BT Broadband - What's going on?

[Fore]

My Broadband packed up last week. After a weeks long negotiation session with our Technical Helpdesk friends in Chennai they finally agreed it was there end at fault. Could have told them that from the off but as usual the customer is always an idiot.

I am then informed by BT that my broadband subscription has been cancelled by a 3rd party ISP and an anonymous tag has been put on my line stopping them from re-connecting me. They then told me to ring OFCOM myself, do this, do that, ring them back blah blah blah.
Looks like 2 weeks minimum before i get it back.

First off i think it's well out of order for them to cancel my subscription without at least contacting me first. They have left us high and dry just as my son is revising for his exams, plus we need to find somwhere else to live due to our lease expiring. Could not have happened at a worse time.

Has anybody else encountered this, only i am worried about a possible fraud thing happening here?

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Not had that problem but have had line drop outs and slow connections recently. BTW where are you playing your golf as I'm off Friday 8th and didn't know if you fancied a game (HTL might be up for it too)

 

[Cernunnos]

Can't understand why anyone would want to pay BT for their overpriced Broadband internet service.

 

[brendy]

Can't understand why anyone would want to pay BT for their overpriced Broadband internet service.

I felt that way after our service was up and down and customer support was pants, over priced also.
We changed to sky last month and while BT were giving me a 3.5 mb service which was strangled during the day up until around 11pm. I spoke to sky and they said my line was good for 8-16mb, being a little disbelieving after BT said 4+ was not possible. I cancelled BT and signed up with SKY for TV, phone and broadband, all for under £70 per month, minus the TV package we are saving around £30-£40 per quarter on line rental and broadband fees alone. And I have a 13mb connection now too! Bonus!

 

[JollysHeld1]

Yeah sounds good but this is a topic I feel I can speak upon with some authority as it is my job! ISP's are not able to offer different speeds! the speed of your internet connections is reliant upon the quality of the line that connects you to the exchange! your location as I have read from your info tells me that even if you were sitting in the exchange connected directly into the ADSL equip you won't get 13Mb because your exchange doesn't support it! secondly sky doesn't have any of their own equip in the exchange as they rent from BT and are not LLU buyers. Thirdly unless Sky turned up and laid new cable or fibre from your house to the exchange! your still on the same pair of wires (Prob a mix of copper and aluminium from 0.4 to 0.9 mm) and so your broadband speed will be identical to what it was before. The only thing you have changed is who you pay the bill to! and how much you pay! the rest is the same.

PS: That "connected at" thing in the corner means nothing! it says I'm connected at 6.1Mb at the moment, but I just ran a test and it's 1.3Mb LMAO try

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

JollysH1

 

[Pedro_Wedgitos]

okay maybe but I'll qualify that with they are able to choke the speed.
I recently kicked off to BT about only getting 3.6MEG when my line said I could get up to 6.8MEG. The speed tester that BT provide said it was being restricted by my ISP so I did two things got myself an i-plate and complained loudly and longly to BT. My current measured speed is 6.4MEG.

 

[Cernunnos]

Yeah sounds good but this is a topic I feel I can speak upon with some authority as it is my job! ISP's are not able to offer different speeds! the speed of your internet connections is reliant upon the quality of the line that connects you to the exchange! your location as I have read from your info tells me that even if you were sitting in the exchange connected directly into the ADSL equip you won't get 13Mb because your exchange doesn't support it! secondly sky doesn't have any of their own equip in the exchange as they rent from BT and are not LLU buyers. Thirdly unless Sky turned up and laid new cable or fibre from your house to the exchange! your still on the same pair of wires (Prob a mix of copper and aluminium from 0.4 to 0.9 mm) and so your broadband speed will be identical to what it was before. The only thing you have changed is who you pay the bill to! and how much you pay! the rest is the same.

PS: That "connected at" thing in the corner means nothing! it says I'm connected at 6.1Mb at the moment, but I just ran a test and it's 1.3Mb LMAO try

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

JollysH1

I was curious what my mobile broadband was running at so here's what mine comes in at

Download speed 161kbps
Upload speed 104kbps

retest
DL 190
UL 268

retest
DL278
UL280

retest
DL336
UL304

Interesting. Not sure how this compares with proper broadband.

 

[adamk15]

I have 1 meg broadband according to that test

 

[Cernunnos]

456kbps Download speed & 338kbps Upload

Ping 145ms

I'm happy enough with that over the T-mobile network. Its certainly not true broadband speeds, but I'm happy enough.Its certainly a lot faster than dial up would have been.

 

[viscount17]

What does it mean? Presumably I have 2MB (though Virgin say I'm to get a free upgrade) but why the discrepancy between DL & UL speeds?

Test 1
DL = 2049
UL = 243

Test 2
Ping 51 mS
DL = 2096
UL = 245

Test 3
Ping 62 mS
DL = 1976
UL = 243

 

[Cernunnos]

Download is what you get from the net to the PC or Laptop etc. Upload is where you are uploading information from the PC, Laptop etc to the internet or another online PC on the internet.

 

[JollysHeld1]

Yeah I know some of you will get a bit of a shock when you test!

Almost all the exchanges in the UK and Ireland have ADSL equipment which is actually capable of producing an 8MB connection speed! however this speed starts to deteriorate as soon as it leaves the exch equip.

People talk about the length of the line but it's really quality that count's, I will admit that the longer the line the more quality is important! but I have dealt with people within 200M of an exchange who are getting slower speeds than someone 5 miles away!!

I won't bore you with details, but your speed is what your speed is! if you want it faster you'd need a very clever CSE Engineer to work on your line and replace it section by section using the best available pair of wires, this means checking metre by metre for attenuation losses/insertion losses/capacity balance/longditudinal balance/AC Balance/Insulation resistances/leg resistance and leg resistance balance/HR faults/Db losses etc etc

All very expensive and at this moment hypothetical as there is nothing in place to insure that you will get what you pay for!

The new plan which is in a trial stage is to provide a Pair Quality Certificate detailing all these factors! whenever a line is rented or purchased! a bit like a car's Service history! so stick with your current set up until this is compulsary and then ask your Service provider why your connection is so slow, they will be forced to get a PQ cert for the line

JollysH1

 

[theeaglehunter]

I'm quite happy with my 9867 download speed, serves my need sufficiently. and not far off the 10mb Virgin promise.

However upload speed is only 526.