BT Openreach work affecting my DSL synch speed

Hi,

I have had broadband with Plusnet on my line for the past 7 months. It's a relatively long line - 65dB attenuation - but has always synched at 1.5M or above. There have often been multiple retrains each day (SNR margin is 6dB or below) but the overall usability has been fine.

Today BT Openreach worked outside my house to fix a problem with a neighbour's line. They installed a new drop cable from the telegraph pole to the side of my house and ran the cable into my neighbour's property. (New cable attached to the side of my building without asking my permission).

I checked my line after the Openreach visit and see that it now trains at 700k (sometimes as high as 800k) downstream. The upstream remains unaffected at 440k.

I contacted PlusNet to report the issue, but they don't seem to understand that I have a problem with DSL connection rate rather than download speed - and they are unable to talk to Openreach about work they've done adjacent to (rather than directly on) my line.

I have also made a complaint to Openreach that they have installed new cables directly attached to my home (without at least asking me first) and that the consequence of their actions has been to half my broadband connection rate. I await a response.

I understand that DSL rates depend on local conditions and that additional local noise will affect my rate - but a 50% drop-off in 24 hours is surely ridiculous? The new lines they have installed are unconnected to any terminal equipment and so are unlikely to be the source of any noise, rather it would appear that my line has been re-routed to accommodate the changes they have made and is now either significantly longer or has greater attenuation than previously

I know that rates are not guaranteed and the standard response from an ISP will be that 700k is an acceptable rate, but has anyone managed to get a resolution to situations similar to mine? Is there any chance I can persuade Openreach to undo the changes they have made to the lines that have caused this issue?

Thanks,

Brett

are you fed through this new line ?

I didn't understand "The new lines they have installed are unconnected to any terminal equipment".

It's possible they disturbed a dodgy joint on the pole or something.

it is also possible that the modem synced low during the work and a resync now would improve things.

Or if the latter has happened a lot, that the target margins may have risen.

I'm not connected to the new lines - they go to the neighbours house but so far are not connected to anything. He's having some sort of PBX installed.

The router constantly trains at between 700 and 800k now - and retrains several times a day because the SNR is quite poor (this was the case before the work, it was common for the router to re-train at least once a day, but always synched at around 1.5M).

Okay what are the actual stats for the modem, the target noise margin may have been raised, rather than the line actually being made worse.

Thanks for the help.

Modem stats are:

Mode G.DMT
State SHOWTIME
Up Speed 448000
Down Speed 768000
SNR Margin 5.5 (actually this is constantly varying - values between 4.5 and 6.5)
Loop Att. 65.0

Okay well target margin does not look like it has changed.
Do you know what your stats were before?

Does a telephone still work?

I'm pretty sure that the stats were the same, or at least very similar, before - I know the attenuation was in excess of 60dB and that the SNR was low enough to get errors and re-trains.

The phone works fine. No noticeable change to that. I disconnected the phone and all the other extensions etc just in case something internally was affecting things, but this made zero difference to the stats or train-up speed.

PlusNet have asked me to run http://www.speedtester.bt.com/ tests three times before they will progress anything with BT. I'm still waiting to hear back from Openreach.

Do you know the MSR (Maximum Stable Rate) for your line? This would have been set during the inital 10 day period after activation on Max. Plusnet should be able to give you this information.

If you're syncing more than 20% below this, then Plusnet should be able to raise this as a fault with BT anyway (see http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/faqs_and_guides/dslmax_guide.shtml for details).

Thanks for that - I didn't know about the 20% below MSR thing.

I'll follow through the whole process of reporting the fault with PlusNet as I'm sure that the MSR would have been well in excess of 1M and I'm certainly getting more than 20% lower rates now.