topic Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer? in Broadband

Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

klaudiaaa — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 14:49:15 GMT

My noise margin is currently 3.9 db which seems extremely low, is it worth getting an engineer out to check the line?

my speeds are currently 46mb download, I was getting much faster speeds a couple of weeks ago

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

JimM1 — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 15:59:11 GMT

@klaudiaaa Your stat's look fine! Ethernet speed test if you can!

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

klaudiaaa — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:12:31 GMT

I'm getting the exact same speeds on ethernet too

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

klaudiaaa — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:13:13 GMT

@JimM1 im getting the exact same speeds on ethernet

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

JimM1 — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:18:59 GMT

@klaudiaaa Have you looked at your service checker history?

https://www.sky.com/servicechecker

You can also run diagnostc service also below this!

Try running the line test here to see if any faults are found:
https://www.sky.com/help/articles/broadband-diagnostic-start

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

klaudiaaa — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:21:20 GMT

@JimM1 everything looks ok on there, I don't understand why I'm not getting faster speeds on ethernet though or why my speeds have dropped quite a bit

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

Chrisee — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:51:30 GMT

@klaudiaaa a low noise margin is a good thing as it allows higher speeds assuming the connection is stable. When running speed tests make sure no other device is using data it is unsafe to assume because nothing else is in use as many devices use downtime to run updates etc.

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

klaudiaaa — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 17:04:32 GMT

@Chrisee there is no different in speed if I disconnect everything, here are some of my previous speeds. I'd like to get it back up to 55mb

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

JimM1 — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 18:19:56 GMT

@klaudiaaa As long as you have not been switching the unit off and on intentionally, which is bad to do on a copper line, then looking at the stability against time, looking like the DLM is fighting a potential bad copper line from the cabinet to your home. If you have a ADSL filter and the OR Master socket is a type 5c would be popping the front off and trying the filter on the test socket hub connected that way!

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

klaudiaaa — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 18:59:40 GMT

@JimM1 I may have switched it off a few times when speeds dropped if I'm being honest

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

JimM1 — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 19:07:02 GMT

@klaudiaaa Switching off is OK when you see the Internet light off or Amber, any other time it's a NO NO, you can introduce the stability doing that and then you have the 10 day wait while the DLM takes steps as best it can, Stability is it's whole aim in life even if it drops the speed all the way down to minimum, then slowly picks it back up again!!! Nothing you can do but try to be patient to see if it auto recovers!

Re: Low noise margin, do I need an engineer?

TimmyBGood — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 19:58:46 GMT

@klaudiaaa wrote:

is it worth getting an engineer out to check the line?

If the speed at the Hub is above the quoted Guaranteed Minimum Download Speed then that's not going to happen: even if there's an obvious deficit then customers are now more often being offered the option to leave a minimum contract term rather than actually having a line fault resolved.

Realistically Openreach will be putting everything it can into the national FTTP rollout over the next year, and is going to spend as little time as possible on the legacy copper network.