BT Broadband Internet Speed Drop‏?

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BT Broadband Internet Speed Drop‏?

Sunday February 17, 2013 by Mike A

Anthony writes:

I’m two miles from the Parwich Exchange. Has anyone else in our area experienced a serious drop in BT Broadband speed during recent weeks?

My BB speed has dropped from around 4.5 Mbps average (over a five month period – 6.5 Mbps peak) to around 1.75 Mbps. Since that time I’ve spent far too long messing around with repeated calls to the BT “Help” Desk, until this morning when they said an engineer would be calling in a week’s time to “do some checks”. Per the Help Desk, I’m currently connected to the “Test Socket”.

I’d be interested in others’ current (and past) experiences with BT and alternative Providers out here in the boonies. I’ve noticed some in our community use microwave, which sounds costly!

Thanks so much,
Anthony

Posted in Services | 10 Comments

10 Responses

on Sunday February 17, 2013 at 11:30 am | Reply Mike A

Hi Anthony – I’m a BT broadband customer in “downtown” Parwich, and line speeds seem fine from here – this morning, we’re getting a solid 6.44 Mbps.
on Sunday February 17, 2013 at 11:47 am | Reply Colin B

5.1 Mbps in Parwich
on Sunday February 17, 2013 at 11:53 am | Reply Fiona H

Just checked mine on Plusnet in Parwich. At the moment 6.7 mbps
on Sunday February 17, 2013 at 12:13 pm | Reply Anthony C

You realise I hate you all now…

😉

1.7Mbps

Anthony
on Monday February 18, 2013 at 12:29 pm | Reply Peter T

Anthony, if it is any consolation, I am in Parwich village using aol TalkTalk and have a very variable service, between 60 Kbps at peak times and only up to 6 Mbps in the middle of the night. Apparently as aol doesn’t have any equipment in the exchange, BT users get priority. My only solution seems to be to change providers, but that does not help you as you are already using BT. However I have heard positive things about the plus net help desk, and as it is BT owned that should avoid the problems I have been having.
- on Monday February 18, 2013 at 1:00 pm | Reply Anthony C
  
  Thanks Peter – that’s a pretty crazy max/min, and an interesting insight regarding a non-BT ISP at the mercy of BT infrastructure.
on Monday February 18, 2013 at 9:24 pm | Reply Mike H

We changed back to BT last November. Everything was fine for a couple of weeks – we were getting 6.7mbps – then suddenly our speed dropped to 1.8mbps. A speed remarkably similar to yours Anthony. Three long calls with BT support eventually got it sorted. Apparently it was a ‘noise margin’ issue that could be corrected remotely. Hope your telecoms tech knowledge is better than mine! Good luck and hope you get the problem solved.
- on Monday February 18, 2013 at 9:40 pm | Reply Anthony C
  
  Thanks Mike. How far away are you from the Parwich Exchange? I’m seeing a noise level of 8dB, which is just a tad over optimal (6dB). Still getting 1.7 Mbps or so, which is disappointing given our earlier speeds.
on Tuesday February 19, 2013 at 6:32 am | Reply Mike H

We are pretty near Anthony. Maybe 200 metres as the crow flies.
on Friday February 22, 2013 at 6:40 pm | Reply Anthony C

Hi Vicky,

Well, the BT Openreach engineer has just left, having fixed my problem and I wanted to share my experience. The farm opposite uses milking machines which transmit massive radio interference, and this milking nonsense will have to cease forthwith 😉

Seriously…

REIN

In short, the engineer, who was enormously patient and helpful, saw a 4.5Mbps line synch speed at the Test Socket using his FDSU device – a speed I haven’t seen on the BT Hub for nearly a month. Encouraging I thought. He then proceeded to fit an SSFP socket. However, his special (FDSU) device revealed Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise (REIN) the moment my BT Hub was connected to my LAN (and thence of course to my network devices, namely two PC’s and an IP Phone on a second Router acting as a Gigabit switch). We troubleshooted further and saw that it was the Cisco Router (switch) which was the culprit, the instant it was connected to the LAN.

Technical stuff follows! Now, I am puzzled: if REIN was the cause of my low synch linespeed, and thus my low IP profile, why did 5 days of BT Hub stats not reveal it in terms of CRC errors (just 13 over 5 days)? And why did REIN not show up before, using identical equipment? The Engineer was puzzled too.

From BT Wholesale Speedtest:

Download speedachieved during the test was – 5.99 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.6 Mbps-7.15 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :6.69 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.45 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is – 6 Mbps

The Engineer made a couple of phonecalls to BT Techs while here to have my bRAS Profile reset, set my noise margin to 9dB, and restore Interleaved Latency Type (it had defaulted to FAST during his visit). Interestingly, his first phone request to UK BT was not received positively (apparently they were disinclined to assist because I am not a BT View Customer) so he called BT India who made the manual changes without fuss – now isn’t that an irony?

I’m happy to report that my speeds are now consistently (currently at any rate) swifter than I’ve ever seen, aside from the odd spike in the past. Thanks so much to all those who posted to this thread.

Anthony C