New Connection Very Slow.

[zacherynuk]

 Hello,

After waiting 6 long weeks following a move, a new G.DMT connection was at last formally enlivened today and, although I am getting a decent ATM Sync (although quite a few DSL and ATM errors) I am IP Profiled to 500kbps, which is rather slow.

As I had an engineer out to check the line, and I am only about 400 meters from the exchange, I would expect a little better performance from BT's flagship xDSL product.

I have also called the 0800 number in the welcome email, and was given an 0845 number to call, and after battling through a somewhat futile voice recognition system, and waiting on hold for a while, sadly, I only managed to upset the lady who tried to help me, as on admitting she couldn’t find my account(My name, provisioned telephone number, address and company name apparently wasn’t enough) she hung up on me.

Please could somebody advise me what to do, or should I just hang tight and hope that a monitoring system picks up my dilemma and an unseen uber-engineer rectifies it for us?  If this does happen, and you are the unseen uber-engineer, I thank you, sincerely.  I doubt you would ever get that from your employers.  If you are a script, then I would ask that your creator incorporates some form of update notification as to what is going on, perhaps via email, or SMS.

Thanks,

Zach 

[zacherynuk]

Notice to uber-engineer, or uber-engineer script.  Please don't secretly fix the issue just yet, since after a day of internet hell and around 2 hours on chat and phone to BT an engineer is to come out and check the external line.

Could somebody please clarify for me, apart from the obvious, what the chat people can actually do ?

So far I have been told they can't place orders, raise faults, test lines or talk about billing queries; and I have them quoted as saying "We just have access to the website"

[buirnsideandy]

I have tried the polite patient approach with the support desk but they're not engineers. You will probably get an Open Reach engineer sent several times to test your perfect copper line to the exchange! The support desk do not seem to appreciate that if the modem syncs to the BRAS router at the exchange and the noise margins are good the fault is eslewhere!

My modem syncs at 6.5Mbps downstream and 448kbps upstream but I'm lucky if I can get 10kbps throughput on upload!

I know my fault is the backhaul BT circuit since I was with Talk Talk residential just before changing to BT Business Broadband and had no problems with upload with either attachments to emails or ftp files to web site. The support department do not have an engineering background and therefore do not understand the difference between modem sync speed and data throughput. The problem was passed to BT Wholesale who tried fobbing off with the claim that upload speeds are not guaranteed. Well I'd certainly expect a throughput better than a fifth of dial up!

I suppose it's worth pointing out that this problem could have occurred no matter what ISP you're with since most of the trunk circuits are supplied by BT. It is very difficult to get any satisfaction. BT sent the local Open Reach engineer to test the line three times. Idiotic to test a perfect line three times. One look at the exchange router would have told them the sync speeds and noise margins were fine. I've never had a problem with sync speeds being only 0.5 km from the exchange. The problem is in the BT network or possibly in another supplier of trunk links if BT have leased capacity from the likes of Cable and Wireless. Since the problem is bursty in nature it is likely a misconfigurqation/traffic shaping problem on a trunk circuit but that obviously is a difficult fault to track down and BT Business do not seem to have the clout or confidence to challenge the BT Wholesale team about the problem.

[Fiona]

Hi

Zacherynuk, After the engineer visit has your profile improved?

In regards to the question about chat agents, it sounds like you were in contact with the chat team for 'Using our Website'. There is a Broadband technical chat, who will assist with technical issues. There is a Billing chat that assist with Billing issues. You would need to ensure you select the correct path through the Contact Us section to reach the chat and division you require.

Buirnsideandy, I have checked and can see you are in contact with the technical team about this issue. I'm Sorry, I am not sure what further help the moderators on the forum can supply with this issue.

Kind Regards

Fiona

BT Business Forum Moderator

[zacherynuk]

Hello, sorry for the delay in replying.

Following a visit from a voice engineer, I got a little less line interference, but I am still dropping at least half a dozen times a day, although it's only for a few minutes each timje, it feels like a life time when you are reliant on Citrix sessions for your work.

We have had a second, non business line installed and this not only syncs faster than the business line, it is far more reliable and faster.  During install of this line the engineer had issues with the cards in the exchange and had to swap two out before we could get a service. 

In short, our £5 no frills line outperforms the top of the range BT adsl business product in every facet, even though it is terminated only 5 feet away, shares the same overhead cable and is plugged into the same cabinet in the same exchange only 500 yards away.

Since I have this consumer line, and my 3G modem I have been able to get on and do some work, but this business line needs to be fixed, or replaced.  It's Sunday night, nearly 21:00 and I currently I can't get more than 120k download - this makes downloading and enlivening a 4GB virtual appliance by 7AM tomorrow morning on my premium business line improbable.

What should I do ?

[thebigman]

Hi zacherynuk,

Sorry to hear about your problems,

What you need to do is;

1. Find out what speed your router is synching up with our exchange at. Too find this out on the BT business hub you need to open up your web browser and type 192.168.1.254 into the address bar. When searching for this you will be directed to the routers configuration page. On the main page you will see a broadband icon with arrows for upstream and downstream. Take note of these rates.

2. Next you will need to locate your BT test port. This is located behind the face of your master telephone socket. To gain access to this you will need to remove both screws from the front of the main socket and carefully take off the front plate and the test port should be on the right. Plug your broadband filter in here

3. Now you need to recheck the downstream sync rate on the router. If your speed has increased on here leave your router in the test socket for at least 4 hours and run a speedtest on www.speedtester.bt.com

Let me know how you get on

thebigman

[zacherynuk]

Hi,

ATM usually syncs at about 7100/448

This is the current sync:

Modem Type: Built in modem - ADSL
DSL Line (Wire Pair): Line 1 (inner pair)
Current DSL Connection:
 Down Up
Rate: 5056 kbs 448 kbs
Max Rate: 6672 kbs 1028 kbs 
Noise Margin: 24.0 dB 24.0 dB 
Attenuation: 11.3 dB 7.0 dB 
Output Power: 17.7 dBm  11.9 dBm

 
Protocol: G.DMT Annex A
Channel: Interleaved
DSLAM Vendor Information Country: {3840} Vendor: {ALCB} Specific: {0 } 
ATM PVC: 0/38

 
Rate Cap: 6672 kbs
Attenuation @ 300kHz: 11.3 dB
Uncanceled Echo: 5.7 dB Suspicious - check phone filters and alarm
VCXO Frequency Offset: -52.9 ppm Ok
Final Receive Gain: 1.9 dB Ok
Excessive Impulse Noise: 0 Ok

No change occurs when plugged into test socket, I have had it in there for days on end with everything else unplugged.  Indeed, when the line went live I had the engineer unpluged all the old star cabling and install a new master sockjet with a test port- and he even put in a new cable from the master socket to the office (about 10 foot)

I have tried running the bt speedtester at least a half a dozen times a day for the past week and everytime it fails.  Initially it would report IP caps of between 500 and 2000, which was the initial thing I rasied with BT.

I do belive the only thing that can be done at this point is having the line re-enlivended using a different overhead pair and, preferably, plugged into a different location within the cab and exchange rack.

Thanks

[zacherynuk]

Here are my errors since last post:

Should I be trying to talk to yet another phone support person?

Collected for 16:21:48

 Since Current Current Time Since
 Reset 24-hr int. 15-min int. Last Event
ATM
Last Event
Cell Header Errors 14633 14633 70 0:00:43
Loss of cell Delineation 14319 14319 69 0:00:43

 
DSL
Link Retrains: 66 66 1 0:00:42
DSL Training Errors: 13 13 0 2:50:17
Training Timeouts: 0 0 0 0:00:00
Loss of Framing Failures: 163 163 0 0:09:46
Loss of Signal Failures: 115 115 2 0:00:43
Loss of Power Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
Loss of Margin Failures: 154 154 2 0:00:43
**bleep**. Seconds w/Errors: 414 414 2 0:00:43
**bleep**. Sec. w/Severe Errors: 276 276 2 0:00:43
Corrected Blocks: 17079 17079 71 0:00:43
Uncorrectable Blocks: 14561 14561 67 0:00:43
DSL Unavailable Seconds: 2342 2342 35 0:00:09

[thebigman]

Hi zacherynuk,

After looking through the results of the logs that you posted i can see that your connection has a lot of errorswhich in turn is causing the connection to drop. If you get the router connected into the test port and post the same results i'll have a look at it tomorrow if i have the time.

thebigman

[zacherynuk]

It is plugged into the test socket again, so now I have a ropey internet connection and no phone, again.