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[Ornum]

I'm on infinity 2, I know my line isn't capable of full speed, but the quality of it just Isn't up to scratch.

Some information about my line and my experiences:

Up until a few months ago I was getting download speeds of 40mb and uploads around 6mb which seemed to drop to around 32/4. My pings were always around 22 when pinging bbc.co.uk and around 35-45 when playing cs go matchmaking which is to be understood as there is a ton of aluminium where I live so my line isn't of the greatest quality. I'm connected to an ECI cabinet about 400 meters away (a BT engineer verified that I am connected to this cabinet during a visit a couple of years ago). When G.INP was switched on at my cab, my speeds jumped to around 46/8 and my pings in general were less than half. 9-12 to bbc.co.uk, 20-30 in cs go matchmaking (as low as 8 on community servers in the UK). As you all know, G.INP was disabled about 2 months ago and this is when my line hit rock bottom. I get around 20/4 right now and my pings are the highest they have ever been. 27-30 to bbc.co.uk, lucky to get less than 55-60 in cs go matchmaking and around 25-30 in UK based community servers.

The main purpose of my internet connection is gaming, and in 2016 with a FTTC connection I'm getting a worse experience than I did on 64k ISDN about 12 years ago, 512kbs ADSL 11 years ago, 8mb ADSL2 a few years ago and so on.

All in all gaming is frustrating and generally feels clunky and nowhere near as responsive as it should be.

Heres the line stats

    Upstream   Downstream
Current Rate (Kbps)   5219   30000
Max Rate (Kbps)   5326   44016
SNR Margin (dB)   6.1   8.4
Line Attenuation (dB)   32.5   22.2
Errors (Pkts)   0   108893

With the BT Wholesale speed test, on the first test I get around 21mb down/4.3mb up/ping 42.
On the second test (further diagnostics) I get around the same for download and sometimes it reports that the test was inconclusive and I get the option to run further tests which give around the same results and claim my line is performing poorly and to contact my ISP stating poor throughput on the third test.

From speedtest.net



27 is still much lower than I should be getting even though it's higher than what the BTW speedtest reports.

In conclusion, I feel the quality of service I am getting is awful and has gotten worse over time. From my line stats can someone tell me what speeds I should expect? Should I contact BT? Does anyone have any advice or information that might be useful?

Cheers!

[jid]

Given your downstream sync of 30,000kbps and an SNR Margin of 8.4dB, I would say DLM has banded your line, most likely due to instability.

Can you enter your phone number here: https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.TelephoneNumberOutput and then post back the Clean and Impacted speed ranges for FTTC on your line?

This is so we can see if your circuit is behaving within ranges - BT won't do anything if the line is within range.

G.INP would have very likely given you a speed improvement, it has for many but as you know it's been removed from ECI cabs for the moment.

As for paying for Infinity 2, you'd be better off downgrading to Infinity 1, as that now offers up to 52mbps as standard.

[Ornum]

Hi jid, thanks for the reply. Here's the info you asked for:

VDSL Range A (Clean)    45.2    32.4    8.9    6.1    --    Available    --    --
VDSL Range B (Impacted)    35    16.8    7.6    4.2    --    Available    --    --

as for the 8.4dB on the download, im pretty sure this must be a recent change. I recall it being 6 (I made a mental note of the downstream having a lower SNR than the upstream).

Yeah, I am aware of the new 52mbs package. I actually phoned BT just before Christmas 2 days before switching over to Plusnet when I realised that they cap your upload to 2mbs. I asked BT to match Plusnets price (39 quid incl line rental and any time calls) with my existing service (they did try to put me on Infinity 1 for the same price), blagged 125 quid Sainsburys gift card and a new HH5 out of em.

[jid]

Thanks for those details, your line is working within it's Impacted range - therefore getting an engineer could be difficult

However, what's more interesting to me is that you have that 30,000kbps sync and spare SNR Margin - which indicates your line is definitely banded by DLM. Most likely due to an event which caused a lot of errors or resyncs.

You could get in touch with BT and see what they say, if they run a line test, but DLM should eventually bring your speed back up all by itself, as it's designed to do

The Clean range is for a near perfect line, which with the evidence of DLM applying banding, your line is not in the clean range. However, it could be worth contacting BT and seeing what they do say if you have the time to do so - although I'd be confident that DLM would fix things all by itself eventually - just a waiting game!

[licquorice]

I'm afraid I don't share your confidence that DLM will relent and remove the banding. I'm still waiting after 3 months and as far as I know others have been waiting longer.

[Ornum]

One thing I never understood, is why does the BTW speedtest acceptable range always change depending on what speeds I'm currently getting? Surely the acceptable range shouldn't dip to meet the current speed of your line, which is always what happens when I do a test. Basically seems like my acceptable range is always a lower offset of my current speed. As far back as I can remember it always adapted to what speed I was currently getting, even once when it dropped to around 10mbs it said the acceptable range was something like 5-10mbs. Uh?

Surely an acceptable range should be based on something global like your estimated speed minus some percentage calculated by (insert some variables based on historical statistics of the line/cabinet here) to the estimated speed BT give you. Acceptable range should be a global range for the lifespan of your line, not change as and when it sees fit or at least never change the upper value when the user knows the usual range of his line. One day, 37-44 is acceptable, next day (or even an hour later) 25-29?

So, basically, from what I have seen it is impossible to actually drop below the acceptable range as the acceptable range always drops along with your current speed. So whats the effin point of even having an acceptable range?

Also, how the hell do BT define acceptable, because it doesn't match my own definition.

In short, if my line for the majority of the 3 years I have had it has been 36-44mb I'm going to draw the conclusion that that is the acceptable range. When one day it's 15mb slower and BT drops the acceptable range by 15-20mb it's basically like being told "you get what we give and you will be happy with it!"

[Ornum]

Oh, and my download SNR since my original post has jumped around, going lower an higher. Right no it has settled at a higher value of 8.9.

EDIT: Right after saying this it's gone up .1 to 9 and the upload dropped by .1 from 6.1 to 6. I have never seen my upload at 6, it has always been 6.1 or 6.2

[Ornum]

Something else I wanted to ask is about the errors you see in the original post. This was after a fresh reboot of the router. I always get around 110k errors on the downstream as soon as i make a connection then I get very few after, if any. Since the original post my downstream erros went up by less than 1k and upload went from 0 to 50. SNR as im watching it now, upstream keeps going up and down between 6 and 6.1, downstream keeps going up and down between 8.9 and 9. Usaually sits on 6/9, 6.1/8.9. I have never seen my SNR values go up and down as I watch my stats refresh.

[j0hn]

The speedtest is nonsense, the important figure is what you get from the dslchecker website. When you join an ISP will quote you an estimated speed, and a minimum guaranteed speed. in your case the minimum speed is 16.8 mb (impacted low).

you can try argue about the huge drop in sync, but it's often difficult to get an OpenReach engineer sent out when your above that figure. you definitely have quite a bit of spare speed with ur downstream snrm, worth trying to get an engineer to try a Dlm reset

[William Grimsley]

Thanks for those details, your line is working within it's Impacted range - therefore getting an engineer could be difficult

Incorrect. If the line speed is slower than the "Clean" range, then an Openreach engineer visit can be arranged.