BT & Madasafish

DoubleTTeds-KeithD

Have had two months of the most awful internet connection with Madasafish which is a company that was bought out by BT.

My partner and I signed up to Madasafish on Martin Lewis's:money: recommendation and have to say we are presently very dissapointed with the service, especially recently!

I/We seem to spend more time plugging our router back in to try to regain connection than actual time online the past few days!

Not only that we keep getting crossed lines on the phone. Yesterday my partner heard one of the people on the crossed line relay to the person they we're talking to tell the person they we're talking to the exact thing my partner had just said to her mother. Meaning not only could we here the people on the crossline, they could also hear us!

Has anyone any advice on what to do about all this?

We are presently looking at a move to Virgin but all the other things are quite worrying. Anyone any other suggestions?

Also the domain name we have with them we want to transfer to a registrar not on the Madasafish tag list and we are presebtly awaiting a response froom Madasafish support RE this but tbh are not expecting any useful or cooperative comeback on that and I wonder if that is ethical?

Keith D - SEO Writer - Double T Ted's

joegib

Suggest you post a query on the Thinkbroadband forum here:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/threads.php?Cat=

They have a sub-forum dedicated to Madasafish queries and this is frequently visited by Madasafish reps. I have to say, though, your problem with the 'crossed line' sound more like a line fault (BT) rather than an ISP fault (Madasafish).

Joe

macman

If you have 'crossed lines', then you maybe need to report that to your line provider rather than your ISP. If there is a fault on the landline side (most commonly noise on the line due to a bad connection, water getting in etc) then this can afffect your broadband service too.
Have you tested the line by plugging your router into the BT test socket behind the master socket faceplate. have you swapped out all your ADSL filters, is every active socket filtered?
You need to run these basic checks yourself before you involve BT or your ISP.

DoubleTTeds-KeithD

Thanks guys

I have been plugged into the test socket for a few months now but am not sure how to do the ADSL filters thing. I really think a move to Virgin might be a good idea as my Mum has Virgin and they have three pc's on their network and my Niece seems to be online whever she needs to be.

Anyone any thoughts on the pros and cons of BT lines V Virgin?

davetrousers

DoubleTTeds-KeithD wrote: »

Thanks guys

I have been plugged into the test socket for a few months now but am not sure how to do the ADSL filters thing.

Are you saying that you don't know what an ADSL Filter is?

macman

DoubleTTeds-KeithD wrote: »

Thanks guys

I have been plugged into the test socket for a few months now but am not sure how to do the ADSL filters thing. I really think a move to Virgin might be a good idea as my Mum has Virgin and they have three pc's on their network and my Niece seems to be online whever she needs to be.

Anyone any thoughts on the pros and cons of BT lines V Virgin?

Let's go back to basics. Do you have an ADSL filter plugged into every active phone socket in the house? This includes any sockets with a Sky box or fax machine plugged in, not just telephones. If not, then you're not ever going to receive a stable broadband service.
You need to address the basic issues before you consider moving to Virgin-anyway, you are presumably in contract with MAAF for another 10 months yet.

DoubleTTeds-KeithD

davetrousers wrote: »

Are you saying that you don't know what an ADSL Filter is?

Hey Dave

Not exactly! I know ADSL filters are to do with the frequency ranges which are better at different settings for phones and the opposite for broadband, but I don't know how to "Swap" them as macman mentioned.

macman

DoubleTTeds-KeithD wrote: »

Hey Dave

Not exactly! I know ADSL filters are to do with the frequency ranges which are better at different settings for phones and the opposite for broadband, but I don't know how to "Swap" them as macman mentioned.

Perhaps I should just have said 'change them'. Sometimes a filter can just fail to work for no good reason (faulty part). Change it for a known good filter if there is any doubt- you should have had at least 2 supplied with your router.
But first please can you confirm that you actually have them fitted in the first place as per my earlier post?
It would also be helpful if you can advise how you are connecting-by ethernet cable or wirelessly?

DoubleTTeds-KeithD

macman wrote: »

Let's go back to basics. Do you have an ADSL filter plugged into every active phone socket in the house? This includes any sockets with a Sky box or fax machine plugged in, not just telephones. If not, then you're not ever going to receive a stable broadband service.
You need to address the basic issues before you consider moving to Virgin-anyway, you are presumably in contract with MAAF for another 10 months yet.

Hey macman - Yes we have an ADSL filter on the line but MAAF have pretty much said they can see we are getting a lot of outages at their end. On Friday they we're supposed to be sorting the problem and ran some tests.

Funnily enough during the four hour time period they gave us that they said they would run the tests we stayed online but since then we are back to going offline every now and then and having to reboot our router.

Luckily though both our MAAF and our BT contracts are both expired hence why Virgin is looking appealing, especially considering what I see of their service my Mum gets from Virgin at her house.

macman

Sorry, your first post implied that you had been with them for 2 months and never had a good service. Are you now saying it has been OK for at least 10 months but not in the last 2?
Do you have problems with your landline service, i.e. noise/crackling on the line? If so it is BT you should be talking to.
Even if the fault is 'new', it could still be a problem with your filters or router so you need to eliminate these as problem areas. If you are plugged into the BT test socket then it is not your internal wiring at fault though.

DoubleTTeds-KeithD

macman wrote: »

Sorry, your first post implied that you had been with them for 2 months and never had a good service. Are you now saying it has been OK for at least 10 months but not in the last 2?
Do you have problems with your landline service, i.e. noise/crackling on the line? If so it is BT you should be talking to.
Even if the fault is 'new', it could still be a problem with your filters or router so you need to eliminate these as problem areas. If you are plugged into the BT test socket then it is not your internal wiring at fault though.

Thanks macman

We have been with MAAF for ages, since the first few weeks Martin Lewis started to recommend them. This is the third time we have had problems I think.

This last time started after a powercut here. We couldn't get our router to work again after the powercut and MAAF advised to get a new one, which we did. It took a bit of time for them to get us back online with the new router and things we're OK for a few days but since then things have been becming increasingly worse. I seem to spend more time unplugin my router and pluging it back and waiting for the lights to come on than I do online.

I think we will get on to BT before we make a move to Virgin thpugh as moving is a real pain and it is looking more and more as though it is a BT problem what with the crossed line thing happening to.

We definately have crackling/noise on the line as well as crossed lines where we can hear others and they can hear us.

I am having to reboot my router between posts it's ridiculous!