AOL conection problem

Poppy9

I have a BT landline and AOl broadband. I couldn't get on-line for over an hour today. My modem lights were flashing but no connection was being made. Tried the usual, rebooting, tweaking leads etc all to no avail.

This happened a few months ago and AOL sent a general email telling everyone that it was BT's fault not theirs.

So today I rang BT (when did they go to an Indian call centre???) and after 10 minutes of punching in my number, the number with the fault etc (to speed up your enquiry). I finally spoke to someone. He had a lovely script which included what's your number, which number are you calling about. He couldn't seem to enter it correctly though! so 10 minutes later he finally informs me there is no fault on my line and to contact AOL. Two minutes later I suddenly connected to internet.

Anyone else had a problem today?

tigermatt

It could simply be to many people trying to connect, and a piece of equipment perhaps couldn't take any more load. There could have been a fault somewhere else in the system and not on your line or at the local exchange.

Enter your telephone number and see if any errors have appeared on your exchange recently. If there was an error, it might not have been entered yet because it isn't an official BT website, but it is worth a go. http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/


My 800th post!

mcerazer

You dont even need AOL browser anymore to contect to the internet. I am just using firefox no more aol browser whooooooo.

Poppy9

Tigermatt

I have an amber status as follows:
Service capacity: Amber
BT are reporting that overall physcial capacity is low for some products at this time. This may result in orders being delayed or rejected until such a time that capacity can be installed.

BT are reporting that port capacity for Office IPStream (20:1 contention) products is currently low.
BT have provided no ETA for the installation of additional capacity.

BT are reporting that port capacity for Home IPStream (50:1 contention) products is currently low.
BT have provided no ETA for the installation of additional capacity.

Record last updated: 04 Nov 05

Historical information for this exchange:

StatusDate31 Aug 0518 Jul 0528 Jun 0507 Jun 0530 May 05



is this the problem.

tigermatt

Poppy9 wrote:

Tigermatt

I have an amber status as follows:
Service capacity: Amber
BT are reporting that overall physcial capacity is low for some products at this time. This may result in orders being delayed or rejected until such a time that capacity can be installed.

BT are reporting that port capacity for Office IPStream (20:1 contention) products is currently low.
BT have provided no ETA for the installation of additional capacity.

BT are reporting that port capacity for Home IPStream (50:1 contention) products is currently low.
BT have provided no ETA for the installation of additional capacity.

Record last updated: 04 Nov 05

Historical information for this exchange:

StatusDate31 Aug 0518 Jul 0528 Jun 0507 Jun 0530 May 05



is this the problem.

That is related to the service capacity of your exchange. Because you are already registered, activated and your line is connected up, it won't be a problem for you. It affects people who want BroadBand now - the exchange doesn't have enough, resources shall we say, to handle many more connections for home and business broadband.

Have you checked the area of the site for "Service Outages" as it has details of any recent outages?

Failing that, the problem is most likely a bottleneck somewhere else or something wrong at AOL's end. If this keeps occuring on a regular basis, I would seriously consider changing provider.

Poppy9

tigermatt wrote:

.

Have you checked the area of the site for "Service Outages" as it has details of any recent outages?

Nothing there. It's only the second time that I have been unable to connect to AOL in all the years I've been with them. The last time it was nearly all day. Thats what prompted the email from AOL saying that BT was at fault as they were inundated with complaints.

I think there was something wrong with my BT line. I have a long history with faults & BT. For 5 years they told me there was no fault on my line even though they admitted that my line wasn't working intermittently!!! Eventually owned upto a longstanding fault after I involved OFTEL. I had a very nice chunk of compensation from them too. When there was a fault in the past on my line we had excessive pinging on our line after 10pm. The BT tinklemuffler (yes there is such a thing) they sent me did nothing to aleviate this annoying tinkling. When they fixed the fault the pinging went. Couple of nights ago it started again.

tigermatt

Poppy9 wrote:

Nothing there. It's only the second time that I have been unable to connect to AOL in all the years I've been with them. The last time it was nearly all day. Thats what prompted the email from AOL saying that BT was at fault as they were inundated with complaints.

I think there was something wrong with my BT line. I have a long history with faults & BT. For 5 years they told me there was no fault on my line even though they admitted that my line wasn't working intermittently!!! Eventually owned upto a longstanding fault after I involved OFTEL. I had a very nice chunk of compensation from them too. When there was a fault in the past on my line we had excessive pinging on our line after 10pm. The BT tinklemuffler (yes there is such a thing) they sent me did nothing to aleviate this annoying tinkling. When they fixed the fault the pinging went. Couple of nights ago it started again.

From your explanation it sounds like there is a problem with your BT line. I was ruling this out because you say when you called the call centre, they said there was no problem, but it looks like you certainly do have a problem. The pinging on the line sounds quite strange as well.

I suggest you contact BT via their faults number (150 for residential I think - not entirely sure though) and see what they say. Or try the methods you used before.

Poppy9

tigermatt wrote:

From your explanation it sounds like there is a problem with your BT line. I was ruling this out because you say when you called the call centre, they said there was no problem, but it looks like you certainly do have a problem. The pinging on the line sounds quite strange as well.

I suggest you contact BT via their faults number (150 for residential I think - not entirely sure though) and see what they say. Or try the methods you used before.

That'll be [email="ben.verwaayen@bt.com"]ben.verwaayen@bt.com[/email] then. Top man. Someone was complaining on a TV consumer programme The Ferret that they had line pinging last week. BT told them they needed a tingklemuffler but they no longer supply them. You can buy on ebay apparently.

It just annoys me that their standard response is no fault found. Why not just be honest?

Anyway thanks for your help.