8km from exchange!!! now what???

negger

negger

negger

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27 Dec 2004
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And I've also got a major chunk of aluminium cable between me and the exchange according to the engineer.
The thing is my neigbours can get a very poor 1/2meg connection that can be as slow as dialup if not worse, but at least they get to recieve incomming calls.

Anyone know of a sure fire way to complain about line quality and get a result, perhaps if I tell them I'm a mentally challenged, ethnic minority, gypsy / traveller immigrant who requires 24/7 access to my drug rehab councillors web site........

So I guess it's dialup only then.
Bt are charging £16 per month for unlimited dialup has anyone got any other recommendations ?

Cheers.
 
My neighbour is in a similar position to you, my line despite the fact I live <100m down the road from them is some how *only* 6.5Km and I can get a reliable 512/1Mbitish connection, their line is somehow 7.9Km long and they can't get anything.

BT have been around their house several times in the last few weeks, although so far no progress.

BT Are not required to provide you with a line capable of ADSL, only one capable of making voice calls, so I'm not really sure where you can go either with your complaints.
 
Get an high gain wifi antenna (mounted outdoors) and see if you piggyback onto anybody's wireless network (remember to keep legal, ask permission).

Or if your neighbours are close, ask to put a wireless access point in their house and pay towards the net connect.
 
whatalegend123 said:
have you thought about investing in a satellite to pick up connections you can get pretty good downlaod speeds but lame upload speeds

http://www.skymarket.co.uk/internetaccess_satellitebroadband.php
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Not really an option unless you are desperate:

"Satellite broadband hardware costs start at around £1,300 installed, and monthly service costs start at £59.99 for a basic 1 user system."

I have had the same problem since moving into our house in April, we are JUST too far away from the exchange.. I've had BT around a number of times and spent hours on the phone with their support department in India.. I have now given up and cancelled.. If you are too far away there is not much you can do..

I am lucky as they have built a new exchange just around the corner, so I am just waiting for them to connect us to it.

Some areas have wireless broadband providers, different from the WiFi we run at home.. They transmit over huge areas (miles), but are not cheap (for the speed they provide), but certainly cheaper than satellite.. So check if there is one in your area.
 
Thank's for the replies, satellite is definately out of my price range - i've been looking at t-mobile web-n-walk which gives upto 1.8mbps for £30 per month with unlimited data allowance. Looks good if i can get it.

As for bt's indian support dept, i've actually had hours of fun with these guys - no really, when you realise they are reading from a script, try asking them some technical questions or talk total rubbish to them. I tried to tell one guy there was a magpie on my line and perhaps its feet where sync'ing with the exchange instead of my home hub - his reply was he'd pass the information onto the engineer.
 
negger said:
Snip
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Web and walk isn't unlimited for £30 a month.

T-Mobile said:
To ensure a high quality of service for all our customers, a fair use policy of 3GB (of data both sent and received in the UK) per month applies. If you exceed 3GB per month, we may tell you to reduce your future use. If you again exceed 3GB per month, we may tell you that we are going to apply network protection controls, resulting in a reduced network speed for 14 days. If you exceed 3GB per month for a third time, we may tell you that we are going to apply further network protection controls, resulting in a reduced network speed until you upgrade your price plan to include a larger data allowance. We do not permit use of this service for internet phone calls. Roaming charges apply.
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And if you're out in the sticks (which I'm going to assume based on that line length) it's unlikely your 3G coverage is that hot either.
 
negger said:
And I've also got a major chunk of aluminium cable between me and the exchange according to the engineer.
The thing is my neigbours can get a very poor 1/2meg connection that can be as slow as dialup if not worse, but at least they get to recieve incomming calls.

Anyone know of a sure fire way to complain about line quality and get a result, perhaps if I tell them I'm a mentally challenged, ethnic minority, gypsy / traveller immigrant who requires 24/7 access to my drug rehab councillors web site........

So I guess it's dialup only then.
Bt are charging £16 per month for unlimited dialup has anyone got any other recommendations ?

Cheers.
Click to expand...
If your neighbours can get 512k then you should be able to get at least 256k which is still significantly better than dial-up.

Either get MAX which will sync right down to that speed, or get a fixed 256k service like this one...

http://www.zen.co.uk/Broadband/athome.aspx?page=453
 
unfortunately not dirtydog, what you say could be worth a try, but i really dont think it would work.

The whole neighbour theory that "you should get the same as them" is a bit of a myth, esp as His neighbour might be on a different exchange. The distance that negger mentioned sounds like he is right on the border of his exchange.

His neighbour might be on a different exchange with a slightly better (i.e. copper wiring) pair. This would probably allow a 512/256 BB service.

One way to check this, is to put into sam knows your number (it'll tell you what exchange you're on), then if you know your neighbours number, check it and see what exchange they are on..
 
well if there is not any thing u can do i still no poeple that are using ISDN were they can not get broadband? might be an option :)
 
not really relevent but I told BT i was getting poor voice quality to get them to do something about the state of my line (it wasn't long, just old and got really high attenuation). It helped a fair bit...
 
negger said:
As for bt's indian support dept, i've actually had hours of fun with these guys - no really, when you realise they are reading from a script, try asking them some technical questions or talk total rubbish to them. I tried to tell one guy there was a magpie on my line and perhaps its feet where sync'ing with the exchange instead of my home hub - his reply was he'd pass the information onto the engineer.
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LOL I think that's the funniest thing I've read about for ages :D

Indian customer service was just as bad when I was with AOL and was one of the reasons why I migrated to Zen with UK 'support' who actually know what they are talking about!

p.s. I was going to go with BT (Retail) last year when I was ditching AOL until I read that BT also uses script monkeys :rolleyes:
 
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