Eclipse, BT downtime problems

Kaiju · 18 Sep 2006 at 13:13

I've been with Eclipse after good reviews on here for a few months now but last Wednesday night i came upon the problem of not being able to get a dial tone. It may of likely been due to thunder, but everyone else around my area now gets the internet through the local exchange. My grievance is with Eclipse as it's five days now and there is still no resolution as to what my problem is.

I called the technical support on Wednesday last week, to which they stated they would write a fault to BT. I called Thursday, to which they said BT sent them back everything looked fine and there wasn't a fault. As a result, they would write a more severe letter stating there was still a fault. I called Friday, to which they said BT sent them back a no fault again, so they would contact them personally. Slightly bummed, they told me to leave it over the weekend. It's now Monday afternoon and i call up with them saying BT are still looking into it! :mad:

Is this normal? I asked for a refund over the last few days, so hopefully i'll get some money back because this just isn't on. I've tried both an ethernet modem as well as the crappy USB modem, i've swapped filters, cables, but either device simply won't detect a dial tone. I thought Eclipse just disconnected me by accident, but i'm starting to think BT have screwed up here and they just can't be bothered to look into the situation further. I have to bike round my mates everday now to check my mails and broach such sorry tales as this. Inconvenience sucks balls!

Avalon · 18 Sep 2006 at 16:18

You want a refund after it's fixed, not before, no point in them refunding you for 5 days if it takes 10 to fix. The problem is in this day and age most ADSL faults are still dealt with through BT and that is a pita as they invariably give priority to the inhouse stuff and 'external vendors' are hung out to dry as you wiull have a crap SLA on fault's. Phone Eclipse and ask what the SLA is, they may be honest and say 7 days (it's a random number greater than 5 before I had to take my socks off OK ?) in that case you know you are sadly getting the kind of service eclipse has agreed is ok with BT. As it's been over 5 days i'd request to speak to amanager if nothing's happening as it's getting beyond a joke now, if it's going to need a site visit they could have had a tech booked by now.

Kaiju · 18 Sep 2006 at 16:27

Yup, really appreciate the reply Avalon. Wish Eclipse would get back to me that fast.

But yeah, did some research in the last hour and come up with the same points you mentioned.

"I had to go through the process of having BT ADSL, then BT underground and finally a BT exchange person involved, all taking a number of days before they did anything."

"Something I found out that I hadn't thought about before, was the total lack of SLA between the ISP and BT when ADSL is involved. I pay a premium for a Business connection with Eclipse, but all that gives me is a fixed IP address. Eclipse have no SLA for fix times with BT, it's simply best effort, which is not really an incentive for BT to do anything at any speed."

"The regulators need to get off of their over paid arses and do something for the customers for a change and deal with the way that BT is still strangling the ability of ISP's to give good ADSL services, especially in more rural areas. The whole thing at the moment is best effort and a complete farce!"

Also, there is a lot about LLU which i'm not going to refer back to Eclipse once i get home.

"The thing that gets me with the LLU migrations is that people cannot move away from LLU to another provider. So once on LLU, unless you cease
the line, there is no migration path as such."

"My mates absolutely livid, they stuck him on LLU and his speeds are *****, and he can't migrate as you can't yet on LLU so hes gona have to cancel it altogether and restart from scratch with someone else, hes going ape!"

I think i'll be doing the following too.

"Advice on to cut your losses, is to regrade to evo1, this way you will get the same speed and pay less untill u move away. The regrade service is free."

Hope this helps anyone else in the forseeable future as this seems to be a growing problem. Tis' unfortunate.

Phil99 · 18 Sep 2006 at 16:37

Firstly, do you get a telephone dialtone or is the 'no dialtone' just what your modem is reporting to you?

Secondly, are you on any of these exchanges:

13 Sep 2006 at 00:01:00
Kingsthorpe, East Wigston, Thurnby, Market Bosworth, Moulton (Northants), Wellingborough, Edwinstowe, Sileby, Huntingdon, Duston, Sandiacre, Montfort, Mansfield, Sutton In Ashfield, Polesworth, Fazeley, Stoneygate, Glenfield, Oadby, Goscote, Desborough, Gedling

See http://status.eclipse.co.uk for more info, but BT did some planned work on those exchanges on the 13th so they might have messed up your connection in the process.

It does sound like a BT issue - if it was an Eclipse one you'd be getting authentication issues. Sounds like the modems just can't sync. Have you tried from the master socket? It might be that one of your filters has blown/stopped working as well.

If BT are coming back saying there's nothing wrong with the line then they're either lying or it's an issue with your cabling/filters, so it'll be worthwhile trying to borrow a known, working filter off someone nearby and trying that out.

Eclipse in general have been going downhill a bit recently though, I recently regraded from Evo 3 -> Evo 1 and haven't noticed a change in speed, apart from perhaps web browsing seems more responsive :confused:

Kaiju · 18 Sep 2006 at 17:12

My telephone has a dial tone and i can receive and send, my modem (either my D-link etherent or USB modem) doesn't. I've tried three filters now and both upstairs and downstairs sockets, so it's not a filter issue. I'm in Bradwell, Norfolk, East Anglia, however there seems to be no exchange there. How would i check what exchange i am on?

Basically i get the routine connection status; "communication port is being opened," and then it states "there is no dial tone" after less than a second.

tolien · 18 Sep 2006 at 17:40

Stick your number into www.btwholesale.com/getbroadband, and you'll get what exchange you're on.

Phil99 · 18 Sep 2006 at 17:41

If you go to www.samknows.com and use the phone checker it'll tell you which exchange.

Are you on the limits of ADSL as it is (e.g. restricted to 512k/dodgy connection usually)?

On the front of your master socket, does it look like the bottom half is seperate with 2 screws (1 either side) to remove it? If so take that bit off and there will be a test socket behind it which isolates all your extensions. If you try in that socket and still get nothing it's almost certainly an issue between your house and the exchange.

Also, have you tried on another computer just to make sure it's not a driver error of somesorts?

Overlag · 19 Sep 2006 at 04:34

eclipse recently moved me from BT adsl, to Tiscali LLU and instantly ive had major problems.

first day or so we had no phone
first 2 weeks we had no internet (eclipse support couldnt find a problem)
and for the last 3 months my download speeds are 5KB/s - 60KB/s not bad for a 4mb service. :rolleyes:

ask for a mac code to move to a new isp, and there reply is Tiscali LLU doesnt support migrations.... ie they've LOCKED me into using them. :mad:

avoid eclipse like the plague

Kaiju · 19 Sep 2006 at 12:21

I got up pretty annoyed the net was still out, so i had a go at the technical team and voila, the net was back up in 30 minutes. All they needed to do was give BT a call and tell them there diagnostics needed a once over. Just goes to show if you make out your annoyed you are more likely to get some sort of action. I wish i was this stern a few days ago, maybe this wouldn't of been a problem.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange.php?ecode=EAGOR

I'm on the Gorleston exchange then. Looks like LLU is disabled so that counts me out of being migrated at least for now. I also double checked that with Eclipse this morning.

Fingers crossed this stay the same. I'm currently at 3.2Mbps.