My 'up to 20 mbs broadband' has slowly deteriorated to half speed

[reab]

Seems that the forum doesn't work correctly with Explorer 9 so posted text in reply below using Firefox 4

[reab]

Hi all,

For the last 5 months or so my business broadband on a residential line has worked reliably well at around 12656/1042 kbs with one Voip and one static ip address.

I have one phone, one filter and a BT2700HGV router connected and even the extension to my home/office was carried out bt BT.

Around three or four weeks ago it started to go slower and has now settled at 6656/1022 kbs so I'm running at around 50% of previous. Even this slow speed is of course within the acceptable window of service - well not for me it isn't!

I do turn evertyhing off at night but then again I always did when running at the higher speeds!

Any suggestions as too what could be the culprit here for a slow downturn other than BT giving more bandwidth to its BT vision customers??

Roger B

[JohnE]

reab, it's worth knowing that you should keep your ADSL router plugged in and powered on.  If you regularly switch off your router, then BT Wholesale's systems can interpret that as instability and will reduce your connection profile to find a stable speed.  If this continues, you may find yourself on a minimum connection profile.

[reab]

Thanks John but my point is why should it decide to do this after 5 months of behaving in a reasonable manner, with me powering down at night (eco friendly!) at the same time - is the exchange unable to recognise line problems from no response, exactly how does this work or has something changed - such as bandwidth policy? I've never understood why the exchange equipment needs up to 10 days to make its mind up, that is 240 hours of continuous interrogation after all !

Needless to say I'm being bombarded with promises from other companies that seem to think that they can do better!

Roger B

[JohnE]

Any kind of disconnection has the potential for causing this, reab.  All I can say is that it's not generally a good idea to regularly power down the connection, in case it is mis-calculated as "erroring" on the line.  It is important because unstable lines have a knock - on effect on other broadband lines at the exchange.  It is worth knowing that keeping your connection active will likely help to recover the connection profile.

[reab]

OK - so here I am a month later with the router having been on continuously except for two restarts due to it 'locking up' or just not responding (nothing unusual).

The stats from the BT hub mananger shows the download at 8497kbs with upload unchanged at 1040kbs.

It also shows the line capped at 8817kbs where previously it was capped around 22mbs so that it would settle down to it own level which for many months was around 12mbs - not totally unhappy with that!

Now I've changed nothing so this is a BT issue, I'm appalled that the exchange equipment is unable to tell the difference between a router not connected and be able to discount the stats from it as apposed to a poor line, noise etc.

Maybe it is something to do with BT vision and it bandwidth requirements - something has changed and it has done so without my permission!!! Some one is to blame!

Any suggestions before I have a go at BT business, residential, business, bus . . . . . . .

Roger B

[JohnE]

If you have BT Vision, then you are a Residential customer?  In any case, reab, please contact the helpdesk and get this investigated as a fault. Contact Us

If you are a Residential customer, the residential forum is here: BTCare Community Forums

[reab]

Thanks but this is the thing John - I have a residential line with business broadband. This was so that I could have a static ip address for communication with the company that I work for remotely on the internet from home, not a heavey user mostly email and occassional Citrix remote access.

I don't have BT vision but assume many others around here do and hence the possibility of bandwidth restriction.

I've now sent an email for support as a business broadband customer and await the response with some trepidation, last time residential blamed business and vice versa!

Roger B

[JohnE]

To be honest, reab, for connection issues, use the phone or Live Chat contacts.  It's impossible to troubleshoot a line issue using e-mail contact.  It's not simply a matter of "reporting" a fault, we need to run diagnostics with the customer actually on the line, on location.

[phileast67]

If only I could get anywhere near those speeds - tonights download speed = 16Kb/s - this is not what I signed up for for my business.....looked to move to Infinity but apparently no plans to upgrade the exchange (haven't even brought it out of the dark ages yet). 

R's

Phil