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Slow broadband speed and no help from BT
Some time back my ISP offered an increased speed of 2MB for a reduction to the monthly charge.
That was pleasant news but I was dismayed to find that my phone line would not support a speed of more than 1MB.
I asked BT the reason for the restriction and when they would improve the line. The letter was ignored as was a further letter.
I phoned the BT helpline. In answer to my question there was a pregnant silence after which I was told that my line was restricted to a broadband speed of 1MB – which had I pointed out.
They directed me to the BT web site and said that there was no-one available to answer my questions.
I emailed my ISP and asked if they could direct me to an individual or office in BT who could give me an answer.
They replied: "Unfortunately at the moment we have not come across a way to put any more pressure on BT than we are already to improve most exchanges so that more users overall are able to achieve higher connection speeds.
"At the moment it is difficult to apply any kind of pressure on BT to improve things especially on an individual case.”
You feel that BT could do a super job if only customers would leave them alone. Perhaps they would rather I went to cable. No one at BT wants to give me an answer and the ISP looks as if they've had a skinful too.
Mike Goodwin
February 15, 2006 in Customer Service | Permalink
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Comments
Mike, I completely understand your predicament only to well myself.
I have been in contact with BT on a monthly basis for the past year asking when-oh-when will the exchanges be updated.
I have asked BT when my line will be able to update from 1MB to 2MB.
Each occasion falls on deaf ears.
I could understand but
1. I live bang in the middle of a large New built up area which lies well within a city limits.
2. My neighbour accross the road is on a 2MB line.
The very fact there is no cable option available compounds the problem... which BT must be aware of, considering the pace they are moving at.
Posted by: Mike Paterson | 17 Feb 2006 19:03:26
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Posted by: Hero | 16 Mar 2006 00:26:27
The bottom line is BT don't know whatb they R doing. i had the same problem...the operator offreed me a mew (cheaper package) and lo and behold 2MB broadband came on line. my advice is DISCONNECT everything from your line when they do a test, I suppose a dodgy extension will give the impression u can only suppoer 1MB
Posted by: | 26 Mar 2006 00:13:49
You think you have problems, I am restricted to 512kbs and with no cable option either.
Posted by: Michael | 18 Apr 2006 13:41:34
Hopeless is all I can say about BT. I ordered 2 meg broadband from them last month, waited the whole month for the router to come, now I find the fasted speed I'm getting is 300K!
My exchange says I can recieve 3meg!
Numerous phone calls later I'm told the problem is at my end, settings they say, bollocks I say. I'm trying another router this evening to see if that's the problem.
After that they're getting sacked off.
One word: avoid.
Posted by: Neil Southern | 27 Apr 2006 15:30:06
all i can say is move to the city i get 16meg though bulldog yippy not to rub it in or anything but bt aint to bad in my area.
Posted by: raver_cam_i | 17 May 2006 17:11:57
I recently upgraded from BT 2mb broadband to "Up to 8 meg Broadband" with an estimated speed of 6.5mb.
If anything my connection has been worse in the 2 weeks I've had it. Most of the time it's slow downloads - I used to get 230kbps on average with 2mb, i barely get any more with "6.5mb" yet I am paying twice what I was!
Posted by: Mark S | 22 May 2006 13:39:47
in some boat, i am on adsl max, which means i should be able to recieve up to 8meg, phoned my isp and they said the max i could get would be 5.5meg, fair enough still quick. but unfortunatly the quickest i can receive is 1 meg, no one is willing to help me.
Posted by: jamie | 25 May 2006 18:16:14
BT ADSL max for me should be 3.5mb, which it was over the legendary 10 day calibration period. Now im either capped download speed of around 60,120,240 or 480kbps.
Usualy sits on 120, stuck at 15k down but i can still upload at 40kbs !!
I want my 1mb connection back :(
Posted by: iain | 29 May 2006 11:13:23
I live in the city. When I was paying for 560kb I always got 560kb. Then I upgraded to 2Mb, and was very happy to download at 2.2meg most of the time. In April I was offered a free upgrade to 'up to 8Mb depending on your BT line'.
During the 10 days calibration period I had speeds of up to 5.5Mb, brilliant, I thought, then on the tenth day speeds plumetted and are now beween 120kb and 260kb! I've had a long correspondence with my ISP - check your connections, they said; check your modem, they said; do speed tests, they said; email them to us, they said; we'll raise a fault with BT they said, then - it's all because your line is still being upgraded, they said! (All this in emails sent after midnight - distant call centre I wonder?)Give me back my 2 Mb! I wouldn't mind so much if their emails weren't so patronising in tone. Time for a change I think.
Posted by: brenda | 1 Jun 2006 18:36:34
BT pffft im on phone now typing this message while they blab off at me about my line being faulty and when they tested it there appears to be no known fault.
I was allways downloading at 220 -230KBps allways on 2 meg now im on 8meg ARF what a god damn disaster zone less than 2 meg on occasions.
What the hell is going on ? i have phoned them 20 times and they do not know whats going on I read a report that apparently the exchanges are faulty the software and that they cant cope with the line speeds. Buggy software apparently
Posted by: Keiran Frost | 5 Jun 2006 17:35:41
I have a simmilar problem. I upgraded to 8meg connection from 2meg. My connection is usually connected at 56k now. There is no help from the technical support, they just keep going round in circles telling me the same thing. (we need to do a check on the line). Im thinking about begining a large boycot of BT since thier willingness to except any responsibility is non existant. They sit there getting £27 a month for a 1meg connection if your lucky. Grrrrrrrrr
Posted by: sharpie | 6 Jun 2006 08:19:16
Whats going on ? Moved into my new house. Had a 2Mb connection in the old place. Decided to go BT again, this time the "Up to 8Mb" package. Can't get anything faster than 288Kb Downstream, with 388Kb Upstream...! Bizarre ! Had BT out to check the line, all OK. Called the BT Call Centre (in Mumbai ?) and after 28 Minutes on the phone finally made them understand that I want a BT Broadband Engineer to come out. They said something about 10 Days to stabilise...I said Hmmmm. Anyway they are sending out BT Braodband engineer.....we'll wait and see !
Posted by: MW1LCR | 7 Jun 2006 16:03:56
I thought I was alone with this problem, I originally spent over £600 having my 512k line put in and was very happy with the service, I then got the upgrade to 2mb and that was also rock solid and great. I was then e-mailed this year saying that my line could support the full 8mb speed as I only lived 300meters from the exchange and that it had been upgraded. I got home and connected at 8.1mbps which I thought was gonna be lightning so I ran the BT line speed tester and it was actually only generating real throughput of 1.5mbps, slower than my old 2mb. It seems BT have upgraded the line but the exchange is only working at a maximum of 2mb as nobody in this area who has 8mb has ever topped over the 2000kbps speed on their connections. Seems BT have become rather good at deceiving their customers yet again. As usual BT gave the response that during peak times it may be slower, I hardly think 2am in the morning is "peak-time" now do you?.
Posted by: slowbt | 11 Jun 2006 09:40:02
BT up to 8 Meg !!!!
actual speed 97Kbps
Browser seems to oped pages fast, but speed tester shows 0.1Meg.
Give me back my 1 meg connection Bt Pleeeese!
Call centre says no problem with line.
I say no problem with pc.
Help me please!
Self doubt starts to creep in...paranoia... shall I uninstall this?....should I uninstall that?....should I download this????? before long your system is full of what you dont need and void of what you do!!
BT - you have turned me into a wreck !!
Posted by: AR%G****!!!! | 11 Jun 2006 10:08:27
New Milton exchange.
2Meg to 8Meg upgrade 25May2006
I have all of the above problems with my broadband too.
Day 1: Router = 8.1MB
ADSL test = No increase from 2 Meg
Lots of phone calls and tests later.
Day 17: Router = 5.9MB
ADSL test = No increase from 2 Meg
BT say thats all I can have....sorry.
I am only 1.4K from the exchange.
Posted by: Gee | 11 Jun 2006 18:35:41
At least I'm not the only one.
Was upgraded from a rock solid 2MB to a possible 5MB on 2nd May - first week 4.8MB marvellous - the next week it rained and the speed went down to 3.2MB - call to Mumbai who I think said nothing wrong!
Today after much heavy rain I 'm looking at at 2.2MB after the connection has reset itself about 5 times - each time resulting in a slower speed.
CAN I HAVE MY OLD SYSTEM BACK??
Sorry had to shout but no one is listening.
Posted by: ypt | 13 Jun 2006 18:06:57
Same problem here 2
Was 2mb now 8mb
Connection is same as above and get this im 50foot from the exchange!!!!
Posted by: Colin | 16 Jun 2006 10:50:16
Upgraded to an 8 meg connection as my BT exhange has been upgraded to 8 meg. Was on a 512 connection before and used to be able to get download speeds of 470plus. Now, after the upgrade I can only achieve 237 kbp's maximum. Numerous calls to various Indian call centres have proved fruitless. Has anyone got any idea how to get round this?
Posted by: Mark | 17 Jun 2006 21:00:29
Listen guys there is a problem with the whole ADSLMax system,as you are all aware if your supposed to be getting over 2mb and upto 8mb and your only getting 2megs then you fall into this shit loophole. aka:BT Migration ADSLMax Upgrade Probs.. read this http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/19/bt_max/
some say its old news and it should be ok now according to digital spy. well how can it fackin be resolved if its happening in your faces right now. FUCKING BT pull ya bastard fingers out ya arses and re-enable 8mb ya silly cunts.
Posted by: Spinifex | 20 Jun 2006 17:47:32
Yep same problem here, Was on 2.2mb @ 2.2, "upgraded" i use this term very loosely to 8mb and i now get 1.8... All calls go to some asian exchange who repeatedly tell me there's a problem, no there's not a problem, there's a problem, no there's not.. It'll be fixed in 25 hrs, we'll phone you back etc etc etc.. Been a month now and still being told 48 hours.
Posted by: Ade | 26 Jun 2006 11:59:27
update: i was stuck on 2 meg speeds (1888kbs) and today im on near 3mb out of a estimated 2.5mb land line!! dont know how long it will last but best ever. my stat on router is 448 up and 3.7 down so we will see! spin
Posted by: spinifex | 28 Jun 2006 22:52:03
Had 1 meg service and moved to ADSLMax with estimated 3meg. Brilliant for 7 days with router stating just over 4 meg but then speed plumeted and stayed that way for 5 days now. Router still reporting over 4 meg but speedtester used every day has consistently reported 130 kbps. Fortunately I have 2 lines in the house and had to move lines to get the ADSLMax and my other line is still active at 1 meg so I've moved back to that. Done the going round in circles in India call centre. Engineer coming to house on 3rd July but after reading the comments here I'm not holding my breath on a good outcome. I'm not going to pay my BT bill until they sort it though!
Posted by: Martin Bailey | 29 Jun 2006 01:11:53
Its groundhog day! Oh no wait, its just going through the same thing over and over when using the call centre!
Posted by: Bill Murray | 29 Jun 2006 13:20:50
but wait theres more.. i was on 3meg speeds and like above i have plimmeted to just over 1 meg 175k and aol 1 meg was 117k STAY AWAY FROM ADSLMAX its shit. im with v21.co.uk and im going to regrade to either 1mb or a possible dodgy 2mb.a regrade is gonna cost me £11.99. i cant believe that a bt server can give such shit arsed crap out i really dont. tbh am fucked if i know! oh wait it gets better v21 said bt will be working on the lines every 4 months so stay on 8mb and you may get 4mb, basically v21 are saying dont drop down your package or youll never get above 1mb! fuck bt and fuck the whole process i say! who's with me?
Posted by: spinifex | 3 Jul 2006 15:42:43
YEAH GETTING SLOW SPEEDS TOO ANYONE LOSING THERE CONNECTION ALOT LATELY,I PLAY BF2 ONLINE KEEPS SAYING CONNECTION LOST OR WHEN IM PLAYING ONLINE POKER CUTS OFF
Posted by: PAUL | 6 Jul 2006 02:38:22
I too upgraded from my stable 2Mbps to the supposedly 8Mbps MAX service with Virgin. After the 10 day training period I was syncing at 5 meg which I was very pleased with.Then out of the blue my download speed dropped and stuck at 131 Kbps with my sync speed showing only 1.6 meg. I got so pissed off with contacting Virgin and being fobbed of and told it was a problem with my internal wiring, and that they could do nothing to help, that I downgraded back to my original 2 Mb service, and that is where I intend to stay until BT get it all stabilised.
Posted by: Rhodesy | 8 Jul 2006 15:30:05
Yep, just another 2Mb user here who got fooled by the "up to 8Mb" talk from BT customer support who i rang at the time because of a problem on BT Yahoo. They didnt send a confirmation letter, the router thats being touted as free on their site NOR the antivirus (or a link) as stated on the call. During the 10 day "settling in" period we are just coming out of theres been a series of disconnections followed by an ever decreasing speed (it was hitting 6336kbps at one point but holding for all of a few minutes, now its 5024kbps right at the end of that period) and still constantly dying. as i found, my new wireless router i had purchased just prior to the call is faulty and had it replaced at the end of last week, only to find it wasnt the router at all it seems. wish i had stayed on the 2.2Mb service (which rarely hit 2Mb in itself anyway) but to be told my computer, then my router, then my extension line was the problem, when that alone is an insult to the 10 years ive spent as an engineer myself, smacks of total incompetance on BT's part. THEN to be told ive entered into a 12 month contract which hasnt been confirmed by letter as stated, well....
i dont live close to an exchange but i have a brother who works for them who tested the line for me prior to the activation date on the 5th, who said the line should cope with 4.5-6Mbps (it has, when it stays connected) but watching the speed drop from a stable 5472kbps in the week to a strangely unstable 5024kbps is not what i had in mind when being told of the great speeds i could be experiencing. worse still, theres no cable in this area and no chance of it anytime soon else i would never have used BT at all.
customer service - low and, at this time, total liars.
my advice is to log every issue, phone call and excuse and if the matter is not resolved (or if they simply keep saying the line is fine and you are under contract) speak to Ofcom because i think BT are doing this deliberately, especially in areas where they know they have no competition.
Posted by: Chris | 10 Jul 2006 02:08:43
Just moved house and simular problems here. Many Many phone calls to BT following the 10 day settlement period we are now on week 4. It seems to me that the staff at the fault desk need a need a lesson in comunicaions skills, in my opinion they are all trained monkeys reading a written checklist. Finally to add insult to injury I have now been told I can only receive a 512 connection although my next door neighbour can get 5mb. I have now demanded a call back from the wholesale team who have scheduled an engineer visit to my house as they cant see a reason for the low capped speed put in place by the the broadband service desk. Wholesale is the way forward if you are being fobbed off by the standard faults team. Will update later should thing change.
Posted by: John | 11 Jul 2006 21:57:39
I have the same prob. On top of all this was told that the BT Home Hub would work with Xbox Live....BOLLOX, had to buy a new router, its far better than the cheap shit BT give you and is far more reliable. Haven't had any line drops but have had VERY slow download rates at point, was just downloading at 400kb/s which is the highest I have had...we'll see how long it lasts.
Posted by: Craig | 16 Jul 2006 18:31:33
My connection speeds are down to under 300kbps since upgrading to BT broadband Max. I got 1.5Mbps for the first week or so, but its since ground to a halt.
Numerous calls to BT and still nothing like a resolution. Can't explain how p*ssed off I am. Has anyone had any joy switching to a new supplier and getting a better speed?
Posted by: Matt | 17 Jul 2006 22:24:31
doing this for my dad bt said their wasa wire fault in the house but their is not been check msce and cable test ie me have to add dad fellow member of the inst of elec engines a ok bt came along tested line at befor main box fault speed was ther 600 kbps switch wires went down 200kpds not it off line but still bt is taking money out of the bank all letter to cheif exe which have bee recored delivery do not get a letter back have gone through all the right chain of complantes now a file has been sent to odcom and will sent to pc pro and MP next steep will court action if they don,t come court twice in a row can go to court to make a winding up order ie BT can no long trade.
Posted by: john holland | 19 Jul 2006 20:19:05
Had a 2.2MBPS connection with BT and upgraded to 8MBPS. After 10 days stabilization the speed tests from various websites all showed only a 1.8MBPS download speed. The Net Gear router was synching at 8MBPS and 448 upload. Spoke with tech support (using the term technical support loosely because I don’t think they did any technical troubleshooting apart from clearing internet cache and cookies… ) they did a line test and no faults with my telephone line. Tech advised me to wait another 5 days and they would resolve it… after 5 days no difference called them back and was told to wait a MONTH!... my reaction was to cancel my subscription there and then and got my MAC address. BT didn’t charge me for the 8MBPS as I never received a higher connection speed than my previous package with them, which was descent of them. After I was told wait a month after the 10 day stabilization I thought it was ridiculous to put it politely. Currently migrated to Eclipse ISP with their 8MBPS. Router is still showing synch speed of 8MBPS and 448 but speed tests show less than 1.8MBPS. Only on the 2nd day so I’ll wait the full 10 day period. I’ve a feeling I will be ringing up Eclipse technical support and maybe they will be able to get BT to carry out more in-depth troubleshooting for me than clearing my IE cache… I don’t even use IE. I use firefox and I’ve 2 home computers both of which do not have any software problems. I work in technical support and configure routers daily. Issue seems to be either 2 possibilities.. the BT exchange or my home wiring. I don’t think it’s my home wiring as I previously had a ISDN line and BT came to my home and set up my DSL so im going to assume there’s no problem which narrows it down to the Exchange… What solutions are there available. This forum is full of the same issues with no answers… we need answers from BT.
Posted by: kevin G | 21 Jul 2006 14:10:09
You lot are lucky !! I have spent hours on the phone to every part of the bleeding Indian Sub Continent, sploke to two UK calls advisors, who both assured me I was sorted, then complained because I wasnt, told again it was sorted and it still isn't. Has anybody got a number to talk to a bloody engineer 1 to 1 as I am sick of trying to explain to helpdesk listjockeys what the f*** I am on about. I have used 2 different routers and two different computers and the problem is still the same. Hub Managers says I am connected at 6.2 Mb, I am downloading at 0.5Mb. I had 1.2Mb before I "upgraded". They also seem unsure what tarriff I am on, and I couldnt convince Ranjit I was on BT Total Option 3 even though I was speaking to him through the bloody Hub I had delivered 3 weeks ago. Jeezo
Posted by: JBN | 21 Jul 2006 18:55:44
Shit shit and shit, I have just read this entire page and I have just signed up for the option 3 upto 8mb adsl, because I had spent about an hour and a half on the phone to bt asking them why I couldnt have the 2mb line I subcribed to nearly a year ago, as I am only getting 1mb but paying for two, so they offered me the option 3 with a £5 per month discount, and told me I should get a minimum of 3.5 mb, now as it come with a free wireless router, free evenings and weekend calls via the adsl line and at the same price I am paying for the 2mb line, well it seemed rude not to, now after reading all this, i am starting to think it was not such a good deal after all, oh boy.
Posted by: Tony | 23 Jul 2006 22:10:51
little update. After changing ISP's from BT option 4 to eclipse my speed is now at roughly 5.5mbps and my line supports 6.5mbps. I'm happy with the results so far and it seems wasn't a problem with my phone line nor the bt exchange so i can only assume it was some issue with BT isp dept. My advise to folks is try another isp and see how it works out. goodluck and all the best.
Posted by: Kevin G | 24 Jul 2006 16:57:43
I have decided after only getting 2mb to go beyond the average customer as usual... So I have decided to have a mission, I will go to the local exchange if the phone customer service people don't help. I will blog everything and let everyone know how it goes today. You can track my workings at www.btmission.org.uk... Drop in your comments and let me know how it goes :) Thanks, Sascha Lopez
Posted by: Sascha | 25 Jul 2006 08:42:08
I was thinking of upgrading to tiscalis 8mb package when it comes out in August but after reading these i think i'll stick with my 1mb for a few more months.
Posted by: | 26 Jul 2006 23:34:11
Blimey, just read all this & hoping done right thing?
Probs with 1mbps on AOL, paid for AOL GOld, 2mbps but only ever got 1mbps, after loads of calls, complaints etc wrote formal complaint.
AOL responded by upgrading me to DSL Max saying should get 3mbps. Just started 10 day calibration, currently connecting at 5mbps, download speeds over 400kbps. Please please dont let me lose this after 10days!!
Posted by: Booshy | 28 Jul 2006 18:56:03
I was over the moon when I was offered a free upgrade from 2mb to 8mb with Virgin. It has been two days now and I am downloading at 16kb/s which is 15 times slower than what I was getting the week before. If I ask to be put back on the 2Mb service will they do it or do you think I will have to move ISP
Posted by: Kennylad | 30 Jul 2006 15:16:42
Kennylad
I was suffering the same slow downloads with the Virgin MAX service and could not get anyone at Virgin to do anything about it.
In the end I asked to be downgraded back to my original 2Mb package and they did it without question. (Probably glad to have one less person complaining to them about their crap 8Meg service)
Posted by: Rhodesy | 30 Jul 2006 19:54:43
I too had a very similar problem. Upgraded to Max on 17th May, sync speed stabilised over 10 day training period to approx 6meg, then three weeks after upgrade.... disaster, sync dropped to 1.9 meg and download speed stuck at 131 Kbps.
Numerous emails to virgin all answered by asking me to do a number of speed tests at different times of day and that above 400Kbps download speeds BT would not accept it as a fault. (sound familiar???)
Phoned Virgin broadband support and told them "But I am below 400Kbps so get BT to pull their finger out and do something about it"
Reply from Virgin "Could be noise on your line, Your line may not support more than 2meg.Can you do some more speed tests for us?" What do they think I am ..a f******g idiot? I am only 2Km from the exchange, I have used up my bloody monthly download allowance doing speedchecks, I am plugged into the master socket, I have disconnected the ring wire in my phone socket. THE PROBLEM IS NOT WITH ME IT IS WITH THEM
They have worn me down. I have now downgraded back to my original 2meg service, am currently getting download speeds of 1950Kbps and this is where I intend to stay until this whole sorry mess is sorted out.
PS Virgin have told me I can upgrade back to the MAX service at any time.....NO CHANCE
Posted by: rhodesy | 30 Jul 2006 20:02:45
I'm a writer and I rely on a fast conenction for research and ftp of pre-release game downloads. I had a 2 megabit conenction and that was stable at 1.8 to 2.0 megabits with 230 to 252 kbps downloads.
I'm with V21 and regraded to ADSL 8 megabits three weeks ago. In the process I have seen download speeds increase to nearly 600 kbytes p/s and drop to 65 kbytes p/s. I now seem to have a router speed of 3872 kilobits per second and a download speed of 120 kilobytes per second. BT's own speed test says 1250 kbps in the mornings and about 720 kbps in the evenings.
I'm going to change to NTL, because at least I can get unlimited downloads at 4 megabits per second and pay less.
Posted by: Louis Turfrey | 31 Jul 2006 10:40:19
At least it's nice to know there are other poor souls in the same boat.
My tale of woe is pretty much the same, except I wasn't tempted by BT's 8Mb hype, but rather, was 'upgraded' to it following a recent house move. Apparently my old 1Mb service is no longer part of their product range so they just swapped me onto the nearest equivalent (Option 3) without bothering to let me know. I only found out when I got the first bill.
Since then I've been stuck in the slow lane. My router shows connect speeds of anything from 140kb/s to 4Mb/s but my download speeds are currently around 180kb/s. I thought it had stabilised at around half a megabit, which at least was bearable, but no. One afternoon a couple of weeks ago I had a few hours of 2Mb/s nirvana, but that disappeared after a few hours.
BT Broadband tech support in India are next to useless. I've been through all the usual delaying tactics such as different microfilters, no extension cable, removing my faxc etc etc. They are convinced there is nothing wrong with the line, as evidenced by the occasionally high router connect speed. So they assume the problem is computer equipment/network and I can do nothing to convince them otherwise. Their best advice - move nearer to the exchange!
I did manage to speak to an Indian supervisor who admitted they were having major problems with ADSLMax - but this seems not to be something the junior helpdesk people know about.
I just spoke to a very helpful, non-technical, BT lady in the UK who is going to escalate via her management. I also pointed her at this website. I'll let you know if I get any joy.
Just FYI - if anyone else has been 'stealth upgraded', you can at least make sure you get any freebies that supposedly come with the service. I've just received the broadband hub that will be going straight onto eBay, as some small compensation for all the grief ;-)
Posted by: Stuart Butterfield | 31 Jul 2006 13:03:05
Bad form to followup on my own post, but the plot just got thicker ;-)
A few minutes ago I had a call from a Broadband Tech Support guy in India. Apparently the line test he's just done shows there is a fault on my line. Strange that all the previous lines tests done these past few weeks have shown it to be okay. He said he call me back with an update tomorrow.
Actually he called again about a minute ago to get the details about my router and operating systems. Strange why that should matter given it's a line fault.
Call me cynical ...
Posted by: Stuart Butterfield | 31 Jul 2006 14:07:28
I am writing this now on BT's Up to 8MB line, which has experienced constant disconnections and slow speeds ever since they upgraded me from 1MB 2 weeks ago. After reading the above posts, it seems most people have a problem with not getting a good speed, but mine is much worse - I can hardly browse the internet because it is so slow!! I am going to ring BT and probably switch back to 1MB (if they let me, I signed up for a full contract) until a new solution for faster broadband comes up....
Arun T
Posted by: Arun T | 31 Jul 2006 14:29:42
I am not going to be paying BT for their so callled 8Mb service (from BT directly) How about you?
Posted by: wakou | 1 Aug 2006 01:15:55
Upgraded to a 8mb line from Zen internet about 10 days ago. Its a bt line and exchange no other option here for me :(
I was told that my line would settle down at about 6.5mb so was thrilled for the first few days at 7.mb. it then settled out at around 6mb. more than happy with that.
However its now dropped to between 2 and 4mb and is up and down like a brides nighty.
I had a 1 mb connection before and now wish Id stayed on that .
Is there anything I can do or anyone I can speak to. My isp sounds like its fecked off with bt. whatever they ask bt to do about this stuff they get the same line back saying nothing is wrong .
Yet bts website still says I can get speeds of 6.5 to 8 mb when I input my phone number .
Complete and utter lie!!!!
Posted by: Fanforran | 1 Aug 2006 16:48:13
well i tryed using my old bt voyager hub the 100 one and i got 8mb speeds went back to my 2110 router and i couldnt get the speeds? maybe a rounter prob, eventhough my router says i hav a 8mb downstream rate.just done a firmware upgrade now maybe that will help
Posted by: desso64 | 2 Aug 2006 09:40:38
Well, it seems I'm finally getting somewhere. The guy from the Indian BT Broadband High Level Customer Complaints Team has been on the case for the past couple of days.
My router is now connected at 5MB/s and I'm actually getting about 2MB/s download speeds, which is a x20 improvement on where I've been recently.
He told me that my, eventually diagnosed, 'line fault' had been fixed at the exchange via modifications to the 'RAS mapping' (anyone?). He's going to call back on Friday to see if it's still working okay.
Posted by: Stuart Butterfield | 2 Aug 2006 15:34:11
I have a bt voyager 205 and have 8.1 speed. But when i connect it won't happem. But when i go down to 2.2 meg it connect's fine. Anyone else have this problem and how can i connect at 8.1meg?
Posted by: Lee Fez | 3 Aug 2006 13:10:33
Yeah same thing has happened to me now, about a year a go i used to get frequent internet drop-outs/cut-offs and after a year of messing about they fixed it somehow (probably a monkey flipped the right switch) so anyway we got offered an increase in connection, a month later ive gone from D/L at 250kbs to 16-40kbs wheres the magic monkey when you need him! btw im with AOL (AOL India i think 0_o?!)
Posted by: Sydd | 4 Aug 2006 18:44:11
OMG!!!
Its nice to see I am not the only one in the world that recieves appalingly poor service from the countries main ISP. My problem has been on going now for the last 4 and a half months, numerous phone calls, numerous engineer visits to the exchange and numnerous times they have told me 'Mr Peck you connection is now fixed' (not that they phone me I have to hold through their phone navigation system for about an hour to get that crap). Guess what? No fix, no increase in speed. I was on a 1 meg line which was stable now have the 8Mb 'Max' service with a heart pounding upload which is faster than my dl. So how can they cheerily take 27 quid off me each month? After reading your comments above I'm down grading and getting a refund. I cannot beleive that us customers get treated in this way, no other country would except it.
Posted by: Mark P | 5 Aug 2006 10:31:17
Same story here. Signed up and got 2.5mb initially - flying along. Recently had numerous dropouts and now speed has dropped to .5 mb. Phoned BT Tech Support - what a waste of time!! My original communication from BT said their tests indicated that I would get 2.5 mb. Can you not have them up under trade descriptions act?
Posted by: Jake | 5 Aug 2006 18:12:25
BT'S Customer service is shockingly poor.
I currently DO NOT HAVE any BB connection. They say I have. I damn well haven't.
Waited 2 weeks for TT Opt 3,
then they didn't inc the CD- delay of 3 days. Had BB for 2 days (5mb), then no connection from Sat 29th July. After 10 phone calls, I am back to square one. It is now the 6th August.
NB, I didn't speak to the same person twice.
What a pile of crap. I'm cancelling the service asap.
I STILL have Dial-up with AOL...small mercies.
Posted by: Steve O | 6 Aug 2006 07:42:22
Well, thank the lord i'm not the only one.
Decided to go with tiscali about a month ago, what rubbish. Constantly disconnecting, and slow download speeds.
So i switched to BT option 3, home hub etc etc... Just as bad! but now i can't download anything faster than 15.5kbps... Me and the girlf play WoW alot, and if we both play together it seems to choke the connection :(
I was originally with onetel 2mb, which worked fine all the time i had it... Wish i never left em.
Posted by: Rob R | 6 Aug 2006 13:38:48
ive had bt since may they told me i would get 3meg since i started i was getting 2meg (not bad) but now im down to 900kbps phoned tech help umpteen times and guess what there no help they keep saying ive got a faulty line but engineers say my line is 100% ok
ive complained umpteen times all to no avail today i sent another complaint telling them to get it fixed or i will leave or better still reduce my charge the same way they reduce my speed
Posted by: allan | 6 Aug 2006 23:10:03
Further to my posting above, BT proudly annouced yesterday that my line is fixed and I should be enjoying the joys of the 'high speed superhighway' at the heady heights of near my max speed 8 meg. Whahey! I thought, did a speed test got suspicious when it took an age to come back. My DL is now 130kbps, just over TWICE, indeed TWICE the speed of dial up. My UL is 400 kbps, so how does that work? I got reverse ADSL it would seem. Anyway I have taken the decision to by a hamster and a wheel in an effort to increse my speed to hopefully 3 TIMES the speed of dial up soon!!!! BT are beginning to get up my nose, its no longer just a fault, its now an obsession as I am sure it is with most of you guys out there. But 4 1/2 months to drop my speed for 1.8 meg to 130kbps is quite impressive no? I know where my £27 quid goes each month, just hope the XMas party is worth it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Posted by: Mark P | 8 Aug 2006 08:32:16
Bt are rubbish, a monopoly as was and has retarded the advance of everything, TELECOM, in the UK
Posted by: david | 8 Aug 2006 23:40:09
Up to 8Mb claimed, synching at 5440, speeds less than 1MB for a proportion of the day. Criminal.Nothing to do with me or my ISP, all down to BT. They should be shut down.
Posted by: david | 8 Aug 2006 23:44:11
Have paid top price for BT boadband for a few years now. Only ever got 0.5Mbit. They claimed to have tried to upgrade me to 2Mb but said my line couldn't support it. They recently claimed I would get the 5Mb if I upgraded to Total. Suspicious, but no cable in this area so I went for it with a small increase in price (option 3).
After "activation" no change. Several hours of UK/Indian call centres later, having been frustrated with "sorry, you can't get better than 0.5 - we'll take the extra money, do nothing, and you can't leave for 12 months now!" (seriously, if slightly paraphrased!!), someone in India said: "Actually, we haven't upgraded you and haven't tried and have no plans to do so - there's no record of an order" - this despite them having delivered the home hub and all the conversations I'd had with people telling me I'd been switched over to the 8Mb and that the system was just equilibrating. Back to the UK and told them this and - "Sorry, we got confused because you were already a customer. We'll switch you on in another week".
A week later and they actually have done something this time. I've moved from 0.5 to 0.9Mb. Progress, but not exactly the 5Mb they were suggesting. Obviously noone now will do anything until the 10 days is up. I'm not holding out much hope of an improvement - possibly a deterioration actually, given the experiences of people here...
Posted by: John | 9 Aug 2006 09:41:37
Hello folks.
I know a bit about BT Broadband and most of the comments i've just read are fairly typical of the sort of enquiry i deal with on a day to day basis. The majority of complaints are about the speed. The fact is that BT can only give a rough estimate of what speed is available on each individual line. I was getting 2.5 before i applied for DSL Max. Now my speed varies according to which test site i use. Speeds vary between 175 kbps - 6.5 mbps.
The position of your home in relation to the exchange and wether your neighbour has 8 meg or not has absolutely nothing to do with what speed you get.
Unfortunately length directly affects girth. I mean bandwidth. Your overall line length and condition has everything to do with it.
If you live next door to a BT exchange they are not going to route your line straight through the wall to your house. The line will go in a bundle to a central distribution point and the to your house. This means that someone living next door to the exchange may have a longer line than someone who lives 3 miles away.
Also we should remember that the majority of lines in the UK are at least 20 years older than Broadband. These lines were designed for telephone service only. Home PCs were but a wild dream of the future back then. In short, if your line supports Broadband at all, this is a bonus.
Posted by: richard | 10 Aug 2006 20:08:32
I am the same as most others here. i just recently moved house leaving my amazing 5/10 mb NTL line behind. I went for option 3 for the 40 GB download limit i would concider myself a "heavy user" was told by the web site check i would get around 2.5 mb. I wasnt expecting much more but ok i could live with it. After i got moved in and the connection day came around i set up my netgear router and was getting download speeds of around 70 kbs so around a 550kbs connection. So quite slow but thought id get more after my 10 day stabling time, towards the end of the 10 days i got my BT homehub and setup disk, Greagt hopefully the BT kit will help my speeds, how wrong i was. After i installed the hub my download speeds plumited to 30kbs and as low as 15kbs thats roughly a 250 kbs half what i was getting before i installed the setup disk. Since then i have not got above 30 kbs when down loading. I will try getting downgraded to the 2 MB option cause that seem to at least give the right speeds hopefully i can get out of my contract ive hardly had it a month. Fingers crossed it goes faster.
Posted by: michael | 14 Aug 2006 11:41:18
Bt should be shut down. A big conniving shower. They have just announced cheaper telephone charges and ommitted the increases. As for up to 8Mb, total fiasco. It is cable for the future. Have nothing to do with old copper wires and old minds.
Posted by: david | 14 Aug 2006 19:37:06
Just got BT home hub, BT having promissed 4mg in my area. The first 2/3 days it was at least 3mg which i was very happy with. Next morning playing cs source and BF2, both have connection problems. I then loaded up bandwidth monitor, which if you watch the graphical representation of the bandwidth it spikes (or rather troughs) every 30secs. This is what appears to cause online games cutting out since they need constant connections. To top it all i started to notice slow downloads and after about 6 days, i now download at max 50kbps.
Posted by: Jason | 15 Aug 2006 00:09:51
Same BT problem - moved house, told I had to upgrade - 3 weeks no problems, then it went downhill rapidly. Indian call centres worthless - just telling customers what they think they want to hear - that the engineers will call in 24-48h and that there is a fault on the line/at the exchange and that the diagnostics team are onto it/ that it will be rectified in 48h. Meanwhile tech support suggest getting rid of cookies. Feeling very frustrated and angry, having spent hours on the phone to BT BB "help" ... have written to BBC Watchdog. http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/contact_index.shtml
after all they did investigate Bulldog ...
Posted by: Red | 15 Aug 2006 17:14:03
I have 2mb/s broadband and i want 8meg - but on one website it says i can only get 1mb/s and another says i can get 3mb/s. But before i left bulldog i could get 8mb/s?? WTF?
BT = Never get an answer
Posted by: Jono | 16 Aug 2006 19:00:39
I have had similar problems since upgrade to ADSLMAX, speeds dropping to 345Kbps and even 84Kbps.
BT suggested changing microfilter which SEEMED to work as speed was immediately restored.
Since discovered that with the original microfilter back in place when line speed drops (usually each morning) if I drop the BT line for 20 sec and then reconnect the speed immediately available is back up above 3Mbps (my router synchronises at about 5Mbps)
Hope that this helps - try dropping the line, or just rebooting the router/hub.
Posted by: jlough | 17 Aug 2006 13:58:29
BT are crap. It's a shame there is no real alternative. NTL broadband was good - never a problem with connection speed/dropouts etc. - but only go with them if you like calling them every single month and telling THEM what YOUR bill should be (I'm sure I got ripped off somewhere along the line). Also, good luck trying to cancel NTL if you need to too. 2.5 hour phone calls can't do it. Neither can recorded delivery letters ("what letter?").
BT are a joke and unfortunately, if I move to Tiscali, virgin... whoever, I need a BT line cause they use BT technology!!
Sky contacted me telling me they were rolling out their state-of-the-art network. At last, I thought, no BT line, no NTL. Nope, 5 minutes call to Sky said it would take them several weeks to get to my area as they hadn't installed their equipment in the BT exchange yet. State-of-the-art? BB coming through your sky dish would be state-of-the-art. Not jumping off the back of some 20 year old copper wires like every other goddamn BT reseller in the county (apart obviously from NTL).
After a month of upgrading to 8mb I still only get 2mb dl (I should count my self lucky my speed hasn't dropped after reading this page!). 2 fruitless calls to India later - nothing resolved. I've now got an email chain as long as your arm, with them trying to sort it out. They didn't reply to my last one - over a week ago (it was quite sarcastic though).
Crap. crap. crap. When is the UK going to get alternatives?
Posted by: Stu | 18 Aug 2006 16:46:22
Update - after BT India Broadband call centre calls ongoing for 10 days they tell me that my equipment's at fault and not the line, although earlier in the week they said it was the line. BT wholesale called and said I'd need to upgrade from the old BT Voyager 100 modem to a router - which I have to pay for, even though it worked fine with Boradband Classic.... I ordered the new router which will arrive next week. Meanwhile I managed to get a credit from BT for the length of time I've been without Broadband.
Posted by: Red | 18 Aug 2006 17:29:54
My problem is slightly different, i moved to a new house which was only 2 streets away from the old house. The connection and speed was perfect at my old house. I rang bt and notified them of the move, no problem they said we can up grade you and your internet connection will be up and running on the day you move in. Great i thought what a good service, WRONG it has been over a month now and about 15hrs of phone calls to india and i still cant even connect. They have told me there is now a fault on the line and due to the back log of complaints it could take up to another 2 weeks just to establish a connection. I am now goin insane please help.
Posted by: Rob | 19 Aug 2006 10:06:44
Guys, stop saying that that you happy with "to not be alone in here", because that won't solve any problem. Tell us what to do, and what kind of choices we got to fix it.
I am going through that 10 days period now and highest speed which i got was 1.8 DL and 228 kb/s UL. That means I cant expect my 6.5 meg, which I was promised. So again guys, please advice.
Posted by: PIt | 20 Aug 2006 06:03:40
Same story here, I upgraded well really I downgraded,
Indian call centres tell me nothing wrong with line changed cables even tried my old modem still only getting 470 kbps was promised 3mb used to be faster with my old 1mb connection feel conned like the rest of you .surely people power must count for something if this was any other company they would be slagged to death in the press i wonder why this is not happening ?
Posted by: stevie | 20 Aug 2006 08:56:20
Same experience as many others.
Was with BTYahoo! on a 2Mb package, then received an e-mail from them telling me I could "upgrade" to 8Mb.
Called BT who told me I could expect between 6.3Mb and 8Mb based on a line test. On this basis, signed up for a new 18 month contract.
Been on the new package for a month. I now lose my internet connection more than I ever did before and when I am connected, speedtests show I often get less than the 2Mb I previously had, and I have never had anything higher than 2Mb.
Several calls to India to no avail. Recent one was comical - I spent 20 minutes on hold and was then told they needed to "test the line" (yet again!) but that this would take 30 minutes so they would need to call me back. When I said my previous experience told me this was not true and that a line test took a matter of minutes, he admitted his "tools were down" so he couldn't test line! They promised to call me back at 7pm that evening (last Friday) - still waiting for the call.
If Ofcom do not do something about this, maybe the Advertising Standards Authority should investigate. If this forum is anything to go by, BT are charging a large number of people for a service they know they are not capable of delivering. On second thoughts, never mind Ofcom or the Advertising Standards Authority, maybe this is one for the Serious Fraud Office!
Posted by: btpants | 20 Aug 2006 17:27:37
Ive had the same problem ,my router reports a sync speed of
4896 (Kbps.)down and 448 (Kbps.),ive had it for 2 months download speeds were fine after the 10 day calibration,getting an average of 400+kBps.but now its dropped to 150kBps.WTF is going on?
Posted by: Ryan Boyd | 20 Aug 2006 19:32:33
It does make me feel SLIGHTLY better that it's not just me, but not much. Since 'upgrading' to BT Total Broadband from good old 1 Meg, my broadband experience has been pathetic. I can't even listen to previews in iTunes now and YouTube is a waste of time. I'm pretty sure it was faster on dial up.
Having been through the BT 'help line' trauma once, I just can't bear the thought of ringing them again.
BT=Bloody Terrible.
Posted by: Androo | 21 Aug 2006 13:43:35
Is there any way that the posts here can be brought to the attention of someone at BT? I am waiting for a new router and meanwhile the line keeps disconnecting, despite occasional calls from BT India saying that they are still testing the line. I also had the 30 minutes to do a line test that only takes seconds. I did send in an online complaint to Broadbandsupport@btinternet.com - but this is also based in India.
Posted by: Red | 21 Aug 2006 14:36:02
It just keeps getting better!
Home to another batch of dropped connections and sub 2Mb speed. Did manage to stay connected long enough to pick up an e-mail from BT telling me my latest bill was available to view "on line". Found they have charged me for 3 months in advance for the new "8Mb" broadband but haven't bothered to refund any of last month's payment relating to the old (reliable) 2Mb package. Nice.
Called 150 to try and sort it but I am still on hold - 35 minutes and counting. Only consolation is this is a freefone number (unlike Broadband Technical Help).
What is happening to BT?
Posted by: btpants | 21 Aug 2006 19:53:39
Same thing is happening to me - I upgraded to 8Mb BB 3 months ago with BTand have been enjying a 2MB download since until Thursday. Now dropped to 0.1MB with no improvement.Having phoned the indian sub continent and emailed I got the usual tst your filters etc but to no avail. Seems no one wants to help - anyone any advice on how I contact the BB engineers as I'm getting nowhere with India??
Posted by: TroyT | 21 Aug 2006 21:05:35
Same problem. Enjoyed BT broadbands 1MB service for a long time. Then - without being asked - was given the 8 MB service..... in reality this gives download speeds of 30kB up to 1.5 MB, but of course nearly always at the low end. From reading these emails its not at all obvious what to do. Maybe we should pass this thread to some news sites, and see if BT make any effort to fix this then?
Posted by: MV | 21 Aug 2006 22:07:11
BT Broadband line faults number:
0845 603 7613
I have also seen advice online about demanding to speak to a technical advisor in the UK on the basis of being unable to understand those in India.
I think it is a very good idea to send links to this thread to news sites - I'll try if my connection stays put for more than a few minutes/seconds! Have now been without a decent connection for two weeks.
Posted by: Red | 22 Aug 2006 10:43:58
Update - there is now a BT engineer in the street outside my house - investigating Broadband problems - at least 3 of my neighbours have all had the same problem - one was using AOL and was told to update her router - she did so and the problem persisted. The BT engineer says it must be a line problem - after all the problem started on the same date for at least 2 of us! BT are ripping us off ...
Posted by: Red | 22 Aug 2006 13:04:52
Well I found all of these coments rather interesting. They are practically word for word of my recent experiences.
I have had BT Broadband for 3 and a half years, initially on half meg, then it was automatically increased to 2 meg last year without my knowledge.
Last month BT Broadband put a stealthy block on my VoIP Ventrilo service (voice messenger) that enabled me to talk to my wife who is currently in Hong Kong. After extensive research into the problem, myself and friends in America found that there was indisputable evidence that BT had done this. There had been rumours that Telephone companies might do this to prevent you using someone else's service, so you'd have to pay for their own, and I hadn't believed it until it happened to me. After complaining to BT Broadband about doing this, they denied it but it miraculously cured itself a day later. One day after that, it happened again, and so on for about a week.
Eventually I was so furious I threatened to take my business elsewhere, so they offered to upgrade me to their 8 meg connection, that coincidentally had their own VoIP service. I only agreed to go ahead with it as it costs the same as I paid for my 2 meg connection, but with an increased speed. I was told that I would have a 10 day optimisation period whereby the connection may lag or drop. I had no problems within those 10 days, and got a full 8 meg.
From the 11th day, my connection kept dropping and coming back in quick succession, making it impossible to use the internet at all, and the VoIP service just gave me an unobtainable tone. When I tried to call Tech Support, all I heard was "This service is currently unavailable". After 1 hour and lots of automated menu redirecting, I finally managed to speak to someone.
Since then, I have had 2 weeks of an unstable connection, with a speed that has gradually slowed to less than what I had when I was on 2 meg, and it is still unstable. My phone bill will be huge from all of my wasted time calling technical support!
I spoke to Offtel today who referred me to an unlisted BT PLC number, who ended up being helpful and sympathetic. They told me that BT Broadband were a separate company under them, and what BT Broadband had been doing to me is technically illegal, and that if they do not fix my problem, BT PLC would be more than wiling to give me a full refund and tear up my contract, so as I may go elsewhere.
I am now waiting 48 hours AGAIN for Tech Support to respond to this. If I get the same old rubbish from them, I will be back on to BT PLC for my refund, and watchdog too, with a lengthly complaint.
Posted by: Chris Frost | 22 Aug 2006 15:32:56
Ordered 2.2mb's got roughly 1.4mb download speeds, thought "OK, knew that would happen anyway" - but now I get 800k, less than a meg. It seems that they're taking on new customers without the bandwidth to provide for it, and everyone's connection is slowing down
Posted by: Colin | 22 Aug 2006 20:53:54
Well a small amount of success - I phoned BT and their Indian sub-branch told me there was no fault on the line. After a short walk to the top of the street I found that a new building had had a new junction box added and so added this info to the mix and lo and behold a fault on my line materialised. Coincidence? You decide... Anyway now an engineer is going to visit the exchange etc etc.... So at least I have some hope.
Posted by: TroyT | 22 Aug 2006 22:00:49
WTF?
has someone from BT Broadband been trolling???
Posted by: Red | 23 Aug 2006 16:26:28
Just found this list of messages and it is same as my experience.I had 2Mb but only got 1Mb due to distance from exchange. since this was a free upgrade from 512, I was happy with that. Now with paying for upgrade to 8Mb I am getting slower and more unstable connection. One new fact is that now I am being told that, despite the fact that BT web pages state a 10 day period of optimisation, my friends on the Indian Subcontinent are saying I must now wait 30 days for the line to settle down durind the optimisation period.
Posted by: Dave Burn | 25 Aug 2006 10:21:45
Having installed the new router and connected it to ethernet port, connection has improved, not disconnecting - speed improved from 230kbps downstream to 1.49Mbps in 3 days.
Posted by: Red | 25 Aug 2006 10:59:16
BT means big testicles, i used to have the 2mb service and then upgraded to total broadband option 3 at £26.99 a month. I got my line on checked the upload and download speeds which were at 6.5mb down and 448 up. This generally got download speeds of 500kbps, now 3 months later its constantly dropping down and in lucky if i get over 120kbps down. Rang stuid twats at BT tech in india and they are about as much use as a chocolate fire guard the retards. IM PISSED off with this problem and they say the line is fine and its my sky box? Bull shit, also i have changed from wired network to wireless but this isnt the issue it BT (big testicles) service thats crap. After reading the issues on here i can see im not the only one. BT sort your shit out and give everyone good dowload speeds. I want cable and i cant get it, and im stuck with these idiots now for another 10 months.
Bastards
Posted by: Garry | 26 Aug 2006 11:46:51
My sorry tale is different to many that I have read here. I was with NTL for dialup orginally many moons ago and I decided to go onto their wonderful new broad band package (cheapest one, can't remember the name of it) it was ok for a few months then all hell broke loose. I got disconnected every other day for at least 2 days at a time, when I was actually connected I kept on getting viruses which of course I blamed NTL for! Ended up buying a new pc. so eventually I got Farked off with it and tried my damnedest to cancel NTL. Not a flaming chance. ring em up they cancel everything after the obligatory 12 months is up there, sorted. My bill turns up and I am still sodding well paying for broadband which I no longer get!! this takes at least 4 months to actually cancel. So I've been on aol dialup since and it's too slow. Can anyone recommend a GOOD service provider as I was considering BT but strangely I'm going off that idea now, hmmm...
Posted by: Key | 26 Aug 2006 19:22:41
I've posted before. Continuing to have major speed problems with BT broadband. Have now insisted that they downgrade me to my former 1MB FIXED RATE service (not BT DSL Max.... or perhaps it should be renamed BT DSL Min). After 30 mins of arguing with them they eventually gave in and PROMISED they would return my service within 48 hours. Guess what? Another pack of lies. There is no change in my service 72 hours later. I do at last have a stable download speed with BT DSL Min, a whooping 128 kB!
Question for you all - I have also noticed that there is CONSIDERABLE NOISE on my phone line when the router is connected to the web. If I disconnect the router then the phone line is quiet again. It happens with two different routers, and with three different microfilters. ie not a problem at my end. Has anyone experienced anything similar to this?
Posted by: MV | 27 Aug 2006 08:24:37
Re: noise on phone line - I did have that problem when I first got BT Broadband 3 years ago and had to replace the cordless phone with a corded phone to get rid of the noise on the phone line. If you have a phoen with a cord, try it out and see if that is any better.
Posted by: Red | 27 Aug 2006 09:24:14
*quote* I do at last have a stable download speed with BT DSL Min, a whooping 128 kB!
lol try having to pay for 1mb service and getting 31kb download speed the max i have ever seen before is 43kb and it lasted all of 1 second. mind you i am with tiscali, but bt just dont seem intrested in sorting me out with a new line, its utterly disgraceful.
Posted by: matt | 27 Aug 2006 23:32:17
Broadband has been a nightmare for me for the last year.
initially i went with tiscali 2meg line, but found that 2-5 disconnections per hour and 200ping on counterstrike during 4pm-12pm pretty annoying, you get what you pay for i thought, so i swapped to pipex, got myself a 2m line.
again, pings were great, download speeds of 200kps +. thought great, then i realised (after a few days research) that pipex port throttle p2p and my dl speeds were averaging 20kps. complained to pipex to no avail so asked for a migration code.
after a few days however i couldnt really be bothered to find a new isp until i checked my bank account and found pipex had taken £192 out of my account without telling me. enraged i filled out a direct debit indemnity form at the bank, got my money back on the spot and migrated to aol (partially because they dont do 1 year contracts)
just come back from holidays to find im connecting at 6m-8m line, but my downloads are limited to avg 130kps. less than my pipex 2m line. phoned the guys on the other side of the world and they said to wait until september 1st when things in my area would improve. after reading the posts on this site i fear im being fobbed off. and i think after the 1 month free period ill downgrade to the 2m line and settle for 220k d/l speeds (hopefully). though i have been disconnected at least 6 times in the last 24 hours while playing counterstrike. so who knows.
broadband providers are a bunch of thieves and liars and it seems to me that these 8meg promises are far from being anywhere near the truth.
Posted by: cnrees | 28 Aug 2006 12:27:35
I have upgraded to bt max. was send the bt voyafer220v by mistake. after calling bt to question the router i was send the homehub. initially connected at 8616, i thought great, after settling in period it had dropped down to 1700. at the moment connected at 4024 and download speed 2,579.8 Kbps, use adslguide.org for speed test. rang the helpline and was told they were sending me a new home hub. received it, connected it and same again. connected the btvoyager220v and it sits at 7616 for weeks on end, download speed anything upto 4000Kbps. on my home hub i get a download speed of 1200 max.
rang bt again and was told the problem is with phone, then it was a line problem. was told i will get another home hub - anyone want one. i think the problem lies within the exchange, i work for bt and can't get this resolved, next a letter/e-mail to the chairman.
Posted by: willi | 29 Aug 2006 16:41:25
Looks like we have got an idiot posting.His mummy must love him though
Posted by: rhodesy | 29 Aug 2006 20:06:59
Same probelem with BT. Upgraded to 8mb having been on 2mB (workd fine) - installed new Router Voyager 220v and now only 240 KBPs - calles to India (please delete cache and cookies!). Diaganosed as a line fault - I don't think so as i replaced the old modem and immediately back to 2MB. BT are laughing at us all....
Posted by: Andrew | 1 Sep 2006 08:14:00
Well my trauma continues. Three times I have been told that the line has been tested and three times I have been told there is a fault and BT are sending an engineer out to the exchange and three times I am told that it has been cleared only to get 129kbps download with 376 upstream. Does anyone knw of a number I can use that doesn't go to India and may have someone who knows how to fix it?? Incidentally I think the Sale of Goods act covers this so I feel my next stop will be trading standards!
Posted by: TroyT | 1 Sep 2006 20:18:58
Well - provisional credit where provisional credit is due. After a brief discussion with an engineer from BT Wholesale he tells me that the "system" has set my speed at 135kbps due to a "blip" on the 18th August and has (for some reason ) never exceded this speed again despite me connecting at nearly 2mbps since. After he "manually" reset the speed to 2mbps the speed of my connection returned to what it was. Yet he still maintained that it could be a fault with my setup! What I found quite bizarre were the comments he was making which made it sound like the whole Max ADSL system was a living entity that set its own speed and that this was completely out of their control!!! If he can set the system to increase y speed then surely the fault is with BT? Totally bizarre!!
Posted by: TroyT | 1 Sep 2006 23:19:37
Ok, nothing new that no one has yet reported. 2mb fixed line dropped to 160kbps when over to ADSLMax. Been over a month and India have proved to be a bag of shit, you pay penuts you get indians. Engineer has been and confirmed the line is fine and thinks the problem is with the Homehub. Has anyone tried another router/modem?.
Posted by: JohnE | 2 Sep 2006 11:47:20
Same problem, on 8MB getting 800KB. Reported to BT this morning & got the usual asian robot. Not happy as it had taken me nearly 2 hours and got the same old "testing the line" answer.
Was overjoyed to receive a call from a guy monitoring BT's efficiecy in dealing with complaints. Well I got it all off my chest & when he asked if they could divulge the information to BT I said "yes please".
Don't know if it will make any difference but I will keep you posted.
Posted by: Mary Lunn | 2 Sep 2006 20:53:41
Glad to hear that someone has had the opportunity to tell BT how wonderful their efficiency is!
For information - having changed my modem for the Voyager 210 ADSL router, connected via ethernet port on the pc, my connnection has been excellent and the speeds after 10 days are about 2.8Mbps downstream and 375kbps upstream. Not as fast as promised but much better than they were 2 weeks ago and I also got credit on my bill for the time I was without decent broadband. But I spent hours on the phone to BT India.
Posted by: Red | 3 Sep 2006 09:32:17
my speed was way down -after loads of calls and
2 engineers checking lines, i went online into broadband desktop help, asked the questions online-someone from technical ,messaged me through system, they told me to phone technical support,at that point i typed in that i had done this several times ,and will not be phoning again!!
"but will wait for a couple of days to see if speed increases,before i decide on cancelling BT".Hey presto, my speed jumped from 0.5/mb to 3.5 -then settled approx 2.5mb overnight.Just proves there was no fault in lines,microfilters etc etc.
Posted by: mark -belfast | 8 Sep 2006 13:37:15
Was paying £24.95 for 2 meg with aol for over 12 months, but was only getting speeds less than one meg.
Bottom line is company selling you a product which you can not use or get.
got Compensation of £220 by telephoning several times and complaining and threatening to move to another provider and even court action.
Was put through to India or Pakistan and couldn't understand, so phoned and phoned until I got somebody english each time.
AOL know quite well what speed you can get when you sign up and they should not charge you for a product you can't use.
They first tried to palm me off saying it was BTs fault, maybe it is but aol still continued to charge for a product they can't supply in certain areas.
Posted by: karen | 8 Sep 2006 17:34:35
I hate to have to add this but my ADSLMax service is now delivering what they said it would - over 5Mbps all day.
The fault - my own Vigor router. I downloaded upgrade firmware and the beast collapsed and died (out of warranty of course) so I bought a new Vigor 2800g and everything suddenly works !!!!!
After all the names I called BT !
Posted by: jlough | 9 Sep 2006 18:54:34
WOW I cannot believe everyone has the same problem as I do. IF everyone makes a comment to bbc watchdog mayby they could investigate further. Bt seem to be ripping us all off!!!!!!
Posted by: john | 10 Sep 2006 11:16:27
i moved up to the higher speed of 2mb at 26.99 a month, big mistake, i am still stuck at 1.1mb, what a con.
Posted by: charles mcphee | 11 Sep 2006 00:30:14
moved to BT MaxADSL after being on Onetel 1mb without problems - connect at 2mb but downloads speeds are 420kbps (57-60k), with upload @ 396kbps - so getting lower download speeds than when was on 1mb - and this is with their new homehub equipment
Posted by: Mike | 11 Sep 2006 08:46:41
The same problem here, DO NOT Upgrade to the new 8Mb or as I like to call it 0.1Mb for more money.
We moved to the new 8mb BTbroadband option 3 with the BTHomehub and VOIP phone, I was told my connection would be 4mb.
Since moving from my old stable 2mb connection, that was always 2mb; my connection has now dropped to 0.1mb, after 3 months
I am on my second BTHomehub, same problem, the call centre in India, log your call, but come out with some rubbish, delete you cookies etc….but they don’t seem to understand that the ADSL connection to the router is only 0.1mb, how is deleting my cookies on my PC going to speed up my ADSL connection to my router.
The line has dropped 3 times since migrating to the new ADSL2 connection.
The excuses so far are…
1) Must be the microfilter
2) Must be my internet history on my Local PC
3) Must be my cookies on your local PC
4) You have a virus on your PC
5) It is the extension from the master socket
The extension one makes me laugh, as it was always OK before I move to ADSL 2…
6) It is your BTHomehub, we will send you one in 3 days – took one week, same problem
7) Will take 21 days for your line speed to adjust to the option rate 5,4,3,2,1mb now 0.1mb, be connected for 3 months now.
I would like to know how much money BT is making from the 0845 number….
Posted by: Craig | 11 Sep 2006 09:33:11
Just had a quick look at the BT availabilty checker for my phone number, it is now only 1.5mb???
When did that change and why didn't they let me know???
Posted by: Craig | 11 Sep 2006 22:09:42
I'm amazed (or maybe not) by the number of people posting similar problems here and on forums elsewhere on the net. I had a stable 2Mbit connection with BT Broadband for 18 months. 2 months ago I noticed my router was syncing at 576kbit. Testing my download speeds using speedtester.bt.com showed they had dropped from the consistent 1.5Mbit I previously had to 480kbit.
I contacted BT Broadband support to ask what was going on and was told there was a line fault. A few days later I received a call saying the engineers couldn't find a fault and that the problem was my end. Went through the now very familiar process of being treated like an idiot and constantly repeating the steps that BT Broadband tech help suggest. Eventually got fed-up and spoke to BT sales saying I wanted to cancel contract. However I was stupid enough to be persuaded to "upgrade" to BT Total Broadband. I was promised my speeds would "greatly improve" - despite being sceptical, I went ahead.
BT Total Broadband was activated on 21st August. For 10 days I regularly measured my speeds using the usual web resources and was delighted to be achieving download speeds between 1.2 - 3.5Mbit. However, on day 11 my download speed mysteriously dropped to 240kbit. Absolutely nothing, either hardware or software, had changed at my end. Since then my download speed has never fluctuated from exactly 240kbit - I have tested all times of day and night. BT tech support have me going round in circles - "we have found a line fault", 2 days later "engineers have found no fault" and on and on.
I think my next step is to contact my local trading standards office. Although BT state that this is an "up to 8Mb" service, I believe this is totally misleading if they are claiming that 240kbit is acceptable. I was told I could expect speeds up to 4.5Mbit. I have an apparently fixed speed of 240kbit. This is like being sold a car which should be capable of up to 90mph and findind it will only do 4mph!
Posted by: Colin | 12 Sep 2006 15:54:46
SLOW BROADBAND PROBLEM SOLVED.
PLEASE READ THIS.....
I posted back on June 11th 2006 with slow broadband-max issues like most of the posts.
Having millions of conversations with BT India and UK with no results I have solved the problem myself.
This may be embarrassing because BT were not at fault after all but here goes.
Using a Buffalo wireless system just was not up to the job. Although indications were that the wireless signal transfer speed was 100% today I plugged in an ethernet cable.
Guess what...download speed increased from below 2mb to 5mb.
Please do not rely upon your wireless network. Plug in an ethernet cable and run the tests again. If you find, like me that the problem is solved then email me and give me feedback. I can't be the only one. mail@gchare.co.uk
Good luck.
Posted by: gee | 14 Sep 2006 11:10:59
Glad to here this solved your problem Gee. Unfortunately, I have always had my PC connected to both my BT Home Hub or Belkin router using ethernet.
Situation with BT Total Broadband is getting worse. In the evenings, the connection is now dropping every few minutes and takes 60 seconds to reconnect. This morning, I managed to maintain a connection long enough to perform a download speed test using speedtester.bt.com. Result = 70 kilo bits per second!!!
I have spoken to my local trading standards office. I explained to them that I upgraded to BT Total Broadband from my 2Mb service because I was assured improved speeds. They advised me to make a formal complaint to BT and want me to put together some information so that they can investigate. I'll post any updates here...
Posted by: Colin | 14 Sep 2006 13:38:45
Well, what can I say that hasn't already been said?
Ordered package 3 two months ago, and apart from the odd hub reset my connection ran at a smooth 5mbps, with an average download of around 350k/s+. Not bad, I was happy.
About a week ago I noticed a distinct sluggishness of my browsing and games, upon which point I ran the hub manager. 5,184 Kbps downstream. I guess it wasn't BT, I had probably left something downloading in the background. Upon several different speed tests, I discovered I had a downstream of 129kbps... Wait, what?
After stumbling upon this site, I promptly became enraged and began searching for another ISP, since BT was obviously simply taking the piss.
Lo behold, at several of the aforementioned ISP's in this forum, the max speed for my line appeared to be 512kbps... Wait, what?
Apparently, the fact that I used to have 2mbps on this line, have had 5mbps for the past few months is irrelevant...
Deciding that there was probably a genuine fault, I called BT. After around 15 minutes of being directed, and redirected to various help desks, I arrived at the Indian Tech Support... Surly an oxymoron.
After enduring the slow torture of asking the Indian women (I was unable to pronounce her name, let alone spell it) to repeat herself several times, I got my problem across and a line test was run.
After a 10 minute wait, which I spent wondering if I had being disconnected, see informed me that there was a line fault, and she had elevated my complaint to the BT fault department.
My broadband should be fixed in 3 - 5 working days.
If not? Well, I'm sure they have violated my 12 month contract by not delivering on the agreed upon service. I'll be asking for my MAC on day 6 if this problem isn't resolved.
Posted by: Angry | 14 Sep 2006 17:57:37
The funny thing is I was googling for some answers on wtf was going on only to find you lot with the same sorry tales.
My personal Broadband woes have been going on since my upgrade date of 27/07/2006. The last call I had (20 minutes ago) was to an Asian guy called Karan in the Contingency team.. sounds impressive huh?
I was incidently reading all this when he rang, I mentioned this page to him and I said that from what I can gather it's nothing to do with our telephone lines, routers.. It's your end mate, please don't try another line check, I've had around 20 already and I'm afraid the wires might not be up to another.
I have had a BT engineer visit my house last Friday and he confirmed everything is fine my end, I could (but he wasn't supposed to tell me this) ask technical to try and swap my pci card at the exchange to a different slot to see if it helped. I've not mentioned this yet, I'm hoping they can sort it out all by themselves. After all, the BT engineer wasn't exactly sure what the problem is.
I'm going to bookmark this page and like some of you others keep updating.
If you want to get a real sense of what your current d/l speed is go to http://www.btopenworld.com/speedtest This is about as true representation you'll get. I'm currently getting a whopping 29.7kps... yay! :/
Posted by: climbatize | 14 Sep 2006 19:35:39
Well, what can i add that's not already been said. I had a reliable 1Mb service, prior to my 'upgrade' 14 weeks ago.
When it is connecting i get 40k, slower than dialup. I have spoken to Indian over 20 times and excuses have ranged from 'using a mac' to 'electromagnetic interference from the electricity pylons'.....i kid you not !!!
Today, i finally spoke to someone (i could understand) who offered to put me back on my old plan, although mysteriously, the best that can offer is 512k, not the previous 1mb.
How can BT get away with this appalling level (or lack of) service? How come we all continue to pay them every month, for what amounts, in some cases, to be a service little better than dialup? Has anyone ever had the problem where BT are slow at taking their money from their bank accounts? Thought not !
Maybe if they spent less on advertising and a little more on providing the service that we are paying for. Why should we accept anything less than the advertised downloads speeds?
What other product would we buy where we received considerably less than advertised? Ford Fiesta for Aston Martin prices?
Posted by: steve morton | 14 Sep 2006 19:50:21
UPDATE
After having spent nearly all day at work on the phone to BT and finally cancelling my account I came home & checked my speed. I nearly fell off the settee when I got 6MB!!!!
Let's hope it stays that way & good luck to the rest of you.
Posted by: Mary Lunn | 15 Sep 2006 19:06:05
OMG Found the right site:
Here goes - About 4-5 days ago I was sitting well at 6.5meg D/load tests - service was incredible (local exchange says i would get at least a 6.5 meg line etc etc)
Well now my local exchange says my potential line speed is now dropped to 4meg WTF!!
I then almost died - from a 6.5,eg download speed test to what I'm running now which is..ready...1.1Meg line!!!
I went NUTS at AOL and NUTS at bt - I live 500 meters away from the exhcange and AOL have blamed me (I'm a systems admin btw lol), blamed my router which worked well for months at my 6.5meg speed and even blamed my BT master socket.
Got Bt to check line etc etc ohh suprise no fault!
Its ALL exchange based - BT are messing around with the local exchange and its obvious to me as i used to have lightnin speeds to what amounts to a basic 1 meg line now.
Im well fed up - I'm off to trading standards and i'm off to threaten BT.
I'm soo glad I discovered this site as I thought i was going mad - they made it out to be my fault lol!
I'll keep you guys updated on progress..
Posted by: Steven Mcleod | 16 Sep 2006 00:52:51
Upgraded to 8meg - Activated Aug 22nd. No improvement. So far reasons are:
1. Antivirus software
2. My router
3. My microfilter.
I'm cancelling contract.
Posted by: Richard | 16 Sep 2006 09:03:44
Ok can now confirm the following:
1. When is signed for my contract - Local exchange speed was 6.5 Meg or greater - which I got for months
2. Now exchange is UP TO 4 Meg - which I'm getting 1 Meg.
We are all being shafted by BT.
Posted by: Steven Mcleod | 16 Sep 2006 21:01:51
Good Luck with the courts it might be the only way!
Customer services if you can get hold of them. Going through Cue Card nonsense delete cache temporary files speed test which in my case shows a dazzling download speed of 467KBs!
Before I upgraded to Total Broadband I was enjoying downloads of 1800-2000kbs no problems now I've upgraded to 4meg Broadband which is the best my line can support my download speeds have dropped 500% thats five times slower than 2meg gave me. Hang on wasn't this an upgrade am i not paying more of my hard earned money for this so called Total Broadband service?
What puzzles me is how BT Vision is going to deliver Television and Video Services over these totally degraded Broadband Connections? I might just apply and laugh at the engineer when he tries to instal it and nothing works because of the very slow speeds. I think all these problems will come home to roost when Bt launches BT Vision especially when they try a download speedtest!! Ha Ha. Perhaps the advertising campaign will come to an abrupt halt when they realise they cannot deliver! Won't the IT press media etc have a fieldday!
Legal action or just sit back order Bt Vision and laugh what will be there pathetic excuse (the line is not up to it, Internal wiring other non Bt equipment in the house? who Knows lets leave it to The Telco with more spin than a Pakistani bowler who has been tampering with theball!
Posted by: Charlie Elston | 16 Sep 2006 21:36:45
BT finally pulled there thumbs out of there ass and fixed my broadband. Now crusing along on a healthy 4mb.
Posted by: | 18 Sep 2006 02:40:49
Well called AOL who have said that BT tested my local exchange due to my amazing line drop from 6.5Meg to 1.1 Meg.
BT tested and they are happy that I can now get 1.56 Meg as this does not fail an ADSL test.
AHAHAHAHAHAHA
Im supposed to be thankful?
I'm looking at going back to a 'dedicated' 2 Meg line and let everyone else 'test' BT's project called ADSLMAX.
BT - why oh why!
Posted by: Steven Mcleod | 18 Sep 2006 10:27:00
Wonder if BT read posts like this - I doubt it.
Anyhow - agree with all of the above - BT SUCKS and they have us by the short and curlies and there's nothing we can do about it.
I was better off with my old ISDN lines !!!!
Bt slogan is TODAY. TOMORROW - Well I hope they fucking sort thigs out today otherwise we'll all be fucked tomorrow !!!
Posted by: Graeme | 18 Sep 2006 22:09:07
Has anyone tried a visualroute test? Don't know whether it's anything to go on, but my ADSL Max comes through the old BT Midband network which used to be the ISDN2 network. Could that explain why I am only get 0.1Mbps download speed even though I am syncing at 2.1Mbps?
Posted by: Dave | 19 Sep 2006 20:08:47
?
Posted by: | 20 Sep 2006 11:29:19
Here's how it works guys. For 10 days the exchange communicates with your modem to determine a maximum stable rate (MSR). This is the lowest sync rate that you will have noticed over the 10 day period. The exchange then sets a fault threshold rate (FTR) which is 30% below the MSR (I think it's a buffer in case your MSR drops).
This is then your default rate although I believe it can go up again after the 10 day period because the exchange will continue to test the line speed, noise etc and if it is consistently good (ie above your current rate then your FTR will be raised).
Then your data rate (ie your download Mbit transfer rate is set according to the sync "band" you fall into (ie your default FTR rate after the 10 days)
Generally, you get the lower end of the band you fall into. See below:-
SYNC rate Data rate
288 - 575 250 Kbps
576 - 1151 500 Kbps
1152 - 1727 1.0 Mbps
1728 - 2271 1.5 Mbps
2272 - 2847 2 Mbps
2848 - 3423 2.5 Mbps
3424 - 3999 3.0 Mbps
4000 - 4543 3.5 Mbps
4544 - 5119 4.0 Mbps
5120 - 5695 4.5 Mbps
5696 - 6239 5.0 Mbps
6240 - 6815 5.5 Mbps
6816 - 7391 6.0 Mbps
7392 - 7967 6.5 Mbps
7968 - 8127 7.0 Mbps
8128 7.15 Mbps
In my personal circumstances this makes for scary reading because I was on a 2meg connection and face the possibility of a 250kbits download speed !
In my case:-
I have been watching the Windows connection icon in the system tray and I have seen it as low as 768k. Reduce that by 30% and you have 538k which falls into the lowest data rate band of 250kbs ! Arrrgghhhhh.....
I believe my line needs to sync at a higher rate for 3 days running with no drop out in speed to get me out of this band.
Anyway, I hope I have summarised this correctly. For anyone who wants a look at the source of this info, here's the link. It is an excellent site and I really mean that :)
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/adslmax_explained.php
PS. NOte the band above :-
2272 - 2847 2 Mbps
If ADSL bands work in the same way as ADSL Max then this band explains why those with a 2 or 2.2meg connection were consistently downloading at the full 2 Mbps speed. Even if you now sync at 3000 you will get a FTR which falls into the 2mbits data rate download speed so you will be no better off then when you had a normal 2meg ADSL connection (this either now makes 2meg seem like a good deal of ADSL Max seem like a bum deal.
Personally, I wish I had just stuck with my old 2meg and I haven't even reached the end of the 10 day period yet ! I must be a pessimist.
Posted by: Gunners (some helpful hints) | 20 Sep 2006 11:56:32
Come On You Guys The Answer To All Your Probs In Is In The Name BT = Bengal Tecs
Posted by: dave | 22 Sep 2006 00:19:57
Exactly the same situation here. I upgraded from a stable 1MB connection on the twelth of september. Everything was fine for two days then the speed droppped to 30.1KB on the 10th day I received just over 1MB which then dropped to 16.4KB today. Answers to emails and desktop help refer me to the Technical Helpline again and again who blame everything at my end including my carpet, yes my carpet. Today they found a fault on my line after 5 tests, and tell me that it will be fixed in three to five days when I shall receive the full 8MB which I know is not possible at my location. I hope that this will be fixed by next weekend but I'm not placing any bets. I've sent a letter to the BT Headquarters to complain.
Posted by: Jane | 24 Sep 2006 20:12:11
Further to my comments (Angry | Sep 14, 2006 5:57:37 PM) I found the answer;
Simply call the department that takes your cash: BT Broadband service 0800 800 150 and tell them you are cancelling your account, I did. They initiallly tried saying that I can't, I've effectively agreed to a 12 month contract. I pointed out that as far as I'm concerned the contract was for a service that supplied a minimum 1.5Mbs connection, (which incidently I had before the upgrade). "You supply the service, and I supplies the moneys... If you can't keep your end of the bargain I'm not about to keep mine". As it happens the woman on the end of the phone (English speaking) sounded alright, saying that they really were working on it... Ok I said I'll give you 24 hours, if it's not sorted by this time tomorrow I'm off o/
The same day my puny 29.7Kbs connection rocketed skyward to a heady 1.9Mbs... and has been like it since, (last thursday, 4 days).
Not the MeGASuPerfaST 4Mbs they said my line could handle but a massive improvement on the pants connection of previous weeks. I just hope they can keep it up.
Posted by: | 24 Sep 2006 21:07:36
I have had three months of slow ADSL Max speeds, 9 line checks with escalation to faults, engineer visit to check line and finally they sent me a new router. Lost my rag and genuinely prepared tale of woe for Trading standards office. Warned BT for last time ... hey presto line speed jumps from 0.4 to 1.4 meg - miraculously the line speed I had before upgrade.... will keep you posted on speed sustainability but I am not holding my breath
Posted by: John | 25 Sep 2006 22:05:05
switched to talk talk 2 meg couple of months ago highest download speed so far 250kbps slowest 3kbps one time set speedtester running drove 4 miles to take daughter to grandparents dropped daughter off drove home still hadnt finished running test its a joke and totally unusable i was faster on dial up
Posted by: nigel | 26 Sep 2006 19:47:26
Same old story, reliable 1Meg to 0.1Meg and constantly losing connection. Virtually no broadband for three months.
I work from home running IT business so this has been a total disaster with many lost customers. I am now unable to pay next months mortgage. This is as much due to the frustrating hours spent on the phone to India as to the lack of broadband.
I am also convinced that the call centre staff are deliberately keeping BT callers on the phone as long as possible to run up the phone bill.
I would suggest some unified action here: everyone that has posted here should go to the BBC Watchdog website and complain.
That type of publicity would kill BT Total Broadband overnight which is what they deserve.
Posted by: Alex | 28 Sep 2006 23:14:37
I 'upgraded' to 'up to 8MB' at the end of July 2006. Had been stable and running at 2.279MB/s for previous 4 months at least, no drop outs worth noting.
'Upgrade' happened. BTHomeHub arrived. Plugged in... wireless network can't get in WEP code not what it said on hublabel. Complain to BT - told to hack hub if I can, as thousands of units gone out with rwrong labels. IT background, so managed it. Sitting at 2MB for first two days, then drops, and drops, and drops, and drops on daily basis.
I complained, got Indian gent, told it was the 'settleing in period of 10 days' explained this was now 20 days in - sympathised with me, told me again it was the 10 day settling in period and signed off. 2 weeks later tried again.. apparently the BTTotal Broadband settling in period uses a different concept of time from the real world- 'cos, a different indian gent tells me that I'm still within my 10 day settling in period.. and so on and so on.
Personally I bloody sick of BT and their crap. I'm about 3km from exchange and the online system before contract agreed was saying 4.5MB MINIMUM for me, the sales staff told me the same.
Now when I check BTs online line indicator (a sales tool) it tells me I can never expect more than 1MB/s - testers tellme I'm getting as low as 0.73MB/s most of the time. BTs Speedtester wtells me my profile locks me to <1MB/s.
BT will not answer any emails, the phone... I'm put on endless hold then the line goes out now.
As far as I am concerned I was sold a minimum expectation of 4.5MB/s they are not delivering under the terms of my contract.
Here by the way is a brilliant bit. checked the phone number of my neighbour, same exchange, same distance to within a few feet. She does not have broadband, it would benefit BT if she thoiught she could get a good line speed would it not... so I checked. On my line the system says I can not get more than 1MB/s, on her number it still calaims 4.5MB/s.
I have come to believe that BT is in the process of a deliberate con/fraud. Anyone here know how to initiate legal action against these creatures???
I'M DEADLY SERIOUS - HOW DO I/WE START LEGAL ACTION????
Posted by: Ed | 30 Sep 2006 21:26:34
VIRGIN NET MUST BE AVOIDED
I have had an ongoing latency prob for over 8 weeks. Virgin net do not control anything but have to go through NTL....They never return calls and the service stinks....there head office continually ignore my letters. I have pushed BT to resolve this and think I may eventually get somewhere.
Guys the only way to get things fixed is to constantly spam your ISP and BT....then they tae note..
any others who hate virgin net email me so i can forward this on to them...
thanks
Posted by: nick | 1 Oct 2006 21:34:05
I have read everyones comments and am just as frustrated as you.
I am in contact with the Head of BT Wholesale (Dr Paul Reynolds) and have disturbed the Board of NTL....NTL own Virgin...
I have written to ALEX DALE at COmmunications HOUSE, VIrgin net and his sidekick DEBBIE PHILIPS.....they have not replied....i have spoken with ALEX before and he doesnt care at all and represents the arrogance VIRGIN have toward their customers....
i have over 35 emails from Virgin and they are all apologies....noone knows anything....I have told BT that i shall be publicising the fact that the 8mb product is untested and for gamers its a disadvantage to have this product...(fluctating pings)//
Please email me at CAROUSO@hotmail.com
I shall compile emails and let Virgin know we shall not put up with this...i shall also put a blog up and put all comments on there....also thinking of putting something on U TUBE..
Thanks all nick
Posted by: nick | 1 Oct 2006 21:39:36
Same problem here guys.
I was offered a free “upgrade” to up to 8meg by Virgin.net 2 months ago having been reasonably satisfied with the 2 meg performance.
They put me on the ADSLMAX line and for the first month my connection was only 125-129 kbps even though I’m constantly connecting at 7meg with my router or modem.
Virgin (who I’ve been with for 10 years) seemed at a loss to do anything about it going through all the defective router, virus, filter or nearby faulty microwave streetlight rubbish time and time again even though I told them that I was an experienced IT professional who repaired PC’s for a living, that it worked perfectly well until the changes and I had swapping everything possible to swap. I was then told that my connection had been limited by BT to 150kbps due to a “fault” in the detection period.
My current situation it that I did another two testing periods (leaving the router on all day) and I now download up to 1,700kbps but often its down to 150kbps on a weekend which wasn’t the case before. I’ve tried ringing BT but got no help or sense out of them at all and Virgin basically washed their hands of my problem after the first month, didn’t give me the promised rebate and there was no follow up call as agreed. BT might be to blame but Virgin.net have also have been poor with a long term customer who advertised them on his website and who has converted over 100 of his clients to their service. What chance the rest?
My experience from all this (and talking to some of my customers) is that BT have got the likes of Virgin.net and Tiscali in their pockets as they use BT’s own servers for their products and they are just “playing the game” knowing full well there is a massive issue but are not allowed to admit it. My intention is to wait until Sky installs their own servers in my region and transfer to them. Something I wouldn’t have considered 3 months ago.
Posted by: Graham | 2 Oct 2006 12:25:35
Posted comments on 25/09 - speed dropped to 400kps again - phoned up - SHOCK - was put through to Newcastle call centre - very understanding - promised to resolve issues by tomorrow afternoon - resetting line config to 1.5meg - will keep this community posted.
Posted by: John Axon | 3 Oct 2006 21:47:13
The speed dropped to 200K! From nearly 3M last week. I had my BT line checked by and engineer which found nothing. I made several very frustrating phone calls to India trying out there suggestions to test my Internal Wiring, PC, Filters and Router, found nothing. This proved to me that the fault lay with there equipment, they assured me no problems at there end. I then very firmly explained that I was going to move ISP and asked for my money back. Low and behold 2 hours later when I turn on my PC the speed had return to 3M. Conclusion: There system must overloaded so there turning the speed down and only those shout, longest and loudest get there speed back up !
Posted by: A Moss | 4 Oct 2006 09:02:12
VIRGIN NET ADMIT THAT THEIR SYSTEM CANT TAKE CAPACITY!
FYI
I spoke with Virgin last night...they have finally admitted there is a bandwidth problem and say that this week they are increasing bandwidth and shall implement a new something or rather every month up to an incl December.
They believe that at present they are just within capacity and at peak times they are running at 80%.
I have been promised feedback on Friday and am due