Legal action againt my ISP

Red and White · 28 Mar 2011 at 14:12

how is it 'not cheap' to change isp. it costs nothing and there are loads of companies offering good deals.

Gammawolf · 28 Mar 2011 at 14:13

Cuchulain said:
Yes they can, BT Retail is different to BT Wholesale.

Yes we know that, but they won't try the blame game because those kind of technical details get blown over by the average angry Joe wanting his broadband fixed.

Myshra · 28 Mar 2011 at 14:21

Without knowing your SNR, attach speed and the disconnection rates/times it's hard to see who is at fault tbh.

B@Th*nG · 28 Mar 2011 at 16:10

Cuchulain said:
Who's your ISP? Dick Turpin?

lol, qotd

B@

Macky · 28 Mar 2011 at 16:15

Are you running any phone extension cables in your house? We had a few of them and they destroy your internet. Drop outs every hour or so and worse speeds. If you are then remove them now and plug your router directly into your filter and then phone socket. Then just extend the cat5e cable if needed.

Yas786 · 28 Mar 2011 at 16:21

LOLOP...sorry but sueing an ISP??...hahahahahahahaha....deep breath.....hahahahahahaha

Oh dear god...just change your isp fella...much less hassle and headache for u and your wallet as well.

Spook187 · 28 Mar 2011 at 16:48

Post up your router stats and go from there first.

EdGey · 28 Mar 2011 at 17:03

Let me guess. Talk Talk?

I remember reading that they joined with Tiscali, and Tiscali are the single worst ISP out there.

Skillmister · 28 Mar 2011 at 17:08

VinceB1 said:
Move isp. I would recomend that you consider Eclipse over at eclipse.net.uk they have looked after me for several house moves, line problems etc. Have to say that over what must be 8 to 10 years they have been brilliant.

Dear god no. I used to have eclipse at home and it was bloody awful. Took a year of pestering my dad to get it changed

zYx · 28 Mar 2011 at 17:11

Fourstar said:
Are you 100% sure? I can't imagine the situation an engineer would go to your house, test the internal wiring for faults then pronounce everything fine without running any line/connection tests with their equipment.

Are you LLU? That often causes hassles with intermittent faults as BT blames ISP hardware and the ISP blames BT cabling.

I connect through my BT line to C&W LLU equipment in the exchange. My connection sometimes drops out when receiving phone calls which it never did when I was on BT equipment.

It is a fairly rare but well known problem which it can be improved at the cost of connection speed but the only real cure is to move away from C&W.

It happens infrequently enough that I can live with it as I'm otherwise very happy with the service.

If it started becoming more frequent and no solution was forthcoming I would change supplier.

My local exchange is just a ADSL Max. Who can provide a reliable service within ADSL Max?

Red and White said:
how is it 'not cheap' to change isp. it costs nothing and there are loads of companies offering good deals.

I meant the monthly payment and not the switch process.

Macky said:
Are you running any phone extension cables in your house? We had a few of them and they destroy your internet. Drop outs every hour or so and worse speeds. If you are then remove them now and plug your router directly into your filter and then phone socket. Then just extend the cat5e cable if needed.

No, no extensions. The router is literally 5cm away from the (test) socket. Yes, I tried several different cables. I've tried everything. Yes I did check the quite line and it is quiet.

BT can check the lines with their devices as many times as they want. I'd like them to check the cables physically, in person.

Ahleckz said:
Have you done the quiet line test? What's you attenuation looking like and what's your SN Margin?

These are my router stats:

Noise margin WAS usually under 10dB, today it's over 16!!! and line attenuation was around 6dB.

This is my session log (note that not all disconnections are recorded, so this is nothing comparing to what is really happening), also only about two hour period is filled on that one page:

EdGey said:
Let me guess. Talk Talk?

I remember reading that they joined with Tiscali, and Tiscali are the single worst ISP out there.

No nothing like that. They meant to be one of the most reliable ISP's in UK.

Gammawolf said:
Change to BT, then they can't pass you around between companies playing the blame game

Al Vallario said:
They're under no obligation, according to the contract you signed with them, to do so.

It's residential broadband. The contract will state you cannot use it for business purposes, and that you cannot claim for losses incurred through loss of service.

As you say, the contract has some form of SLA (48 hour disconnection), but you admit yourself they have not breached this agreement.

I'm not a solicitor, etc., but I fail to see any grounds for a case against them.

This is why I asked

Robbie G said:
Check you've got the latest version of whatever DSL hub your ISP provides.

My in-laws had this with BT, until I found out they had received a new hub but hadn't bothered connecting it!!

The router I'm using is the Netgear DG834GT with latest firmware and like I said earlier I have tried 4 other routers and they all behaved the same.

platypus said:
The only odd thing I find about this thread is that you've been having this issue for a year now.

I had nothing but problems with Sky when moving onto their broadband, two months later and after threatening legal action I had a full refund, compensation, and was signing up elsewhere.

Apparently they are not charging me now, for now. I'll see that on april 1st.

VinceB1 said:
Move isp. I would recomend that you consider Eclipse over at eclipse.net.uk they have looked after me for several house moves, line problems etc. Have to say that over what must be 8 to 10 years they have been brilliant.

Different users recommend different ISP's. Zen, eclipse etc etc... What happens if I switch and it still happens? I will be well ****ed off. So really I want to avoid it, for now at least.

vonhelmet said:
£42?

You're doing it wrong.

I need a maximum upload speed, hence the price. I'm on business tariff.

Spawn said:
LOLOP...sorry but sueing an ISP??...hahahahahahahaha....deep breath.....hahahahahahaha

Oh dear god...just change your isp fella...much less hassle and headache for u and your wallet as well.

Less hassle for me, but since my ISP was being difficult, I am playing the same game now. I'm not going to make it easier for them. Obviously I don't want to spend any more money on lawyers etc.. but I was just asking if I have any legal grounds to do so.

Guy · 28 Mar 2011 at 17:31

Have you tried a quiet line test to see if there is any noise on your BT phone line? 17070 option 2, if so, that could be causing intermittency.

What other equipment have you tried? Alternative router? If so what make/model/firmware?

Raumarik · 28 Mar 2011 at 17:36

I had a similar problem, however I also have 4 phone points in the house, 8 months of arguing with BT about this and 6 engineer visits (no fault found in my house - always blamed the exchange) and it turned out to be a faults BT Homehub. Total of 34 calls logged with BT, god knows how many hours on the phone to india but it's now sorted. Exact same symptoms the OP has.

zYx · 28 Mar 2011 at 17:41

Guy said:
Have you tried a quiet line test to see if there is any noise on your BT phone line? 17070 option 2, if so, that could be causing intermittency.

What other equipment have you tried? Alternative router? If so what make/model/firmware?

read above.

Halfmad said:
I had a similar problem, however I also have 4 phone points in the house, 8 months of arguing with BT about this and 6 engineer visits (no fault found in my house - always blamed the exchange) and it turned out to be a faults BT Homehub. Total of 34 calls logged with BT, god knows how many hours on the phone to india but it's now sorted. Exact same symptoms the OP has.

I only have one brand spanking new BT socket. It has been fitted 3 years ago, when I was moving in and only I used it. I tried test sockets and no changes.

Fourstar · 28 Mar 2011 at 19:28

zYx said:
My local exchange is just a ADSL Max. Who can provide a reliable service within ADSL Max?

It shouldn't make a difference which ISP you are with. If they use ADSL Max it all goes through the same BT Wholesale equipment. The ISP is basically a reseller. As the problem is line dropping the problem must exist somewhere between your router and BT equipment in the exchange.

Is your current ISP helpful? Are their staff following up your problems or just fobbing you off?

You could try changing ISPs to one known for good customer services.

zYx · 28 Mar 2011 at 21:54

Fourstar said:
It shouldn't make a difference which ISP you are with. If they use ADSL Max it all goes through the same BT Wholesale equipment. The ISP is basically a reseller. As the problem is line dropping the problem must exist somewhere between your router and BT equipment in the exchange.

Is your current ISP helpful? Are their staff following up your problems or just fobbing you off?

You could try changing ISPs to one known for good customer services.

It seems that it does make a difference. Some ISPs block certain protocols etc.

Regarding the support, I'm not too sure. They seem to be dealing with it, but **** knows. I think they just want me to leave, but they won't say that...

Grad · 28 Mar 2011 at 22:19

I had the same problem. Gave my ISP (Yorkshire...) 3 months to sort it. Just bouncing back and forth between their tech support and BT Wholesale. Switched to an ISP who had a better relationship with BT Wholesale and problem was solved and has been trouble free for 3 years.

Fourstar · 28 Mar 2011 at 22:20

zYx said:
It seems that it does make a difference. Some ISPs block certain protocols etc.

I meant make a difference to the fault you have.

If you move from one ADSL Max ISP to another you still have the same physical phone line plugged into the same hardware at the exchange.

Substance · 28 Mar 2011 at 22:51

zYx said:
I live in a village and I don't really have too many options... also switching IPS'a would be to easy for them.

It annoys me when people live out in the sticks then moan about their internet connection and expect tax money to get them up to speed,

Don't live there if you want to benefits of urban life

zYx · 28 Mar 2011 at 23:07

Grad said:
I had the same problem. Gave my ISP (Yorkshire...) 3 months to sort it. Just bouncing back and forth between their tech support and BT Wholesale. Switched to an ISP who had a better relationship with BT Wholesale and problem was solved and has been trouble free for 3 years.

What ISP have you switched to if I may ask? I never said who I am with, so I am saying it now, it is ADSL24.

Fourstar said:
I meant make a difference to the fault you have.

If you move from one ADSL Max ISP to another you still have the same physical phone line plugged into the same hardware at the exchange.

I know what you meant, but what I meant is that when I was with BT few years ago, they capped my speed every day between 6 and 11 pm, they throttled certain ports etc., very annoying. I remember when I wanted to switch to somebody else, they guaranteed an improvement in my connection and I believed them (stupid!). Off course it never happened. So I was going to cancel the (1year) contract and what were they saying was that I can't! I then said that they promised me a better connection and I am going to cancel my contract whether they liked it or not. And I did.
Then I went to Be Unlimited (at that time I lived in town tho) and I never had any problems with them. Ever. Their customer support was crap, but hey, nothing's perfect..

ADSL24 seem ok(ish), but like everybody else, they don't give a damn.. I'm just a customer.

So yeah, I know everybody uses BT's cabling, but certain ISPs have their own settings.. if that makes sense..

SuBsTaNcE said:
It annoys me when people live out in the sticks then moan about their internet connection and expect tax money to get them up to speed,

Don't live there if you want to benefits of urban life

Sorry, but WTF do you mean by "expect tax money to get them up to speed"? I've never said anything about my speed.

edit:

look at this: