Erratic Broadband Speed

[Sam Brasnett]

For about a month and a half now we have just experienced such poor performance with our broadband speed. We have tried everything from turning the router off for 30 minutes, disconnecting unused devices to turning off WiFi on the router and just plugging one device via ethernet in too see if its any faster but it's not. Yet in the routers settings it says the download speed coming into the router on average is about 78Mbps but we can see actual speeds from 25-40Mbps and only very rarely reaches 50Mbps with an increased ping from 12ms to roughly 23-30ms (although this isn't too much of an issue). I really don't know what to think may be causing this because clearly we're getting a good speed into the router, so maybe the problem could lie with the router but it's only about 3 months old.

Also, our telephone cable looks like it is drooping quite a bit, it is too high for you to touch on our garden but it goes right across out neighbours and quite low too to the point where you could probably touch it if you jumped high enough, I'm sure this isn't much of an issue but it's the fact that the wire is going through the top of a tree. Should it be touching a tree? We often find when it's a little windy or rainy our internet will cut out a few times, it may only cut out for a minute before it comes back on again but it does it too often, could the wire going through a tree cause this?

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi Sam

Thank you for keeping us updated.

Please let us know if you do experience any further issues.

Thanks

Debbie

[Sam Brasnett]

Good news!

The new drop wire has been installed and the router is no longer playing up. Might've been from when I reset it but our sync speed is great so far at 74.73Mbps. Since we now have only the maser socket that eliminates the issues caused with the internal wiring. So it seems like everything is sorted!

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

glad openreach have now replaced the cable. See how performance holds up over the next few days and report back.

Thanks  

Karl. 

[Sam Brasnett]

Afternoon,

At the time it was, Openreach have actually come today to fix the new wire, I thought they were meant to ring you up a day before but they rang me up at about 10:50 once they have arrived and hopefully they will be able to fix a few issues. About the internal wiring causing issues I’ve suggested to them to only have the master socket and not connect the others and for the landlines then to use just cordless phones as they only need one base station to be connected to the phone socket. So hopefully at the end of today I should be able to see if the router is still causing issues and will get back to you about whether I might need a replacement router or not.

Thanks

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning,

Thanks for the update. Can I just confirm, is the router still connected directly at the test socket at the moment?

Thanks

[Sam Brasnett]

Thanks for your reply,

So when testing using the test socket our download sync speed was around 76mbps, and when using the normal socket it was around 33mbps I believe. Also, when using the test socket and connecting a landline phone along with the router, whilst I was using the landline it was fine but with the normal socket it caused the router to disconnect from the internet. There was also the added interference on the the phone when using the normal socket but it was minimal. So it seems like we can't really go above 40mbps without the test socket but I wanted to definitely make sure the router was capping the speeds of at about 37mbps (although I am very certain it is) even when its sync speed was much higher then that, but after testing again today the sync speed is staying specifically at 34.18mbps, even when using the test socket. So I thought maybe the street cabinet thinks the connection is unstable with all the testing and therefore lowering the speeds so I left the router off for about 45 minutes but after turning it back on its still the same.  So I wouldn't really want to have a replacement router without being 100% certain the router is capping the speeds because that would be a waste if it wasn't at fault. Before turning the router off I did reset it in case that would've helped but again I can't test it if the sync speed still hasn't risen. I guess I'll have to take it up with Openreach but they're only planning on putting a new telephone cable in and not looking for another fault, I'm not sure when they will be doing this but I really hope to get this sorted ASAP because we often used quite a lot of the bandwidth and 34mbps is not enough for our needs. Sorry for another long reply, I really hope this can easily be sorted soon.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Hello,

Thanks for the update and I'm sorry to hear this. Can I just confirm, have you identified a specific issue with the internal wiring? In regards to the router, would you like us to send a replacement router for testing purposes to rule this out? We would also send a router returns bag so that one of the routers can be returned.

Thanks

[Sam Brasnett]

Hi,

Despite Openreach saying the new telephone line is urgent we obviously won't hear back from them soon, but after more testing I've found out our houses wiring is causing issues. It is adding interference on the line, has halved our sync speed and causes the internet to drop out whenever the landline is being used. I swear it never did this before the Openreach visit though. Before our sync speed would be erratic but it would at some point at least reach 70mbps. Now it's not going above about 40mbps but that doesn't even make a difference because the router isn't working as it should and still I keep mentioning this but no one wants to talk about it and only talk about the Openreach fault which has only identified an obsolete telephone wire which we've been told is performing as it should be. 

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

The fault is still open with Openreach. Engineer notes state that new drop wire is required. They need a hoist so this has been passed back within openreach to arrange. They have not given any eta as yet.

Thanks  

Karl. 

[Sam Brasnett]

This afternoon we had our appointment from Openreach where they take the opportunity to test many things out and the issue they found was that the telephone wire was sagging very low and needs to be replaced because if there is a tall vehicle in the neighbours garden then it could hit the wire and cause more damage so they say this repair is urgent. But he said that the actual quality of the wire was good considering its age and was performing well. So the cable obviously hasn't been replaced yet but if he hasn't identified a fault which isn't causing issues with our and has actually proved it should be good because of the signal quality and was mentioning how clear the dial tone is then clearly the router has to be the problem, as I've shown with screenshots its literally halving our speed to the point where I might as well pay for the fibre 35 package because you'd get the same speed. What should I do next because I'm not paying for a new one because ours is new anyway and shouldn't be faulty this early on.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning,

Thanks for the update and I'm sorry to hear this. If you don't hear anymore in the next 24hrs then please let us know and we can re-check for an update on the fault for you.

Thanks

[Sam Brasnett]

Hopefully the issue with the sync speed can be resolved but I did speak to talktalk with the online chat but wouldn't acknowledge my issue of terrible performance from the router. Currently the sync speed is about 70mbps (not too for from what is normally is) download and 9 upload (half of what it should be), but I'm still getting horrendous performance from the router, and at the end of the chat they asked if I had any other issues after organising the openreach app. so I mentioned again about the performance from the router and they disconnected so I gave up but its absolutely horrible and not suitable for my needs. Websites are loading incredibly slowly and videos do not seem to like to stream in 4K constantly. And we can have multiple people streaming 4K videos at once, which it used to do just fine but now it can't.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning,

Thanks for the update and I'm sorry for the delay. I can see that the fault has been passed to Openreach, please let us know how you get on.

Thanks

[Sam Brasnett]

So before I plugged the router in the test socket it said it had a sync speed of about 33mbps, although it occasionally drops down to this. After I had plugged it in the test socket the sync speed went to 76mbps but the speed test still shows a really poor speed. And last night I noticed the worst performance I've experienced so far, the speed tests were the same but websites were taking ages to actually start loading then once they did it took them ages to finish loading. We have quite a clear dial tone and with the sync speed of 78mbps on average I'm sure it can't be a fault outside our house, and now with using the test socket and still getting the same results I think it will be to do with the router.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Hello,

I'm sorry to hear this. I've run a test on the line now which has detected a potential fault. Can I just confirm, does your main socket have a test socket? Is there any noise on the voice service?

Thanks

[Skynet_TX]

Hi @Sam Brasnett,

The line touching a tree is not ideal, and if bad weather can cause your connection to drop this may indicate some damage to the wire somewhere that is letting water in. However if your router is reporting a sync speed of 78mbps, and is maintaining that consistently, then you would expect to get wired speeds fairly close to that (72+). If the line is in poor condition then you would more likely expect the router sync speed to drop, as the router would not be able to maintain the connection on a damaged line.

It would be worth going to the Service Centre to run a connection test on your line, this will indicate if there is currently a fault affecting your service. You can also access this from the ‘My Account’ site.

Also, if you have a landline phone can you check to see if that is working normally (i.e. you have a clear dial tone and no noise on the line).

If your master phone socket has a test socket then you could also try the router in there, that would then eliminate any of the phone wiring in your home as being a possible cause of the problem.

The TalkTalk staff on this community will be able to help, they will hopefully be able to respond to this post tomorrow. They will be able to run tests on your line, and if it detected any issues they could arrange an Openreach engineer callout to look at the line, alternatively if they thought the issue was related to the router they would be able to arrange a replacement for you.