BT Broadband.... back away.... slowly....

CaptainComedy

CaptainComedy

CaptainComedy

Permabanned
Joined
3 Jul 2008
Posts
3,762
Location
My fabulous ship
Ok guys I am at the end of my tether now. Please enjoy the frustration I have to endure.

before you read - sorry if you struggle to read this. at least the spelling is fine
  • I first ordered BT back in July 8th. The order failed and had to reorder on the 21st.
  • August 1st Telephone line Activates with no problems
  • August 8th the re-ordered broadband activates with a speed of 126Kbps
  • Phoned BT they said they can't do anything until line checks are completed
  • 10 days pass, each test I did via bt.speedtester.com/speedtest.net gave 120-300kbps
  • on the 19th (10 days of line checks) I phoned up and complained, they tell me the line is fine to which I had to educate the lvl 1 tech support the difference between connection rate, download speed, and a ip profile... Then had to do the same with his manager. They arrange an engineer to come out on the 22nd
  • engineer comes out on 22nd and says there is no fault on the line and to try changing the channel on the router.

We thought this worked as my house mate stayed home during the day to get to the engineer, what we didn't realise was that this was during the day not at peak time. the result when the engineer left and everyone came home, the same issue resumed. even on ethernet. so we decided to do the following:

check on 4 different routers (2 bt -v1.5 and 2.0 or what ever) 2 netgear routers
tried 4 different filters
every channel on the router for wireless (even though we also tried ethernet)

all this did nothing. sooooo....

  • Phoned bt and they arranged another engineer to come out on the 28th
  • on 28th engineer comes - still can't find a problem, he goes up and down the straight checking for electrical interference and couldn't find anything
  • bt phones up and tries palming me off again saying my line speed is fine blah blah blah and I tell them 128Kbps down is not fine at all. So they forward to BT Wholesale
  • engineer comes out says no faults found and the tech support tells me they are sending me another router....
  • last week the router came. And it did nothing. and bt's answer?
  • "We need to send another engineer to the exchange to test!"
  • engineer comes 2 days later, checks exchange, nothing found.
  • get a call back saying the engineer found a fault and corrected it even though they said the engineer found nothing (female tech support for some reason is always worse than male tech support.) to which again I had to explain what the terminology was for and why she was wrong.
  • final result? booked an engineer for a house visit on Friday.

what kind of ******* joke is this? Am I so stupid to have missed something blatantly obvious with this internet at my home? or is it BT? I checked the exchange at plusnet and they gave the exchange a green light for capacity so it's not because there's too many on the exchange. We are supposed to be getting 21cn by the end of the month and I can't even get past 125Kbps. it's a bad joke getting worse!

I am taking Friday off to sit by the engineer and drink my tea and eat double chocolate biscuits in my tea in front of him. With the heating off and the doors wide open. Once he's done I'm doing my speed test with him sat there freezing.

What do I do if it's still the same? If he says "I can get good speeds no problem!" should I say "well I tell you what, you take my router and use it in future for testing, and I will take your line checker and use it as my router." ?
 
What results do you get ont http://speedtester.bt.com ? including IP profile sync and actual throughput.

Also tracert to somewhere like bbc.co.uk to rule out local traffic (i.e. someones PC infected with something saturating your upstream).

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php << router stats could be useful.

BT are useless but the engineers won't usually sign off unless they see speeds in the MBit/s on their laptops while connected to the test socket directly.
 
If the problem occurs only during peak time, it could well be that the line is fine and that the problem is due to overcrowding. What is your sync rate and other router stats?
 
Screw BT and sign up with a decent ISP like AAISP - They make a point of sorting out troubled lines like yours.
 
this is my current speed test results
12824104.jpg


my house mates are getting fed up with it all - like me, the exchange is supposed to have 21cn by now but I don't see any change on sam knows? anyone know how long that takes?
 
codec said:
this is my current speed test results
12824104.jpg


my house mates are getting fed up with it all - like me, the exchange is supposed to have 21cn by now but I don't see any change on sam knows? anyone know how long that takes?
Click to expand...

That picture tells me that your line is fine; you're connecting at 8mbit to the exchange, the exchange isn't setting a bad IP Profile (7150 being the highest one you can get on 20cn).

...but the throughput at 0.1mbit points the finger squarely at BT Broadband or BT Openreach. This could either be your specific exchange having its uplink saturated in the evenings (openreach), or BT Broadband suffering congestion across the board.


I bet if you test at 7am, it'll fly along. If so, that'd ram home my hunch about it being congestion.
 
blueacid said:
That picture tells me that your line is fine; you're connecting at 8mbit to the exchange, the exchange isn't setting a bad IP Profile (7150 being the highest one you can get on 20cn).

...but the throughput at 0.1mbit points the finger squarely at BT Broadband or BT Openreach. This could either be your specific exchange having its uplink saturated in the evenings (openreach), or BT Broadband suffering congestion across the board.


I bet if you test at 7am, it'll fly along. If so, that'd ram home my hunch about it being congestion.
Click to expand...

It works fine in the mornings. it's during peak hours it becomes crap. will 21cn fix the issue?
 
I thought as much - but I was suprised you even got a connection it if was poplar.

Might as well give up any hope now.
 
Gotta agree, bt is rubbish, i can almost time when the speed capping kicks in, 6.30pm without fail, the exchange is about half a mile from my house, even a friend of mine who lives next door to the exchange has the same issue.
 
codec said:
but why is bt even taking on if it's a commonly known issue?
Click to expand...


They aren't supposed to be. Looks like a couple of smaller ISPs have had new connections through tiscali ws in the last month tho as well.

AFAIK there is 0 space for expansion and BT aren't doing anything about it which is disgraceful.

EDIT: I notice virgin has some coverage in the area - any possibility there?
 
na virgin is an oddone, I have tried all streets in the area of the exchange, even right next to it and virgin isn't operating there lol

bt engineer is coming round tomorrow - I'm telling him to wait until 6 as that's when the real fun begins!
 
Bt are probaly the worst internet providers in the country when they set mine up the other year i got jsut over 7mbs soild all the time after 1 month it went to 7 next month 6. nowadays i get between 5-6 during the day and 4-5 during peak time (even though my neighbour on virgin gets 8mb soild all the time ...) i have complained but all the say is that your getting a sastisfactory speed and that theres nothing they can do! i really dont understand tbh because on my router it says i am getting on the line 7.5mbps which is what i used to get soild 24/7 but i never get that much anymore and i have tried different pcs plugged in every place in my house and different routers. i think they just turn down your internet alittle after a couple of months so that is lessens the load and evryone gets good internet but then again my neihgbour on same line mbps on virgin !
 
Hmm, haven't had any problems with them personally, in the PCPro user surveys the ranked right in the middle.
 
For once, bt the ISP are not entirely at fault. The Poplar exchange suffers from a load of asbestos which needs removing. Therefore they can't do much expansion work in the meantime. While one of the VPs from that exchange may be green, others are apparently still red.

Try to get onto the max premium ip steam product, as this gives you a higher priority on the backhaul network, and gives you a faster upload to boot. But speak to ISPs like aaisp, vivaciti or xilo as they can normally advise a bit better and help you out much more than BT will ever bother to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom