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I MAY owe PN an appology - but possibly not.

Back ground story, for years I have suspected PN of limiting my parents DSL service to a crappy 3Mbps, even after BT upgraded all the local cabinets, the speed they got stubbornly stayed the same, whereas everyone elses improved by about 20-30%.

I got asked to go over and try to fix a few PC issues - most of which were caused by my techno-ignoramus step father, but one caused by a ***** DLink wireless box and separate DLink ADSL modem (sharing the same control panel IP address !!).

I sorted that issue by giving them my old TPLink router, which also gave me access to their line stats and started my step father asking questions to PN about why their speeds were so low. Their line is a third of the length of my sisters, yet she gets a solid 6Mbps.

Now PN managed to bugger up the TPL setting by sending null DNS data to it during some config tests, so I spent another day fiddling, noted some weirdness in the stats and decided to order an ADSL filer plate for the BT socket.

Upon fitting it, the line sync went from 3.2Mb to 5.7Mb, and the average 1 line error per 20 seconds went to no errors over the next few days - BUT THE SPEEDS STAYED THE SAME, even after a line reset.

Correction, we had one speed test result of 5.1Mbps very early in the morning, then it dropped back to 3.2 when repeated, also the actual data transfers during the test take a long time to start - with uploads and downloads you can see no data transfer for several seconds before it suddenly jumps into life.

(Multiple different speed checkers give almost exactly the same results 2.84-3.22 Mbps)

One possible answer for this I have come across is a "misaligned virtual path profile"; does this sound likely to anyone??

I will try and post PNs own line test results tonight (out all day at a charity event); even their own people say something strange is going on with the line.
 
First - how are you connected to the router, wifi or ethernet?
What speeds does the IP Profile checker say at https://windows.mouselike.org/be ?

If you run, in a command prompt:
ping router.ip -t
and also in another
ping 208.67.222.222 -t

Do either time out when you also see your "no data transfer for several seconds"? If so - which of the two tests (or both) time out?
(Obviously replace router.ip with 192.168.1.1 or whatever you router IP is).

Tom - www.mouselike.org
 
Hi drsox, Ethernet (of course), and the profilers all say they should be getting 4-8Mb, with 6mb being the expected speed.

With a steady data sync speed of 5.7Mb I would expect to see no less than 5Mb, so 2.8 - 3.2 is very low.

BT (bless them :() have of course reset the minimum speed before a fault can be declared to below 2.2Mb, EXACTLY the lowest speed I recorded before swapping the faceplates.

The people across the road - another 30-40m or so from the cabinet, get between 4 and 5Mb on a crusty old EE router using Wifi (no ethernet - they just use it for tablets and mobiles), and their phone line and BT socket are also a lot older, as this one was moved/replaced when the house was extended 15 years ago.

Not able to run that ping test as I have been doing charity work all weekend, speedtest reports a very healthy ping of 28mS, although a test run on the old DLink gave a ping in the hundreds.

A diagnostic test on the router throws up a few oddities as well, it fails on DNS server and DNS root server, although the connection works and we can access the web fine (using openDNS settings as PN bjorked their own and I couldnt be arsed to go look them up again)

My poor old step dad cant figure out how to take a screen shot, and sent me print outs of the Router stats and PN test results, so instead of a simple cut n paste, I need to scan them first.
 
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"and the profilers all say they should be getting 4-8Mb, with 6mb being the expected speed."
That sounds more like an estimator. What does the url I posted report (or a screen shot of the BT Wholesale checker results would also be good).

Both of those fetch the actual IP Profile.

Tom - www.mouselike.org
 
PN and BT profile(s) say 6 "with a min of 4 and and a max of 8", that is how they word them on the test results, so that is how I wrote them, if you want pedantic, the PN profile says "6000 KB", because they are too stupid to understand the difference between 1KB and 1Kb.

Got to go clear up the field after the charity weekend today, so will try and scan the PN and router results tonight.
 
Hmm,

I was just uploading the results when I got a call; the day after I posted this thread, their speeds mysteriously jumped to 4.1Mbps and have remained consistent over multiple speed tests ever since.

It looks like someone at PN/BT has flipped a switch; it still isnt as high as I would expect, as their line test and ADSL test results all look fine except for a 3db difference between what the router claims the download SNR is and the PN tests claim it is (9.1 v 6.0).

At a guess I would say that the PN/BT equipment failed to reset correctly after the new ADSL filter plate was fitted, it was showing the new up/down sync figures, but still only allowing the old data rate.

Next puzzle will be figuring out what in the house was causing the issue that the filter plate has cured, they only have 1 extension in use - out of several fitted by BT only a few years ago, plus a disconnected Sky extension. I have tested all of the ADSL filters they were using and none are bad.

Master socket is used only by the router, the extension in use has a cordless phone base station/answering machine and they have a few charging stations and phones dotted about the house.
 
Just having extra length on lines reduces the speed. Even if they
1) don't have anything plugged in
2) have good filters on the end

"stubs" of wire or star wiring cause echo / signal reflection.
 
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Correction.

I misheard my step father, the new speed is 4.47Mb and the new sync speed is 6.00Mb.

All the extensions were fitted by BT and all had ADSL filters fitted, even though they werent being used; removing the filters made no difference.

As I may have mentioned, my sisters phone line is ~ 3 times the length of my parents line, yet she gets a solid 6Mb day and night.

I have friends who live in a remote, old farm house, literally at the very end of the phone network who get 2.2Mb (after a BT upgrade, prior they used to get 0.24Mb)
 
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