Advice on how to deal with my ISP

talksr

Hi, I live in a rural area and before I took out my broadband package with O2, I checked the line availability and it said my line could run at speeds up to 3mbps.
Happy it was able to take broadband, I signed up.
For the past year the service has been perfect, but gradually, it has got slower and slower. Now when I check availability on my line, it says 0.5mbps.

The speeds have dramatically reduced and I find it very hard to do simple things such as check my email. Watching Iplayer is a complete no go.

My question is what can I do? I have contacted o2 and they say its not their fault, but I have told them, I don't care, I am paying them for a service and they are not delivering it. They are blaming it on BT.
They have offered me 3 months of free broadband as compensation, but I am very unhappy. WHy on earth do I want 3 months of basically un-usable broadband?

Does anyone have any advice on what I can do? I appreciate it may not be o2's suport but I am paying for a line which is advertised at up to 8mbps but my current speeds are almost the same as the old dial up connection.
I am literally tearing my hair out.

macman

Presumably you are on O2 Access, not an O2 LLU service? Problems with O2 Access are well documented and all you can do is be grateful that you are now OOC and can take your business elsewhere. O2 Access is just a resold BT Wholesale service and not the same thing as O2's very good LLU services.
What are your LLU options?
www.samknows.com, then exchange search.

talksr

macman wrote: »

Presumably you are on O2 Access, not an O2 LLU service? Problems with O2 Access are well documented and all you can do is be grateful that you are now OOC and can take your business elsewhere. O2 Access is just a resold BT Wholesale service and not the same thing as O2's very good LLU services.
What are your LLU options?
www.samknows.com, then exchange search.

Thanks for the reply.
Yes it is O2 access, and there are no LLU options for where I am. I know access is not great, but when I went with o2, they definately told me I was paying for speeds of up to 8meg. I took it with a pinch of salt as I knew the lines would never handle that here.
I am just very annoyed that the service I started paying for which was fine, has drastically gone down hill, but I am still paying the same amounts. I can't even watch a 1 minute youtube video any more.
There must be someone I can contact to sort this as the line was never this bad. This has been going on since January and it is getting worse and worse. Other people in my vilage, literally a 2 minute walk away and on the same exhange are getting 3.5meg.

Here are details for my exhange:
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/EABRP

Not promising!!

KillerWatt

talksr wrote: »

There must be someone I can contact to sort this as the line was never this bad. This has been going on since January and it is getting worse and worse. Other people in my vilage, literally a 2 minute walk away and on the same exhange are getting 3.5meg.

Ask O2 to reset your BRA's profile.

If that doesn't fix it (and your hardware is good), then that can only mean your line is failing.
However, BT's only legal obligation is to provide you with a line that can sustain voice and data calls up to a maximum of 28.8 kbps.
So if your line is failing then it certainly isn't O2's fault, and BT are not legally obliged to do anything about it as you are currently getting 512 kbps.

talksr

KillerWatt wrote: »

Ask O2 to reset your BRA's profile.

If that doesn't fix it (and your hardware is good), then that can only mean your line is failing.
However, BT's only legal obligation is to provide you with a line that can sustain voice and data calls up to a maximum of 28.8 kbps.
So if your line is failing then it certainly isn't O2's fault, and BT are not legally obliged to do anything about it as you are currently getting 512 kbps.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for that, its very useful.
I just found a BRA tester on the bt site. I did it and it said:

Download Speed
224 Kbps
0 Kbps250 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed


Download speedachieved during the test was - 224 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 50-250 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :352 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 250 Kbps

Since my last post, O2 have now offered me two months free mobile phone line rental or the mac code for me to change ISP, this is in addition to the offer of 3 months free broadband.

macman

If the local line is the problem, then changing your ISP will not make any difference whatsoever. Suggest you post your router stats so that someone can have a look at the figures for you.

talksr

macman wrote: »

If the local line is the problem, then changing your ISP will not make any difference whatsoever. Suggest you post your router stats so that someone can have a look at the figures for you.

Yes you are right, and I know this already, have not mentioned this to O2, as it does not really give me much leverage with them. And I understand that it could well not be the fault of o2, but it is someones and it is not mine! All I know is I am paying >£20.00 for rubbish whilst friends of mine in more populated areas are paying <£7.00 for services of 8mbps. And the main thing which really frustrates me, is that it was never this bad. If it had always been this bad, then that is fine, I couldn't really complain, but this is now awful.
Some days it is ok. If I do a speed test using speedtest.net now, I get 0.24
Where as last week I got 0.35mbps

I am convinced this has occured because the ISPs are allowing more and more people in my area on my exchange to sign up to bband and they are not doing anything about upgrading the lines.

Router stats are as follows:

O2_ADSL
Connection Information




Uptime:64 days, 18:49:57 Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/GB]:383.42 / 7.93 Username:******@o2broadband.co.uk Password:******** Remember Password:Yes IP Address:
Primary DNS:
Secondary DNS:

DSL Connection

Link Information




Uptime:6 days, 22:02:02 DSL Type:G.992.1 annex A Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:448 / 352 Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]:0.00 / 0.00

mk-donald

I think you are mixing up 3 topics all of which limit capacity:
a) Modem synch speed = max capacity the line will then carry
b) IP Profile = extra ADSLmax limit on that capacity
c) Throughput = the variable amount of that IP Profile you can get to use

Your LAST posting shows a modem synch report of:
down 352kbps, up 448kbps

And I dread to think what your IP profile will be limiting that with!

So the first issue is to address why your modem is synching at such a poor speed and IF it ever managed any better with o2 (or any previous ISP) - o2's system should know that - indeed your online www.o2.co.uk a/c may show the figure.

There is certainly NOTHING about any o2 circuit where they try to "nobble" your modem synch ("a" above) - au contraire - the only negative with o2 circuits are the o2 ACCESS ones where the congestion is such that speed of throughput (ie "c" in my list above) is less than users like, and the amount of data allowed as throughtut is far from the expected "unlimited".

Have a look at this recent posting, where I tried to help someone with the same concepts/issues, and its links
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=32943397&postcount=5

and then the rest of the thread:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2476009=

Get your FULL stats from the modem as described in those links that should show the LINE ATTENUATION ie the amount of line between you and the BT exchange - SOME of that line is within your control ie the "inhouse" stuff ie your extension wiring and ADSL filters etc; the rest is BT's lookout and o2 & every other ISP has no control over it.

o2 like every ISP can only go on the BT database of line lengths and hence predict "upto 3Mbps" achievable, hence suited to the o2 Access upto 8Mbps service.

MKD
a 2.5yr o2 Standard (LLU) subscriber with c5kms 56dB attn & 4-4.5Mbps service