Longstanding poor service with BT

[owngrfld]

As I'm now working from home exclusively, I rely on my broadband connection. I often deal with video and high resolution photographs - both uploading and downloading. Also I need video conferencing to work smoothly too. Outside of that, I enjoy gaming online, which is practically impossible with my connection.

I have called and spoken with BT numerous times over the years but have never received a satisfactory resolution. I have looked at Open Reach for a while to see if fibre will come to my property (it's offered to other properties on my street) but with no luck.

Note: Someone has commented recently that our line is noisy and a call to BT recently let a tech support guy to say the SNR margin was in the 30s.

I wonder if the issue is within our property, or something with the exchange or from the exchange to our property.

I also want to point out that I know that next door, literally within touching distance of my property, has fibre available and my property does not. In fact lots of properties in my area do, but for some reason I can't sign up to it. I get fobbed off with "speak to open reach".

If anyone can help me get a decent connection, I'll be extremely grateful. I'm ready to investigate and act on any advice given.

I regularly run speed tests and get :

DL speeds of around 6Mbps

UL speeds between 0.1 and 0.4Mbps

The latest BT speedtest I did (with ethernet connection etc) was as follows:

Download Speed (Mbps): 6.17 

Upload Speed (Mbps) : 0.36 

Ping Latency (ms): 18

Broadband availability checker

The results for my landline are shown below

ADSL Products	Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)		Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)		Downstream Range(Mbps)	ADSL Availability Date	WBC SOADSL Availability Date	Left in Jumper
WBC ADSL 2+	Up to 14		--		12.5 to 15.5	Available	Available	--
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M	Up to 14		Up to 1.5		12.5 to 15.5	Available	Available	--
ADSL Max	Up to 6		--		5 to 7	Available	Available	--
WBC Fixed Rate	2		--		--	Available	Available	--
Fixed Rate	2		--		--	Available	--	--
Observed Speeds	ADSL
Max Observed Downstream Speed (Mbps)	8.06
Max Upstream Observed Speed (Mbps)	0.45
Observed Date	2019-09-29
Other Offerings						Availability Date
ADSL Multicast	--		--		--	Available	--	--
Premise environment	Status
Bridge Tap	U
VRI	N
NTEFaceplate	N
Last Test Date	05-03-2020

And here are the details from my router/hub

Business Smart Hub

Serial number:

+088315+NQ73520739

Firmware version:

SG4B1B0092BE

Firmware updated:

06-Mar-2020

Board version:

1.0

Gui version:

1.132.0

DSL uptime:

2 Days, 1 Hours 29 Minutes 58 Seconds

Data rate:

448 kbps / 8.13 Mbps

Maximum data rate:

1260 / 9876

Noise margin:

29 dB / 11.9 dB

Line attenuation:

9.5 dB / 14.5 dB

Signal attenuation:

9.5 dB / 14.5 dB

VPI / VCI:

0/38 - 0/35

Modulation:

G_992_1_ANNEX_A

Latency type:

Fast Path

Data sent / received:

11 GB Uploaded / 31 GB Downloaded

Public wi-fi

Not active

2.4 GHz wireless channel:

Smart (Channel 1)

5 GHz wireless channel:

Smart (Channel 36)

Wireless security:

WPA2 (Recommended)

Wireless mode:

Mode 1

Firewall:

On

Software variant:

-

Boot loader:

9.2.0

[owngrfld]

I have called and spoken with BT numerous times over the years but have never received a satisfactory resolution. I have looked at Open Reach for a while to see if fibre will come to my property (it's offered to other properties on my street) but with no luck.

Note: Someone has commented recently that our line is noisy and a call to BT recently let a tech support guy to say the SNR margin was in the 30s.

I wonder if the issue is within our property, or something with the exchange or from the exchange to our property.

I also want to point out that I know that next door, literally within touching distance of my property, has fibre available and my property does not. In fact lots of properties in my area do, but for some reason I can't sign up to it. I get fobbed off with "speak to open reach".

If anyone can help me get a decent connection, I'll be extremely grateful. I'm ready to investigate and act on any advice given.

I regularly run speed tests and get :

DL speeds of around 6Mbps

UL speeds between 0.1 and 0.4Mbps

The latest BT speedtest I did (with ethernet connection etc) was as follows:

Download Speed (Mbps): 6.17 

Upload Speed (Mbps) : 0.36 

Ping Latency (ms): 18

Broadband availability checker

The results for my landline are shown below

ADSL Products	Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)		Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)		Downstream Range(Mbps)	ADSL Availability Date	WBC SOADSL Availability Date	Left in Jumper
WBC ADSL 2+	Up to 14		--		12.5 to 15.5	Available	Available	--
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M	Up to 14		Up to 1.5		12.5 to 15.5	Available	Available	--
ADSL Max	Up to 6		--		5 to 7	Available	Available	--
WBC Fixed Rate	2		--		--	Available	Available	--
Fixed Rate	2		--		--	Available	--	--
Observed Speeds	ADSL
Max Observed Downstream Speed (Mbps)	8.06
Max Upstream Observed Speed (Mbps)	0.45
Observed Date	2019-09-29
Other Offerings						Availability Date
ADSL Multicast	--		--		--	Available	--	--
Premise environment	Status
Bridge Tap	U
VRI	N
NTEFaceplate	N
Last Test Date	05-03-2020

And here are the details from my router/hub

Business Smart Hub

Serial number:

+088315+NQ73520739

Firmware version:

SG4B1B0092BE

Firmware updated:

06-Mar-2020

Board version:

1.0

Gui version:

1.132.0

DSL uptime:

2 Days, 1 Hours 29 Minutes 58 Seconds

Data rate:

448 kbps / 8.13 Mbps

Maximum data rate:

1260 / 9876

Noise margin:

29 dB / 11.9 dB

Line attenuation:

9.5 dB / 14.5 dB

Signal attenuation:

9.5 dB / 14.5 dB

VPI / VCI:

0/38 - 0/35

Modulation:

G_992_1_ANNEX_A

Latency type:

Fast Path

Data sent / received:

11 GB Uploaded / 31 GB Downloaded

Public wi-fi

Not active

2.4 GHz wireless channel:

Smart (Channel 1)

5 GHz wireless channel:

Smart (Channel 36)

Wireless security:

WPA2 (Recommended)

Wireless mode:

Mode 1

Firewall:

On

Software variant:

-

Boot loader:

9.2.0

[owngrfld]

Someone has stated that we could at least be upgraded from adslmax to adsl2. A sorepoint here is that next door has FTTC available to them and we don't. If I look outside, I can see poles and lines serving both properties and they're not very far apart. Why can't we be hooked up to fibre? It would give us 10 times the speeds we have now.This isn't a major infrastructure job... it's so close.

If being a BT buisness customer doesn't allow this to be looked into for us, what's the use in being a BT business customer at all? What is the SLA for business customers and is this worth taking to an obdusman/ofcom?

We've had years of substandard service and maybe formally complaining or looking into legal support is the next step.

[RyanJames]

Hi owngrfld

Very sorry you have had such poor speeds for so long - I can certainly understand your frustration with this. Unfortunately, what you have been advised before is correct - only Openreach can get the infrastructure sorted to get your fibre. We can only order fibre if Openreach show it as being available for your property.

I'm guessing this has already been done - but you can submit a fibre availability form here, in which there is an option for "My neighbours can get fibre but I cannot". You can send that off directly to Openreach and query why the infrastructure has not yet been put in place.

Now, having said that, you did mention that your line was noisy. A noisy line would be an indicator of a fault and could be compromising your broadband speeds/stability further. I know you have contacted us various times, but if that noise has not been sorted I would recommend contacting one of our livechat technical agents here.

Regards

Ryan