Slow Broadband since Saturday (download)

[colski1961]

Hi, anyone else suffering with slow download speeds since Saturday - called the 'tech help line' and spent 35 mins yesterday wasting my time - took me all around the houses and repeated the tests I'd already done before being told 'no fault found' (within my network) and the there was an ongoing issue (not reported on the BT outtage site or phone line!).

Just checking if this is true or if it's just a way of buying another 24 hours before they have to really DO something.

Prior to Saturday I was getting 5Mb down /340Kb up. Uplink speed has been unaffected.

[TimDurham75]

Yes, same symptom but in my case began sometime Friday.

Might be for completely different reason, of course.  In my case they are currently blaming a "line fault" so awaiting a broadband engineer on Wednesday by which time I will have been down for 5-6 days on a business connection.  (This will be a second engineer having yesterday had a "telecoms engineer" turn up, unexpectedly, when we were out who, according to the card posted, diagnosed a problem of water leakage into the external connection which he reports as having "re-made" and "re-sealed" to prevent future occurrence.  [Visit was "unexpected" because we had originally been told Monday or Tuesday and were expecting some kind of confirmation first which was never given - in fact "support" had told us this was unlikely to be a premises issue or visit so it was something of a surprise to find a card on the doorstep!])   This made no difference at all to the actual reported fault and BT support themselves are still saying they are detecting a "line fault" so have ordered up the second visit by an actual broadband engineer this time.   However, in further similarity, there is no reported online service fault in our area but, when phoning up the automated message system suggested there was an ongoing issue for us when you provide your number detail!   Then after 3-4 hours this issue was reported as "resolved" but without any impact at all to my specific issue.

The router reports everything "fine" in terms of achieving connection but there are excessive comms errors occurring and, from the logs it looks like a proper synch lock is not being achieved.  Practical experience though is that, at best, I am getting modem speed connections and not even the speed that the router says I "should" be getting  (This speed is already below my "normal" level though suggesting that either they have throttled my connection or the "training" has been activated into a downward spiral by the failure to work correctly.)  Is practically unusable.  Interestingly DNS, traceroute and ping operations seem to be "normal" but actual data traffic is almost dead - occasional "normal" speed spikes but mainly around 40kbps or less!!!

I am suspicious of the "line fault" thing because I have been round that loop before.   Fundamentally support or their systems are reporting difficulty even accepting that my router is "online" despite the fact it was active and "in use" at the time; subject to the severe limitations.  Very much a "computer says 'no'" response.

Last time I had a "similar" issue it took nearly a week to get support to accept that the issue was indeed with the server at their end which required some kind of a reset.  When they did finally accept that, the fault was cleared in about 10 minutes.

[JohnE]

I am sorry that you've had difficulty with this, collski1961.  The helpdesk gets alerts about major service failures and other issues before they are listed either on the Service Status Updates page or the service status phone line, 0800 169 0199.

Has your broadband speed recovered?

[deryckh]

is there any problems with broadband connection in the Bolton area

[TimDurham75]

To JohnE,

I appreciate you may be reluctant to comment on a public forum but could you explain how the online status and the automated telephone message status can appear to give completely different information about whether there is an actual known ongoing issue in a particular area?  The cynical would say that the online system may be giving a false impression of the true state of affairs and not very accurate.  As mentioned above there was a mysterious "known problem" that lasted some 5-6 hours or so in our area on Saturday which has never appeared "online" which reported "no issues" or all issues "resolved".   This seems a rather conflicted view, especially when all the advice given is "check on line status" first.

Saturday was clearly not a very good day for BT - telephone support was reporting 5-10 minutes wait but the reality was 30-40 minutes to even get through to someone.  When there is a clear mismatch between the information provided and the reality experienced it only leads to frustrated customers.

[colski1961]

NO! Called 'help' on Sunday -wasted 35 minutes of my life and again yesterday (another 25min call) and was PROMISED an engineer calling me before 10:30am today....(now) The 'fault' never appeared on the fault line or the on-line 'issues' - all totally useless - as are BT!! Not happy as into day 4 of the poor speed and it's affecting my ability to work............ Funny how BT spent most of yeserday spouting about it's plans for Fast 20Mb+ - maybe they should get their current system working first!

[TimDurham75]

Well, what a surprise - broadband engineer could find no actual fault on the line but did acknowledge that the max rate was misreporting - significantly down on what should be possible at this connection but otherwise nothing, that he could detect, wrong. Meanwhile router continues to clock up DSL errors of various sorts and fails to correctly synch so I am still down for another day with no effective connection. The max rate continues downwards but still misreports anyway as not being achieved. I am pretty certain that fault lies with either the exchange or with BT infrastructures but am no nearer to getting this fixed.

[TimDurham75]

Connection still "down" (only 40kbps or less experienced: I had a faster modem than that in the "old days") ...

Those who like a good conspiracy might like to read this post:

http://business.forums.bt.com/t5/Broadband-and-internet/BT-Business-Hub-Firmware-Flash-policy-and-le...

- a THIRD engineer is apparently scheduled for Monday morning to address this issue.  By that point I will have been "down" for 10 days; on a Business connection.

This booking made, by BT, without notifying me.  They do not return calls when promised.  That information supplied is inaccurate.  This further visit despite the fact that the broadband engineer from Wednesday could find no actual fault - that he believed it was an "upstream" issue.

Assurances made by a "Manager" that the visit on Monday will either resolve the issue or that they will identify an appropriate alternative.  That was supposed to have been the remit of the second engineer on Wednesday.

The only thing preventing me jumping ship now is the virtual monopoly in this locality which I believe means it is unlikely that any other provider can give me the combination of services I specifically require.  There are other providers but their combination of services does not match BT, it would be even further disruption to move and, underneath it all, they would still likely be utilising BT infrastructure so are unlikely to be able to actually provide any "better" service.

Angry...much....oh yeah.....

[TimDurham75]

Well it's all a bit of a mystery...

After 10 days - suddenly all back to "normal" this morning.  Still very much broken last night up till 10:30pm but this morning; 07:45AM; all working as if never an issue - BT report nothing specifically changed, according to the call notes, and we are still scheduled to have an engineer visit later this morning anyway, but issue seems to have suddenly "gone away".

Whilst I am delighted to have a working connection again it does leave me with a mystery about the actual cause of the problem especially when we have changed nothing but apparently neither has BT!

Maybe the engineer will know if they have been working at our exchange...