So a guaranteed minimum speed doesn't actually mean anything?

GinG

GinG

GinG

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I am creating this thread whilst being connected to TalkTalk live chat.

After browsing on my account page I notice they actually guarantee a minimum speed of 35mb, however since day one I have always been sync'd at 32mb.

Now I have been with them for well over a year but never really bothered as other than this my line has been stable.

I have been on live chat now and they are saying because it isn't below 30mb they are unable to escalate the claim as taking in distance etc from the exchange I am within the minimums. My argument is that if you guarantee a minimum speed then surely this is what I should be getting as a minimum?

Having given up on the technical support just waiting to be processed to the loyalty team and see if I can get a reduced monthly rate!

Anyone else have this issues?
 
I was always under the impression that FTTC's "guaranteed" speed had to be a minimum of 10% of the sync speed. That may only be BTOR though.

It's just about impossible for a company to guarantee that amount of speed on such a wide base of customers like TT have.
 
I go into my account and I have the following information:

Your estimated download Speed will be between 39.81 Mb and 40.00 Mb

Your estimated upload Speed will be between 10.00 Mb and 7.00 Mb

We guarantee a minimum speed of at least 35.00 Mb

Current SYNC RATE is:

Upstream line rate (kbit/s):
6746
Downstream line rate (kbit/s):
32021


Talk Talk are saying that as it isn't below 30mb they are unable to raise a ticket and when I ask them about the minimum speed they guarantee they skirt around the issue.
 
It's the magic words "at least" meaning that is the minimum you'll get, but we can't guarantee that it will be the minimum.

I also suggest that you put your phone number through the BT ADSL checker and look at the downstream handback threshold column as that might be what they're basing their levels before escalating the claim for not getting your maximum download speed (although it might be even lower then their minimum).
 
I think it is all sort of irrelevant anyway. Unless you want to get out of a contract and use a different type of internet provider like satellite, wimax, cable etc. then you're getting the speed you can get on Openreach's infrastructure. It's not going to improve with another ISP. As somebody on a whopping 3.5Mb/s fibre connection I'm intrigued what it is you think you'll be able to do with 35Mb/s that you can't currently do with 32Mb/s?
 
Vote with your feet. Tt are a pos anyway.

BigT said:
I'm intrigued what it is you think you'll be able to do with 35Mb/s that you can't currently do with 32Mb/s?
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Not really the point. It's the culture of misleading customers regarding regarding their expected Internet speeds. They guarantee 35 then they should deliver.
 
No its right there in writing. The minimum speed they can guarantee is what they saying she should be able to at least provide, in fact i'm sure Ofcom was trying to make it so that if they can't supply the minimum speed they guarantee and can't fix the issue within a certain time frame you're within your rights to leave the contract without penalty.

So they have to do something. I think it is BS however they is such a massive speed estimate like mine its 56mbit to 74mbit estimated with a 52 minimum line guarantee meaning if i'm between the estimates they can just fob me off. but if i fall under 56 they have to do something as in look into a fault and if it falls under 52 they have to get their finger out and fix it sharpish or i can leave after so long.

Edit -

sorry found the email

We estimate your broadband speed should be between 57Mb and 76.4Mb and your minimum guaranteed access line speed is 49.7Mbps.

That's a whole 20mbps area i could float in and they don't have to do diddly squat.

So they may as well say in the email, minimum you should get before we should care is 57 but you could potentially get anywhere up to 76.4 depending on how good your line is, good luck with that.

But if your speed falls under 57 then we are supposed to care about it. But if your speed falls further than the 49.7 minimum guaranteed access line speed then we do care a little because you can leave without a cessation charge. That's if you know about this btw hehe.
BTW welcome to our ISP!
 
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neil_g said:
Vote with your feet. Tt are a pos anyway.


Not really the point. It's the culture of misleading customers regarding regarding their expected Internet speeds. They guarantee 35 then they should deliver.
Click to expand...

Do you understand that essentially FTTC is the same no matter who you use? So if TT are a POS, then so is BT, Sky and every other provider, they’ll all say essentially the same thing based on the same line stats. Unfortunately the line’s capability has nothing to do with the actual state of everything after the master socket. For example a crappy filter from 10 years ago, poorly wired extensions, using the router in a socket other than the master, the 50m RJ11 extension someone thought was a good idea, the additional bell wire from the 60’s or a crappy router etc.

Now factor in the op’s never even bothered to look in ‘well over a year’, but has suddenly decided to get very excited over this and rather than look to improve things, post some line stats and do some basic common sense checks, he’s now outraged and waiting for a deal. It could be as simple as requiring a power cycle, if the line stats support 32mbit sync’s, then it’ll likely do them if given a fighting chance.
 
Avalon said:
Do you understand that essentially FTTC is the same no matter who you use? So if TT are a POS, then so is BT, Sky and every other provider, they’ll all say essentially the same thing based on the same line stats. Unfortunately the line’s capability has nothing to do with the actual state of everything after the master socket. For example a crappy filter from 10 years ago, poorly wired extensions, using the router in a socket other than the master, the 50m RJ11 extension someone thought was a good idea, the additional bell wire from the 60’s or a crappy router etc.

Now factor in the op’s never even bothered to look in ‘well over a year’, but has suddenly decided to get very excited over this and rather than look to improve things, post some line stats and do some basic common sense checks, he’s now outraged and waiting for a deal. It could be as simple as requiring a power cycle, if the line stats support 32mbit sync’s, then it’ll likely do them if given a fighting chance.
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I wish everyone knew this. It's the same line to the property. And with it being FTTC it means all providers should provide the same speed. Unless there is an issue at the exchange with their hardware because i think TT and sky have their own hardware at the exchange. But if this is the case it would affect all customers and it would be rectified in a day(usually).

And you're right if he gets what Bledd said to get then he's at least given his connection a better chance or at least best it can get to sync at the lines fastest speed. After this it's TT responsibility to do something which means they have to liaise with Open reach to investigate and try to resolve the low speed. If they cannot within a time frame then the customer is within their right to leave. Unless he's above the low end of the estimate. Then they can say your speed is fine.
 
Here is what plusnet say on the issue of the "Minimum Guaranteed Access Line Speed"

Plusnet is a signatory to Ofcom's Voluntary Speed Code of Practice. Under the Code we aim to make sure you're aware of the estimated broadband speed you should receive and have the opportunity to end your contract should you not receive a Minimum Guaranteed Access Line Speed.

If your speed falls below the Minimum Guaranteed Access Line Speed value you should contact us and we will try to rectify the issue with the aim of getting your speed within your original speed estimate range.

Please note that the Minimum Guaranteed Access Line Speed applies to the 'line' or 'sync' speed of your line, not the 'throughput' speed.
 
Avalon said:
Do you understand that essentially FTTC is the same no matter who you use? .
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Of course.

What I'm saying is that if the op is that arsed then find someone that won't mislead regarding minimum guaranteed speeds and then dodge any complaints when it falls short.

(obviously any external factors aside and assuming master test socket speeds etc etc etc)
 
bledd said:
Give it the best conditions possible..

MK3 or MK4 faceplate with a 0.5m ADSL nation rj11 cable

https://www.tandyonline.com/high-speed-rj11-dsl-cable-0-5m.html
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+1 I do the same.

The other thing to eak out everything is put a HiFi AV mains filter to the router/modem PSU's, there are other posts about this on the internet. I use a Tacima filter.

I have checked with neighbors and from everything I can tell I have the fastest internet in my road. I put it down to the things Bledd said, the AV filter, also no unnecessary phone extensions in the house my land land phones are all cordless Dect.
 
neil_g said:
Of course.

What I'm saying is that if the op is that arsed then find someone that won't mislead regarding minimum guaranteed speeds and then dodge any complaints when it falls short.

(obviously any external factors aside and assuming master test socket speeds etc etc etc)
Click to expand...

But the will all say the same minimum speed as the details all come from the same source.
 
Surely though that minimum speed guarantee is derived from the same "bad" information that the sync rates are calculated from? All that will happen is BT or whomever will update the records accordingly.

@OP May be a basic question but have you tried the basic stuff? Replace DSL cable, go from master socket, remove any filtering etc? It may be the loss is on your premises and the performance is already available for you.
 
I went through exactly the same thing with talktalk. When ordered I was given a minimum guaranteed speed of 20mb. The best sync speed I've ever got was 17mb. The router is connected to the master socket with a MK4 faceplate so not much more I can do about the internal wiring. Even though I was well below the guaranteed speed talktalk kept saying it was still within acceptable limits and didn't care that it was below the minimum speed. They did some diagnostics and openreach found no faults and said it's the best the long line can do.

It seems that there are 2 tiers of line. BT's adsl checker https://www.btwholesale.com/adslchecker/ has 2 ranges. Clean and impacted. When I signed up I was given the minimum from the clean range. Then when I complained is was told that nothing could be done about it because it was still above the minimum from the impacted range (9mb). While it might be possible to get out of the contact there's little point as I'll just be using the same infrastructure. The issue being that openreach refuse to do anything as it's still above their handback threshold.

If anyone want's a laugh, here's my line stats:

Upstream Downstream
Current Rate (Kbps) 1390 16593
Max Rate (Kbps) 1390 16760
SNR Margin (dB) 6.2 6
Line Attenuation (dB) 64.4 25.1
Errors (Pkts) 0 0
 
Wow that's a long line.

If Openreach ever manage to get the 3dB profiles working on the ECI cabinets you should see a small improvement.
 
Following the road I am 750m away from the cabinet but we all know it might not take the most direct route. The longest route I can take without looping back on myself is only 850m. Calculators based on the 25.1 attenuation estimate a line length of 1.8km so god knows where it goes!
 
Silent Bob said:
I went through exactly the same thing with talktalk. When ordered I was given a minimum guaranteed speed of 20mb. The best sync speed I've ever got was 17mb. The router is connected to the master socket with a MK4 faceplate so not much more I can do about the internal wiring. Even though I was well below the guaranteed speed talktalk kept saying it was still within acceptable limits and didn't care that it was below the minimum speed. They did some diagnostics and openreach found no faults and said it's the best the long line can do.

It seems that there are 2 tiers of line. BT's adsl checker https://www.btwholesale.com/adslchecker/ has 2 ranges. Clean and impacted. When I signed up I was given the minimum from the clean range. Then when I complained is was told that nothing could be done about it because it was still above the minimum from the impacted range (9mb). While it might be possible to get out of the contact there's little point as I'll just be using the same infrastructure. The issue being that openreach refuse to do anything as it's still above their handback threshold.

If anyone want's a laugh, here's my line stats:

Upstream Downstream
Current Rate (Kbps) 1390 16593
Max Rate (Kbps) 1390 16760
SNR Margin (dB) 6.2 6
Line Attenuation (dB) 64.4 25.1
Errors (Pkts) 0 0
Click to expand...


Impacted is only when they have to do something like a bridge tap to get the line across a bridge etc. It's very rare to have a "impacted" line. Impacted does not mean a fault on the line either, it can also mean where open reach have repaired or resolved an issue to the best of their ability and now the line is impacted compared to before but it is the best speed the line is now capable of. Does not affect all supplied customers on the cabinet either just some which is why there is two ranges.
However if you are quoted the faster speeds from clean range then by ofcoms regulations as certain ISPs such as TT, SKY, Virgin, BT, Plusnet all adhere to. They have to honor it, if they cannot resolve the issue after a certain time after you reporting the issue you as a customer have the right to leave the contract without penalty.

However if it's actually a case of the line is actually only capable of the speed its currently running / syncing at and is lower than the minimum speed quoted under VDSL then more than likley it will be the same with another provider.
It's only worth pushing if the ISP are ignoring to look into the issue.

Ive had faults where a couple of openreach engineers came out and found no faults at customer premises to DP to the exchange but then another engineer has found a fault and its between DP and CP. So it's always worth pushing. Some engineers are to quick to dismiss stuff without looking into it properly.
 
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