Mystery of different and changing speed estimates...

[Willthebrill]

Good afternoon all. I’ve read most  threads with similar questions and I believe my query to be different to anything else I’ve seen posted. Please bear with me on this one…

We moved into our new house about a week ago. I kept an eye on broadband deals and speeds in the weeks and months leading up to our move date. At that point every provider offered more of less the same speeds as BT – estimate 67-73mb, guaranteed min 62(upload 17-18mb). I would estimate the fibre cabinet is about 200-300m from the house so this speed estimate seems reasonable to me (this is confirmed by Openreach engineers as being the cabinet that services our house).

Fastforward a bit and once we exchanged contracts I decided to place a broadband order. To my shock some providers (Sky and Vodafone) were offering significantly slower speeds than before (49-55 down, min 44), so some 18mb slower download speeds. BT and Plusnet still offered the same faster speeds. Surrounding houses fed from the same pole as us and the BT wholesale availability checker still showed the faster speeds so I took a punt on Sky as the deal was good with our Q package and hoped the speeds would turn out faster than predicted. We have now been connected for 4 days and the speeds provided (using Fast) are pretty much bang on the estimates Sky provided (50-55mb).

Now I know this is a decent speed and I shouldn’t grumble etc, but my home working uses a lot of bandwidth and the extra 18mb promised by the likes of BT and Plusnet would be helpful. In an expert opinion, are Sky restricting bandwidth because their allocation on the cabinet is running low, or are they just ahead of BT and Plusnet with an updated, more realistic speed estimate for our line? Interestingly, Sky still offer the higher speeds on other houses connected to the same pole as ours, even though our neighbours line physically connects to our house first so has to be a longer line! Will the sky router not train itself any faster if it thinks it’s meeting the promised speeds, even if the line is capable of faster? If I switches to BT or Plusnet am I likely to get the speeds they promise?

The whole thing seems very mysterious to me, particularly as the speed estimates changed very suddenly just before we moved. Oh, and Vodafone now say they can’t offer broadband at all in our location – cabinet allocation all used up?

I’ve attached a copy of the BT wholesale checker for info. Any advice will be gratefully received.

 

[GD1]

@Willthebrill  It would be best to post your router stats as these will tell us the spped to your hub.

Please can you post your router stats so the forum can advise on any issues. This link explains how to do that https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband/How-to-find-your-Sky-Broadband-router-stats/td-p/2855717#

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Willthebrill 

You would still in dlm training for another 10 days where i would hope that speeds would pick up so don't bdm tempted to reboot your hub.Your hub stats per @GD1 would be helpful

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Willthebrill 

Also run tests on your my sky app or sky.com account and post the info in more about your connection

[Chrisee]

@Willthebrill assuming thst is the current checker information for your full postal address then you seem to be in a very similar position as my home roughly 300m from the cabinet with a handback speed of 64Mb/s but my servicecsyncs at 80Mb/s and the recent speed estimates are weird.

However If that checker information is old or is for a postcode rather than the full postal address or it is a neighbours address it can be wrong as in some areas properties adajacent to each other can have lines running to different cabinets which is especially true of areas where there have been buildings added at different dates. 

One ISP could have looked up the wrong address but getting similar figures from multiple ISPs implies something is wrong.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Willthebrill wrote:

The whole thing seems very mysterious to me, particularly as the speed estimates changed very suddenly just before we moved. Oh, and Vodafone now say they can’t offer broadband at all in our location – cabinet allocation all used up?

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That could suggest the cabinet is pretty full, which itself can create crosstalk which reduces FTTC data speed.

[Willthebrill]

Thanks for the quick responses. I was aware of the speed training in the first week or so, but having never seen any noticable change under previous setups I was doubtful I'd see much improvement after 4 days. Maybe this line is different though... 

Anyway, stats are below - I turned the router off yesterday to tidy cables but I'll refrain from any more fiddling if that's best.

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Willthebrill 

You are getting 60Mbps with a noise margin of over 7db when it could go down to 3db. Your line attenuations suggest also you could easily get 80Mbps. I would be hopeful over the next 10 days that you should get 80

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Willthebrill 

Also run tests on your my sky app or sky.com account and post the info in more about your connection this will confirm you guarantee

[Willthebrill]

Sky BB test restults

[Willthebrill]

That's interesting. Is noise margin something that can decrease over time? Presumably lower is better and can allow faster speeds?

[cookiemonsteruk]

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@Willthebrill wrote:

That's interesting. Is noise margin something that can decrease over time? Presumably lower is better and can allow faster speeds?

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@Willthebrill 

Yep. But hard to determine by how much. I get 66 Mbps and line attenuations further from the cabinet than yours. For me an decrease of 1db is 3-4Mbps faster . At the moment sky seem to have underestimated your speed by a bit. Drop us another set of stats in 10 days. 

[jamesn123]

@Willthebrill 

Your noise margin of 7.9dB isnt normal for a new line and suggests you have a fault that needs fixing after the training period. Usually a line will default to 6dB at the start then begin lowering to 3dB in the training period if the cabinet allows for it. 

[Willthebrill]

Day 6 update: Openreach replaced a box at the top of our pole to address a fault (nothing to do with me reporting anything) and this involved disconnecting our line temporarily. Up to that point I had noticed no change in the states or performance, and sadly no change since. If anything the upsteam noise is now higher - see below.

One thing I forgot to mention in the initial post is that the previous owners had their BT fibre left connected which seemed to be capped at 50mb, but always achieved an instant and solid 50 on Speedtest and Fast. Although Sky tests as high at 55 at times, it's sometimes down around 20-30, and often between 30 and 40. It will normally rise into the 40s eventually but feels laboured and restricted compared to BT. My conclusion therefore is that the throughput of the Sky connection is poorer than BT on our cabinet, possibly because the Sky allocation is nearly full?

As I explained originally, the Sky predicted range was 49-55 so I don't think I'll get much joy trying to get anyone make it go faster when it's does reach these speeds at times. BT and Plusnet are promising a min guaranteed speed of 65MB so I think I'm going to make the switch and hope I get better throughput from those providers. If I don't then it will be up to them to fix it.

P.S. I know the 10 day testing people isn't finished, but I've got a hunch nothing will change now, much like the first 5 days.

[Chrisee]

I have the same hunch @Willthebrill as it looks like for some reason your line is capped at 60mb/s which can deliver up to 55Mb/s at a device but could be slower over wifi of if other kit is using bandwidth.

It looks like there is an error in the database result you posted which would explain the variation in speed estimate. Dont know how you get that limit removed but I would expect the checker estimate to change at some point as something is impacting your line.

The cause could be down to a particular local issue that causes noise on your line as the margin of 7.8dB is well above the nominal 6dB Openreach go for let alone the 3dB many lines can cope with. At least the upload seems decent which for many people working from home is a limiting factor. Unles the speed drops below the guarantee I hare to say it but you are stuck. Dont know if Virgin pass your address or if mobile broadband is a possibility but otherwise you may have to wait until Openreach run fibre to your road.