Cancelling BT broadband due to not working

pinkysmum

my father-in-law is computer illiterate but got himself a laptop & signed up to broadband to "move with the times" & help his business!! i searched to find the best one for him (he doesn't like too much change) and he decided to go with BT, due to already having the phone with them. he signed up to a 12 month contract at £15.99/month on 14th november 2008. when he called them to order the modem etc, they told him that it would take a week or so for the broadband connection to "settle down" because it was a new connection, which i thought to be a bit strange. i have been trying to show him the way round the internet but the connection keeps freezing, throwing him out, not letting me click on a link to another page and so on... this has still been going on despite the "week or so" settling down period. we have decided, and after my father-in-law speaking to his neighbours, that the bt broadband that is provided in his village doesn't work and that they told him that it would "settle down in a week or so" because this is the 2 week cooling off period that he would have been entitled to change his mind. bt were obviously aware of this, but every time he has rung them they have been fobbing him off with excuses (this doesn't help him when he doesn't know his way round a computer or technical talk!!). has he got any rights to cancel the contract without paying the remainder of the term, due to the fact that bt are unable to and not providing the service he is paying for (possible breach of contract by bt??)

syko29793

If the broadband is not working then you will need to call tech help on 08001114567. they will do all the checks needed to determine if the issue can be resolved.
There is no cooling off period im afraid. the go live date is the the date your contract starts if its not working does not mean its a fault with BT )your pc set up etc)
You wont get out of contract unless tech help prove the fault is unresolvable at BT.
PC freezing sounds like a software issue nothing to do with the adsl connection
I know its a pain but tech help desk is all you can do

pinkysmum

there is actually nothing wrong with the laptop because we used it at our house for 2 or 3 weeks prior to my father in law having it and it worked fine not a problem (we are with sky broadband). before i passed it over to him i uninstalled our broadband and anything i had put on it so when he had it and i set it up for him it was like setting it up from new. i don't kow what number at bt he has called but i know he has phoned several times telling him that it is not working as it should and they just keep fobbing him off. he has spoken to his neighbours who have also been with bt broadband and they have had the same problems, which makes us think that bt know that the broadband does not work in that area!!

DatabaseError

by 'fobbing him off' are the CS suggesting that he try the router in the test socket, check his internal wiring etc..There are basic 1st steps to diagnosing ADSL problems, repeated ad nauseum so I'll leave that for google this time, but they can make a dramatic difference.
....and a pc which has been stable for 3 weeks, then has a load of software removed is not necessarily a stable pc.
....and ADSL max has a 10 day settling down period while the line is tested for stability, during this time it is not uncommon to suffer disconnections and wild variances in speed.

It might be a good idea, as you are obviously more computer literate than your father in law, for you to speak to BT support, you may understand better what is being asked of you.

esuhl

Unfortunately there are so many points of possible failure that it can be hard to pinpoint connectivity issues. So, you should try connecting via the BT master socket, unplug every other device plugged in to any other phone sockets, swap the microfilter, try with another "modem"/router, try with another PC, etc.

I know it sounds crazy (and a lot of hassle) since you probably think "nothing has changed", but even if you don't find any problems, that will back up your case that the issue is on the ISP-side.

We had some issues when we migrated from Tiscali to Titan. Again, "nothing had changed", but our speeds dropped from about 7.5MB/s to 2.0MB/s. After a week of asking them to investigate I discovered a loose connection in our internal wiring was causing the drop in speed. Oops.

You might want to check your father-in-law's connection speed via www.speedtest.net to see if what you are doing has resulted in an improvement.

As DatabaseError says, ADSL lines have an initial period of a week or two where the speed is increased gradually until there is too much noise, then the speed is dropped down and increased gradually again. This is done to work out the optimum speed your line can handle.

I really sympathise with the frustration of trying to get broadband working, though. It can be a real pain!