VF Ultrafast 2 + HG612 + Orbi Mesh = Declining speeds - help!

[RowLarry]

Hi all

I've been on VF UF2 for the last 18 months using the supplied VF Router. Initially it was awful - drop outs all over the place, and went through 3 routers and numerous engineer visits before realising the router couldn't handle the number of devices. I also never got a speed higher than 38MB, when Openreach says I should be getting 80MB.. but that's another story.

I recently decided to do something about it, and following advice on here purchased a Huawei HG612B, and Orbi Mesh RBK50 system.

It took a few attempts, but got it up and running on Friday. However, it has been downhill since then. Speed tests have shown the following:

Friday: 33Mb Down 6Mb Up

Saturday: 28 Mb Down, 6Mb Up

Sunday: 22Mb Down, 6Mb Up

I work in IT but I'm not hugely up on the nuances of phone lines, but was wondering if the above is normal and if I have to wait for a period for things to stabilise/improve? Or is there something wrong with my setup?

I'm thinking of contacting VF to check the line. Otherwise I think I'll be jumping ship..

Any advice welcomed- thanks in advance.

[Jayach]

I assume you are on Superfast 2. If you have already had a number of visits from Openreach there is probably no point asking if you have tried it in the test socket.

It looks like you are talking about download speeds and it is important to know what sync speed you have before going forward. Unfortunately I don't know if you can get them from the HG612B.

If you can get them, please post the stats here so we can take a look.

You can confirm the speeds Openreach expect here: BT Broadband (btwholesale.com), although if Openreach have said 80 that is probably correct.

Download speeds will always be 5-10% lower than sync.

[RowLarry]

Hi Jayach, thanks for the reply.

Yes I am on Superfast 2, have hopefully changed the title to reflect that.

Thanks for the Openreach link - illuminating. I have attached the details below. It appears that when I am told that my line can support 'up to 70-80Mb' then I shouldn't take this at face value..

I have also logged into the HG612, and the nearest I could get to the sync speed is the below:

Since this morning it seems to have stabilised at 32Mb Down/6Mb Up, but this is lower than the VF router at around 38Mb at it's best.

Hope this helps.

[Jayach]

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Can't see your first image yet, however you are syncing at 35Mbs (so that explains the low download speeds) but with a huge SNR so it is capable of much more. Possibly whilst you were trying to get it working you upset DLM (Dynamic Line Management). It may help if you can get Vodafone to do a DLM reset, but that seems pretty much impossible.(however I would have said that about getting 3 routers out of them).

It should recover in time.

[RowLarry]

Many thanks for the reply. 

I'm not sure what I could have done to upset things - all I did on Friday was to plug in the HG612, and then it took about 4 tries to enter my VF details into the Orbi router and get a connection, but that was it really.

I had multiple dropouts on Saturday morning (10 in an hour or so) also.

I may well contact them and ask them to do a DLM reset then and see what happens.

Do you think it's worth plugging the VF Router back in for this as they have said they won't support non-VF routers?

Really appreciate the advice.

[Jayach]

Interesting that your download speed was higher on Friday, but dropped on Saturday, I suspect that was DLM reducing the speed to try to regain stability.

Mind you, if there was no reason for the disconnections on Saturday that would be worrying.

I imagine if you are going to ask Vodafone to do a line test, they will probably require the Vodafone router to be fitted. They will almost certainly ask you to try in test socket so worth making sure it is in there before ringing.

I don't believe Vodafone can do the DLM reset themselves (some ISPs can apparently) so they would have to ask Openreach to do it.

If you do put the Vodafone router back on, take a note of the line specs, like this:

DSL Status Information

DSL Mode

ITU-T G.993.2_Annex_B (VDSL2)

DSL Uptime

6 days, 18 hours, 24 minutes and 25 seconds

Line Coding

DMT

Status

Connected

Number of Cuts

0

Link Power State

L0

Line Quality

  Downstream Upstream

Current Rate	79999 kbps	20000 kbps
Maximum Rate	83172 kbps	28025 kbps
Signal-to-Noise Ratio	4.3 dB	10.8 dB
Attenuation	DS1 9.1 dB, DS2 22.1 dB, DS3 34.3 dB	US0 2.1 dB, US1 15.2 dB, US2 24.6 dB
Power	12.8 dBm	4.3 dBm
CRC Errors in last 9744 minute(s)	0	1550
K (number of bytes in DMT frame)	0	0
R (number of bytes in RS code word)	8	0
S (RS code word size in DMT frame)	0.0647	0.3819
D (interleaver depth)	8	1
Delay	0 ms	0 ms