When is an upgrade not an upgrade?!

[TimDurham75]

It is well known the problems with providers being able to use the "speeds up to" terminology and all that implies.

Thought I would share a new variation on this theme.

I will preface this with a technical disclaimer that I know why the following happens so I do not really need any explanation replies but I wanted to share my ongoing "unimpressed" status with the service that BT Business "provides" to long suffering subscribers.

I have since original subscription, 5 years ago, been paying for an "up to 8Mbps" Business service on a residential line in which we currently typically enjoyed; subject to the usual fluctuations; around a 4.5-5Mbps actual service.   For a period around 2 years ago we were even getting around 6Mbps but they have been steadily building a lot more housing round here and the ongoing proliferation of visible WiFi points also shows the overall take up of broadband, over the period, has also dramatically increased, so, as you would expect, the speed has slowly declined but being business rather than domestic provision it has been better contention than for some.   It was still pretty good, some might say, if they are unfortunate enough to be living in some parts of the country where even this speed is not achievable.   This speed represented the best that was possible at our local exchange as we live outside of the city; Aberdeen, Scotland; but it is "not great" compared to some places in the world and even the UK.

Like everyone else we get the TV adverts from the "usual suspects", including BT, boasting about the 20-50Mbps or better services they can provide but in our area that was never going to happen whilst the exchange did not support it.   There is no point switching provider either, when the underlying BT infrastructure is the limiting factor, so nobody else can offer better speed.

A number of weeks ago we received a number of emails from BT announcing that our local exchange was finally to be upgraded on a specific date, that nothing required to be done, but that we would enjoy an improved service and that during the switchover we might experience a temporary expected outage.   Great so far - no problem with any temporary outage and of course a speed improvement is very desirable as I have work colleagues elsewhere who enjoy substantially faster rates.  We have been waiting months for this news as other areas in the city had been done a long time ago so is quite exciting...

The switch day came and went - nothing happened.  We waited a few days, nothing happened, so came phone call number 1 to support:

There had been some unspecified "technical issues" at the exchange so the work had not actually been carried out when scheduled and reported.  If we waited till the following week it should happen.   Support cannot tell us precisely when the work would now occur but contact details for the "upgrades" team was given who "should be able to tell us".   We waited....no noticeable improvement.

Phone call number 2:

Called the provided number for the "upgrades" team to try to enquire if the work had actually been carried out - the BT's switchboard system caught this one, I never did get the upgrades team, but ended up back at Business support; (apparently, I didn't choose any options for this).  They still cannot tell me exactly "when" but they suggest it should be happening in the next couple of days....they also report that once complete the exchange should now support "up to" 20Mbps...[Sounds good to me...]....So we wait.......no noticeable changes.....

Phone call number 3:

As a technical support call this rated poorly, it has to be said: after checking our number details the person reported that according to "the system" the best we could expect at our location was "2Mbps".   I pointed out to the person that; with the exception of fault conditions; we had never had a service that slow; ever; but got more than twice that and was sitting at around 5.5Mbps at that very moment.  [I am also aware of the speed being experienced at the other end of our area so I know other people get more than this too, so I really do not know what diagnostic figure was being used!] "Oh!....I don't know how you were getting that speed....the 'system' says...."    I'll miss out all the long "on hold" pauses whilst presumably a supervisor was contacted but eventually, we ran through line diagnostics, used the direct test port, etc. the usual, to ensure that no issues were found.  No issues were found.   The person reports that a request for a complete reset/retrain/regrade on the line will be placed and this takes 72hours to go through.   Then wait 3 days whilst things stabilize a bit and a "call back" will be arranged to see if there is any improvement.

So we waited...and there was a change....our upload speed has jumped from the 380Kbps to 1Mbps; so clearly something has now occurred; but our download speed.....had increased by a few 100Kbps only: it is faster, but not really significantly - that is still within the boundaries of the daily fluctuations we could get anyway under 8Mbps.   Given that they have more than doubled the capacity at the exchange this is not the magnitude that what we would expect.

Phone call number 4:

BT call back and the voice is professional but is sounding tired and harassed when I explain the situation.  It seems that although the local exchange has been improved, none of the lines in this area can apparently support the better speeds.   That there is some grading limitation applied to the line but if this is removed the end result will be completely unstable with frequent loss of connection occurring.   It is claimed I am receiving the very best speed that is currently possible at this location as it is BT policy to try to ensure the stability first and foremost.   Fibre is not yet available at our exchange....we will need to wait for this.....probably next year.....

So BT have upgraded the exchange but this actually makes minimal difference.  It could be argued that the service is actually deteriorated.   Before we got 5/8 (62%) of the speed and we now get about 6/20 (30%) so, from my perspective it is easy to see why I am disappointed: I have a 12% improvement on my original speed but way below expectation.  I had, realistically, I thought, been hoping for about 11-12Mbps but we actually get about half of this and only marginally more than before.  

They are continuing to build in this area so I cannot help wondering if this "upgrade" is actually about increasing capacity more than any improvement to speed and I have no way to verify how much they might be throttling our lines to achieve provision of this.

So that's it....when is an upgrade not an upgrade.......when it refers to BT Broadband speeds.

We need to wait till, next year, maybe, to see when Fibre becomes available and what speed this might deliver.

Current satisfaction rating with BT - I think 6/20 is fair?!

 [And "Yes" I am still bitter about the firmware "upgrade" flash of my BT2700HGV router - I find the Blackberry to be much less stable when connected to the main SSID than it ever was on the "Fusion" SSID.  We routinely need to perform a "battery pull" to recover a crashed browser but this never used to happen before.   I think this is to do with WPA2 or DNS, as it does not seem to happen so readily if WiFi is not used, but we refuse to downgrade the PC WiFi security just for the phones benefit.   BT, GIVE ME BACK MY SECOND WIFI SSID]

[tidaltides]

Upgrade will not be an upgrade if you think you won't need the extra features yet.

[MHC]

I can see why you are frustrated about the lack of improvement in download speeds but it is unfortunately a question of the laws of physics ...

I had a similar "upgrade" when my speeds went from normally jsut over 4.2 Mbps  to just over 5Mbps - but on some days it could get uo to 5.25 Mbps. A change from ADSL Max to 2+ can give a significant improvement for those close to teh exhange,  others such as yourself a small change and in other cases there could actually be a decreae in downstream speeds.   This is due to the modulation techniques and freqencies used in transmission.

Every line is different, termination impedance, attenuation,  cross talk, atmospheric noise &c and some will expereince a lot better improvment and some a lot less.

[TimDurham75]

"Yoo cannae change the laws o' physics....I'm an engineer, no a ...."

We are about 2.2km from the exchange, linear distance, so, as I do not have an exact line length distance, my estimate for this based upon some local geographic knowlege is that it is likely to be closer to 4km, or so, for line length but I have no actual firm basis.

The thing is, based upon the location of the exchange, compared to where premises are physically constructed in the area, practically all of the current subscribers will be in the same situation, or even much worse, including the businesses, so none of us can actually obtain that great a provision. It is the "new builds" who will presumably obtain all the benefits as these will be physically all situated much closer to the exchange as it is not particularly central to the area served and never has been - it is becoming geographically more central as the town has expanded. The majority of this town is around 20 years old whilst the newer builds, currently still going up and there is a lot of them, will be less than 2 years. These new premises are further away from all other community facilities which is all centred around the older, original "heart of the community" so there is not a good argument for relocation (apart from the exchange) - the new houses currently have no local facilities and are not likely to get any of their own for at least another 5-10 years, if ever.

At these distances the differences between ADSL and ADSL2+ becomes much more negligible as we find. I suspect this is explaining a few things:

Why the BT estimate of best speed was quoted as 2Mbps in "call 3".

That there was not a compelling argument to upgrade us ever, even if the number of subscribers might suggest it, which is why we had to wait so long for it to occur compared to some other areas because the geography for the exchange location just did not suggest it as that beneficial but they could not openly admit that.

That it has only happened now, as I originally suggested, because it becomes beneficial for all the other "new build" houses expanding in this area, which require additional capacity to be added anyway, but does little to enhance the original existing town and so it is to cope primarily with these and not us who have paid for a service.

I reckon that in this area around 70% of subscribers will see minimal change, due to the distances, so that this will be indistinguishable from an "8Mbps service".   You can be sure that this will never be advertised as such though.

Even though the providers are now forced to making more of the "disclaimers" on the "up to" speeds it still seems to me they are misrepresenting the fact that the majority will not experience anything like these rates.

I realise there are a number of variables involved but BT should be able to very accurately calculate what speeds are possible at a given location but this is seemingly not in the public domain and not even made available to support staff either as my "call 3" demonstrated that their information provided did not reflect what I know to be the experiential reality - that in our area the majority get around twice this figure.

Although my line is supposed to have reached the stable state I also note that since my last complaint my speed has actually improved further to around 6.7Mbps (so now better than 12%) - on an "up to 8Mbps" service I would be  happy with that.   Based upon simple linear distance my original expectation was not unreasonable but clearly local geography greatly distorts this and my estimates for line length and service seem to coincide with that experienced in reality.   It does help create the "conspiracy theory" that rates could in part be based upon the amount of fuss you create and whether you notice?!!

This all seems to still reflects these old news finding reports here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10774406

The overall expectation set by the capabilities of the technologies are still, very misleading, I think and the regulator should be doing more to address this.  It is not just the use of the "up to" terminology but the simple fact that this is rarely ever achievable that is not at all transparent.

BT were happy to publicise the upgrade of the exchange so they are trying to promote the benefits.  It is a different matter if as consumers we should say that they are only now delivering the service level we have been paying for all these years - can I get money back for 5 years worth of unobtainable 8Mbps service that has only now become possible under a 20Mbps service which, under current technologies, we will never experience either.  I am in favour of a scheme that suggests service rates should be based upon actual realisable capacity experience - we cannot get a 20Mbps service and are only now getting the 8Mbps service: clearly that 2.5 factor is a lot of difference and if we translate that to money represents a sizeable figure.

[gaba]

What you complainin about dude?

I got a salesman phone me promising me an 'upgrade for free' I was about to tell him to F, but he assured me it was free and it was an upgrade, and since I was half asleep I replied 'whatever'.

I had probably just done the equvelent of signing a contract in blood for a deal involving my first born and all my worldly goods, but I will tell you about that when I get the bill.

What I can say for now is that the guy came and installed a 'BT Infinity' Box, and cut off both my bussiness phones.

I said 'what about my phones' he said ' BT infinity does not have that function sorry'.....WTF

As for the speed........ well it was bad before, but now I may as well just send a pigeon.

[TimDurham75]

Not sure I get you either, mate!

Are you suggesting I have no right to publicise and highlight a poor service delivery; as you yourself also experience in your own topic: http://business.forums.bt.com/t5/Broadband-and-internet/Bad-incoming-connection-how-do-I-avoid-the-u...; just because as a "matter of degree" you regard your issues as "more severe" than mine because I actually do get some level of service but just not what was expected?

I actually see it as something of importance to warn people that they may not receive what they expect, as you yourself clearly are also very well aware?   That misrepresentation; lying; is not an acceptable position.

Seems to me that we both fundamentally have the same kind of issue, so should be "on the same side" - dealing with a monopoly who as a result of that position is able to treat customers with a mixture of arrogance, contempt and incompetence but fundamentally has some very serious failing with the delivery of its technical support and with misrepresentation of product and capability.   Who can get away with this behaviour because of a seemingly ineffectual regulator and legislator and that the "alternatives" are not "real" because they have inter-dependence upon the same infrastructures and, more often than not, offer an even worse provision in terms of customer experience as the underlying "issues" are endemic to the industry so are currently "accepted".   I think it is a very poor reflection on quality when "the best" has that position by virtue of the competition being so appallingly awful and not because of a genuine merit of their own offering and because as an "industry standard" they are currently permitted to carry on that way?

As a "life philosophy" I believe that there is a moral duty on the "strong" to protect and provide for the "weak"; because they have a responsibility by virtue of their position; and not to simply exploit others for their own ends, just because they are unopposed.   This is extremely idealistic, I know, but it clearly does not happen, currently, when dealing with structures like BT and "utility" services upon which we are all increasingly reliant.   We, the individual consumer, have little protection or choice in the matter - I see that as fundamentally "wrong" so would wish those in a position of power and authority would do something about it.  I think that will only happen if there is enough united popular opinion to compel such parties of the need to act and not just to continue to accept the status quo.

I'll get down from my "soap box" now...