My ISP Woe's - Please read and help

Bezinator

Bezinator

Bezinator

Associate
Joined
10 Jul 2006
Posts
456
Location
Brighton
Recently moved to Pipex on the 8 meg max package - £24.99.

We have had no end of troubles, we get 3-5 meg from about 5am-11am in the morning then after that it varies from about 200kbs to 600kbs. Its absolutly redicuslous.

After waiting for 2 hours on hold last week i finally got through to a techy who made me to do a speed test and call back in 24 hours. I did this and yes they could see a problem - i though ahh they are going to sort it, they said they would call BT to fix it and i would hear from them in 1-6 days.

On the 3rd day i heard something, BT say nothing is wrong.. i say there is, they again say BT will look at it. Heard nothing for 3 days, phoned them today, sopossidly the techy staff should have phoned me last week to arrange a BT enginer to come to my house and have a look at my equipment.

I then stress to him its a lot better in the morning when no traffic is around and its bad in the evening when most people are online. He then says it sounds like the contention ratio is poor but the BT enginer will tell us this.

Now is its Pipex's contention ratio which is bad so do i move ISP or it the exchanges contention ratio?

Thanks for your time

Chris
 
well, contention within BTs network is still reasonably rare at the moment, but exchange contention is becoming more common.

All the consumer ISPs content their core networks a lot (it's necessary to keep prices down) but that affects everyone really and if it was that slow they should have noticed something wrong.

Likely it's a BT issue, unfortunately if BT think there is no issue then it's incredibly difficult to convince them there is (i'm a senior network engineer for an ISP - so i know first hand how bad BT can be). Add this to lazy support staff and it's difficult to get these cases resolved. You're best bet is asking what their response time is, phoning again and again and getting it escalated until it reaches someone you knows their stuff and is prepared to shout at BT until it gets resolved. it's not a fun process for anybody concerned, i've had to ring the head of broadband operations at BT before I've got action before.

Changing ISP won't fix it if it's BT, it might get you better support though (though pipex used to be thought of as good). Changing to LLU might help, if its available
 
Bezinator said:
Which ISP and ill move to you, i need a company that actually know what there talking about :(
Click to expand...

while i appreciate it, we only deal with business unfortunately, we supply xdsl conection for homeworkers for a few big companies (the mirror group.. etc..) but we don't deal with home users (means we don't impose download caps or traffic shaping)

most ISPs do have some people who know their stuff, the small ones are occassional exceptions but most do. the problem is getting to them, they're usually hidden away in 3rd line support or NOC and you have to have a complex problem and get it escalated several times before you'l actually speak to them.

I set my parents up with pipex years ago and BT made a mistake routing the connection to the correct realm in their backend systems, it tooks ages to get cleared up by the time it got escalated through pipex. I can't recommend a consumer ISP with decent support really, i don't know one any more, my flatmates have be* which is good service but bad support.

I'd keep on at pipex, just be a pain in the ****, ask to speak to a manager if you're not convinced. They can fix the problem for you, it's just motivating them to do it.
 
OK you need to see if it is your synch speed changing or if the synch speed stays the same. If the synch speed is rock solid and has been for several days then it is either contention

http://status.zensupport.co.uk/exchanges/

or a BRAS problem. Your ISP should be able to run a quick "Woosh test" to check this.

If this is a stuck BRAS BT can fix it pretty quickly.

If the synch speed is changing then try your master test socket

http://zensupport.co.uk/knowledgebase/article.aspx?id=10552

If the synch speed drops too low it can be reported to BT as a fault also, same if it is disconnecting but if it is just contention then you are out of luck unless you move to LLU or BT upgrade you.

It could always be the ISP so run the BT Speedtest also.

http://zensupport.co.uk/knowledgebase/article.aspx?id=10383
 
There is no point bitching at BT, it is sold as a 50:1 contention product, if the synch speed is stable then they are within their right to do F all unless it is slower than very slow. If you are synchronised at over 2mb then 400k is acceptable as far as BT care. :)

If the synch speed is dropping below the threshold rate (this is the mimimum your line should synch at and is calculated in the first 10 days) then they will look into it. Same if it is this BRAS thing I mentioned.

Anyway don't shout at anyone, Shouting can help, but not when they are correct.

Suck it up and buy a Leased Line. :p
 
iamgud.. thanks for the advice.. please tell me what this means :confused:

According to BT's latest data the VP status of your exchange is RED.
A date of 19/10/2006 has been set by BT for the exchange to be upgraded.

This means that your exchange is running well below the performance thresholds published by BT. If you are experiencing Slow speeds then this is the most likely cause. Once the exchange has been upgraded the speeds should start running at normal levels again. If you still experiencing issues then you should contact our technical support team to carry out further diagnostics.

I guess this could be the cause of my peak time problems?
 
Yup looks like it is contention kicking in.

It means there are too many people connected to your exchange so at peak times when everyone is using it you get slow speeds.

It is going to be upgraded on 19/10/2006 by BT so things should get better, but sometimes they stay Red after an upgrade, sometimes go to green or Amber only to go back again.

Or sometimes they just put the date back. But hopefully it will atleast help if not fix it.
 
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Well this is the past info :(

Date of Report Exchange Status Date of Upgrade
18th September 2006 GREEN
11th September 2006 AMBER 21/09/2006
4th September 2006 AMBER 21/09/2006
28th August 2006 GREEN
14th August 2006 GREEN

So i guess best thing to do is check on friday evening and see if its any better the connection and see if its back to amber or green?
 
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