Line Status
Connection information
Line state: Connected
Connection time: 0 day, 12:30:22
Downstream: 160 Kbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps

ADSL settings

VPI/VCI: 0/38
Type: PPPoA
Modulation: G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type: Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up): 16.4 dB / 11.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up): 33.0 dB / 19.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up): 13.1 dBm / 12.3 dBm
FEC Events (Down/Up): 19 / 2462
CRC Events (Down/Up): 0 / 0
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
HEC Errors (Down/Up): 0 / 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

What is the likelihood that the connection speed is going to rise without me calling BT again?

With regards to REIN issues, our incoming line enters the building directly below our Consumer Unit. There is a junction in the line (which leads to the new internal wiring to our master socket).situated next to the C.U. Another point to mention is that Eon have supplied the house with an Electricity Monitor device which has a base unit attached to the Electrical wires at the C.U. which wirelessly connects to the display unit. Could any of these things be messing with our signal?? Clearly something is causing a problem somewhere.

Once again many thanks for your help.