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]

half an hour in test socket:

Edit, Right after posting that the ATM dropped altogether again, due I think to a link retrain.

The line is awful, I am only a few hundred meters from the exchange for heavens sake; checkout the new rate!

DSL Details

Modem Type: Built in modem - ADSL
DSL Line (Wire Pair): Line 1 (inner pair)
Current DSL Connection:
Down Up
Rate: 4544 kbs 448 kbs
Max Rate: 3572 kbs 1028 kbs
Noise Margin: 15.0 dB 24.0 dB
Attenuation: 10.8 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: 3572 kbs
Attenuation @ 300kHz: 10.8 dB
Uncanceled Echo: 5.5 dB Suspicious - check phone filters and alarm
VCXO Frequency Offset: -52.4 ppm Ok
Final Receive Gain: 1.6 dB Ok
Excessive Impulse Noise: 0 Ok
Traffic Statistics

IP Traffic Bytes Packets Errors %
Transmit: 12 0 0 0
Receive: 0 0 0 0

ATM Traffic Cells Errors %
Transmit: 114839 0 0
Receive: 368069 0 0
DSL Link Errors

Collected for 0:36:35

Since Current Current Time Since
Reset 24-hr int. 15-min int. Last Event
ATM
Last Event
Cell Header Errors 371 371 122 0:01:23
Loss of cell Delineation 292 292 97 0:01:23

DSL
Link Retrains: 1 1 1 0:01:22
DSL Training Errors: 1 1 1 0:00:26
Training Timeouts: 0 0 0 0:00:00
Loss of Framing Failures: 1 1 1 0:01:23
Loss of Signal Failures: 1 1 1 0:01:23
Loss of Power Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
Loss of Margin Failures: 1 1 1 0:01:23
**bleep**. Seconds w/Errors: 16 16 7 0:01:23
**bleep**. Sec. w/Severe Errors: 8 8 3 0:01:23
Corrected Blocks: 956 956 268 0:01:23
Uncorrectable Blocks: 371 371 119 0:01:23
DSL Unavailable Seconds: 105 105 80 0:00:05

[zacherynuk]

OK, I have had to start using another connection again now, as I was being kicked every few minutes, last time I saw the ATM sync downstream is was just under 1500.

I have to say though, as far as support forums go, this has to be, by far the worst I have ever used.

So far I have been ignored, requested to repeat steps already taken and had the obvious stated.  Though I realise that there was a gap in my responses, but perhaps there wouldn't have been if the subscribe thread worked.

[zacherynuk]

I have now raised another call with BT phone support and, since the line tester didn't work for them either it has been passed straight to engineering.

[zacherynuk]

Over 7 hours later and not a peep. nothing, nada, ziltch.

Is there an SLA ?  Anyone ?

[zacherynuk]

So, this morning I checked the reference number online and the call had cleared next to it.  We used 'cleared' as a term to indicate that a call has been rectified; however, upon call BT, I discovered that they use it as a term indicating that BT Wholesale has passed the call back to BT (Business?) and they might call you at some stage in the next day or so.

So a full day later I called them and they asked me which router I was using (already told them this, obviously; BT Router plugged into test socket) and if the broadband light was off, solid or blinking.  Incredible.  Oh and also what my contact details were - although I have told BT what my contact number is, probably 300-500 times over the years, they still don't seem to know it... making me wonder how they would have called me back to ask me about the information I gave them the previous day.

The long and short of it is, during my soliloquy of displeasure an engineer was booked and is once again coming to visit me. yay.  I'm excited.

[Fiona]

Hi zacherynuk,

I'm sorry you are continuing to have issues with your connection, the technical helpdesk are the best people to deal with this. Due to the nature of the forum these types of issues can be difficult to properly diagnose or rectify through this medium. However, please keep us updated on the progress and let us know how things are after the engineers visit.

Kind Regards

Fiona

BT Business Forum Moderator

[zacherynuk]

An engineer arrived at the property this morning at 8:05 and despite a note on the door stating that I would be gone for 5 minutes, with my name and mobile number, a card was put through my door stating that I had missed him.

Having seen his van leave my drive, I knew he was close and having read the card I drove up to the exchange where his van was parked to grab him. He said his job was done and he had put a card through my door, which is his job and had closed the call and since been assigned a new job - which is impressive for such a short time frame.  He informed me helpfully that I would have to contact my service provider.

BT phone people were very friendly again and arranged another engineer to come out in the afternoon slot, at around 14:30 the same chap from the morning showed up, I explained the problem, in detail.

He plugged his equipment into the line and ran a five minute test, which passed.  This, he informed me, was his job and all he was authorised to do.  I would have to contact my service provider.

I asked if he was serious; sadly he was.  I showed him the router stats, showing the uncorrectable blocks and DSL outages (currently 2229 DSL unavailable seconds, 18000 uncorrectable blocks, 22000 corrected blocks 50 loss of signal and 16 retrains, in the past 24 hours) and asked him to test again.  he refused as he "couldn't be expected to hang about here all day waiting for an error on the line".  I aksed him if the router data meant anything to him and he replied that it wasn'y his job to look at the router errors, he was there to run a 5 minute test; this was his job.

Sadly this man wasn't authorised to troubleshoot for more than 5 minutes, nor was he authorised to set up equipment to monitor the line for an extended period (I suggested 1 hour+).

He did, however, helpfully advise me that he would be returning his 5 minute test result back to my service provider as this is what he had been called here to do; this was his job.

A little bit disapointing.

Edit:  I forgot the best bit, apparently, intermittent issues like this can be caused by electrical interference from...      ... satellites!  That's right, satellites cause interference on the broadband.  I pointed out to him that the house broadband, sharing the same overhead line, going to the same poles and the same exchange doesn't appear to be affected by satellite interference and he looked a bit sad.  Perhaps because his training had let him down.

[zacherynuk]

BT Support rang and left a message today saying that there were no faults on my line and it had been stable all day.

Thats great news!  However, I still can't run the BT speedtester to find out what my IP profile is and normal speedtest.net shows my connection running at 1.1mb by 200kb.

I no it'll be futile calling them until more errors show on the line, so I have rebooted the router and will monitor - I certainly can't use it whilst it's running at that speed.

[Fiona]

Hi zacherynuk,

Thank you for keeping us updated on the forum. I'm sorry there was not much improvement after the engineers visit, I have asked the technical team to review all the work that has been carried out on your issue and call you to discuss how we can move forward. I have a note of the Technical reference number so I will keep an eye on the case as well.

Kind regards

Fiona

BT Business Forum Moderator

[zacherynuk]

Thanks Fiona.

As of now, 8 hours later, the ATM is syncing ok, but it's obviously still very throttled.

I have had only 24 Cell Header Errors and 3 losses of Delineation.  Corrected and uncorrected blocks have been lower too, coming in at just over 100 per hour.  Although that is the best it has been, it certainly isn't acceptable - even if I was getting a decent 6-7.5meg download.

It's a lemon and needs re-plumbing.