BT broadband

[RayandCarole]

Well we changed over to BT in Feb 2015 when Virginmedia abandoned us as not on fibre. Up until a few weeks ago all was well then we started getting short service drop outs in the afternoon, initially put this down to congestion. On Saturday connection slowed down considerably, the BT broadband speed test could not complete test as broadband too slow.  3rd party speed check gave d/l of 0.25 mbps and u/l of 0.45 mbps. Spent an hour on BT chat with Abishek  lon Sunday and no faults found on router or wiring, he said would reset line and system and all would be back to normal within 24 hours. Today no change, so spent another hour with another Indian person on BT chat same checks no result, engineer booked for Thursday as same d/l and u/l speeds. Nothing has been changed on wiring etc for 10 years. So Although we can do limited browsing and email cannot use Skygo, Iplayer etc 

Ray & Carole

[imtamping2]

Sounds like new router time........ I feel your pain

[Guest]

If anyone lives in very "rural" Norfolk where the only landline cabling provider is BT, then be wary of changing to a third party ISP that has to lease BT lines, (eg everyone else).

Unless you are lucky enough to be on fibre, or have an ISP that has their own distribution cabling, they all now suffer from something called "IP Sharing", where  they lease common bandwidth allowances per exchange, so at peak times (evenings and weekends, they "throttle" their customers usage to not exceed their area bandwidth total "pot", (in addition to any transmission or location technical restrictions.)

I was with Talktalk up until a couple of years ago, where the speed dropped from around 1mb to about 0.2mb.

I finally switched to BT, and I've been getting around 2 mb consistently ever since.

I tried to assist a friend recently, who is still on Talktalk, with only 0.2 mb, and helped him through all the line reporting and tests, but in the end they admitted it was the best they could now do at peak times in his "rural" area.

[grendel]

we  had fun when BT upgraded the local box to fibre, after 4 calls to india, we finally insisted on an engineer visit, he found 3 faults in the pits between the fibre box and the house. we had the wrong wall socket that had never been designed for internet - let alone broadband, and then he diagnosed our router as incompatible with the new fibre box, so upgraded us to a new router. this brought us up from dial up speeds back to 5Mb /sec

[BroadScot]

I moved to BT this time last year, I was like Strowie with Talk Talk, and although never dropped to those speeds, it was slow.

I am about a mile from our exchange so rarely see much difference in speed, it is much quicker (Hub5) than my old router ever was.

I do hope your Broadband is back up to a decent speed soon Ray.

Iain

[Siddy]

Check your event page on the hub and in the drop down box check TRO69 this will show the drop out and reconnects, you will find it happens twice a day and doing a reset at a different time of day moves this time scale. The lights on my router was changing colours like a disco light.

14 months 12 visits 7 different engineers and 3 experts 5 hubs & lost 6 days holiday total rewire back to the box on the end of the street. In end swapped my line with a payfone and it worked a treat then we moved lol.

If you dont get any joy (u won't) on the helpline go on the BT forum and someone will take your case on. also email libby.barr@bt.com that gets a fast reply.

Keep a eye on your bank account if they send a engineer he fast enough to take there £129 then you have to fight to prove it's there issue.

 

[SPEEDTRIPLE]

I`ve been considering switching from O2 to BT, as i used to watch Moto GP on BBC and BBC red button. However, 2 years ago, the governing body of Moto Gp, DORNA, signed a deal to switch all Moto Gp coverage to BT sport, which is available free on BT broadband. The only thing is, how do i switch over, as i`ve never gone from provider to provider, so don`t know how to do it. I should say, we`ve had very few (if any) problems with O2, but when they sold out to SKY, our broadband only charge jumped from £14 per month to £25, saying we had to pay surcharges for not having their phone network, or TV network. I still wonder whether this is legal, as my original contract was with O2, with NO surcharges whatsoever, and i would have thought, seeing as they`ve taken over the service, they would have to abide by my original no surcharge contract, in which case, i will be asking for a full refund. As for BT internet, if they now encountering problems, is it worth it?.

[Liberty]

Our BT internet is very stable. We have finally been upgraded to Infinity and the result is excellent.  Even here in the Ludham badlands.  Good service, but a really grumpy engineer to change the TV boxes. 

37.72 Mbps download, 9.5 upload, 11ms ping. Pretty good for out here the sticks. 

[RayandCarole]

Thanks for the replies, we decided not to upgrade to fibre when it became available as speeds were good enough for our use, but may have to look at going down that route if the engineer cant sort it

Ray

[Brundall1037]

We had this issue at work a couple of years ago, they tested the lines and said everything was ok, we reset everything here and was still the same. Turned out in the end it was the router, some of the components inside had just worn out. We replaced that and everything was fine again and has been since.

[Wildfuzz]

I am with BT and have always been. My router is the one initially supplied by them some 7 years ago. I was thinking about getting a later hub from them but does anyone know if I will have to pay or will they upgrade me FOC?

[BroadScot]

 

1 hour ago, Wildfuzz said:

I am with BT and have always been. My router is the one initially supplied by them some 7 years ago. I was thinking about getting a later hub from them but does anyone know if I will have to pay or will they upgrade me FOC?

I think after seven years you should get one free, Stuart, but doubt that very much, as the Hub5 is £79.99p! at BT

Iain

[Siddy]

Stuart look at the new deals for a year with the cash back deals they offer. You get it even if your with them. I'm on the 38 meg and got it in December for £10 a month for the year,

Ok they agreed to move the old master socket on order free as it's behind the door in the hall way & no way of connecting the hub. They sent me some powerline extenders after pointing out no power and door won't open if I put router there they moved it. I made my own RJ11 lead up to move hub off the hallway.

Going back to the faults I had with the router resetting and orange lit flashing saying no internet on the line.

Helpline - can you tell me if your connecting by wifi or lan - wifi - ok connect by Lan. I couldn't get it into there heads that there was no net on the line bit I lied to tick there box on the screen. I saved the online chats and sent them to Libby Barr's office. Teddy had gone by this point.

[Wildfuzz]

Methinks a call to "India" is required......

[quo vadis]

Good luck

[BroadScot]

1 hour ago, Wildfuzz said:

Methinks a call to "India" is required......

Brave man, best of luck, Stuart!

Iain

[RayandCarole]

Well had a call from a nice (English) BT lady yesterday who offered me a very good deal on an upgrade to Infinity 2. I Said can the engineer do it tomorrow when he comes, no it requires a different engineer, tomorrows engineer would be cancelled an Infinity engineer visit booked. How soon could you do that? Was my next question, not until mid March was the reply 

erm fat lot of good that is, no thanks just send the engineer as booked 

Ray

[Springsong]

Whenever I have had to deal with BT I have tended to use snail mail and written to the MD addressing them by name. Technically no one other than the addressee can open the envelope so it always ends on their desk and notice is taken. I have had some very useful results, like when we moved house and had to have a new line and broadband set up, huge problems, result no charge for any of it.

[Wildfuzz]

52 minutes ago, springsong said:

Whenever I have had to deal with BT I have tended to use snail mail and written to the MD addressing them by name. Technically no one other than the addressee can open the envelope so it always ends on their desk and notice is taken. I have had some very useful results, like when we moved house and had to have a new line and broadband set up, huge problems, result no charge for any of it.

How do you get the name of the person you need though?

[addicted]

A close friend re-located last year from north London to Cambridgeshire. He was buying a new house that was still in build.  in May (shortly before he moved out of his old home He duly informed BT of his circumstances, explaining that he  would be without  a house until  November and was told that they wouldn't cancel his contract with them rather they would suspend it  during the time he was unable to use the facility and to inform them  when he moved into his newly built house and normal service would be resumed. Oh if only!  Foolishly he did all of this  over the phone so no written confirmation. In the  event when he finally moved in in December and tried to get a  land line connected he was informed that there was  a large unpaid debt from non-payment of charges between May and December at his old address and until this was paid no land line would be supplied. It took almost 3 months to get it sorted out during which time he was without a land line and  practically climbing the walls with frustration and rage!. A couple of months ago he decided to buy a Sky package and left it to them to make the switch for him, a few days later he received a call from BT asking him why he was l leaving them. He was happy to tell them in precise terms. Whereupon they promptly offered to reduce his monthly rental charge by more than 75%. His response is unprintable here!

[ranworthbreeze]

It is always best practice when dealing with any company to speak to a person to get the job underway but I always follow up with a written confirmation or ask for a letter of confirmation from the person I talked to covering the topics of the conversation.

Regards

Alan

[Wildfuzz]

Oh it used to be so simples..... The GPO came and hard wired the socket and phone together, a man went up the pole and it all worked and done within a few days. Progress I suppose..........

[BroadScot]

8 minutes ago, Wildfuzz said:

Oh it used to be so simples..... The GPO came and hard wired the socket and phone together, a man went up the pole and it all worked and done within a few days. Progress I suppose..........

No Stuart, they reduced the company letters from GPO to BT! That was the progress oh and the odd shareholder or twentyfive?

Iain

[ranworthbreeze]

It as always been the situation that a new phone installation can cause delays, no exchange equipment, no lines available from the exchange to the cabinet or the cabinet to the house.

Both my father in law and Tan used to work for BT in day, Tan worked in Sales and Les worked in the drawing office.

Regards

Alan

[addicted]

3 hours ago, ranworthbreeze said:

It is always best practice when dealing with any company to speak to a person to get the job underway but I always follow up with a written confirmation or ask for a letter of confirmation from the person I talked to covering the topics of the conversation.

Regards

Alan

Couldn't agree more, I'm a firm believer a good paper trail.  It may be seen  as old fashioned today but still produces results.

regards,

Carole