BT Broadband - Open letter of complaint

Prud

Our broadband provided by BT is slowing down again; an engineer has attended and says there is no fault with hardware. A few months ago after considerable time calling your call centre we finally had the wires replaced near our home that were being affected by trees.
As a result our speed went up to 3.5Meg and although nothing like the 20meg you mention in BT advertising but we were happy with this. Now the speed is down to 1.5meg, as stated there is no line fault according to Openreach so the only reason for this is that the speed has been affected manually at the exchange.
So what's changed at the exchange lately, well TalkTalk has become an LLU operator. We have been a customer of BT for a considerable time and we are very disappointed by the service we get for broadband. We would like to suggest something unusual, we the customer pay you a fee and you the provider give us a service. We are not asking for the 20Meg you tout in your advertising to new customers, we would be happy with 3.5Meg which we were getting, if only for a very short period. Please check your call center logs and you will see we have made many calls about our lack of speed. We have not switched to another provider because there had not been any alternative provider on the exchange and did not see how they could influence the monopoly BT Wholesale had on the exchange. Well this has just recently changed and we have already had mail shots with offers. So if you want to keep our business then all we ask is to receive an appropriate service for the fee we pay.
Please resolve our speed problems and keep it at a speed that we can use our internet without becoming frustrated by our service provider. We will wait 2 weeks, after which time we will be switching all services to TalkTalk, this will include the business account we have with BT as well.

kwikbreaks

Prud wrote: »

We will wait 2 weeks, after which time we will be switching all services to TalkTalk, this will include the business account we have with BT as well.

Have you ever heard of the expression "From frying pan to fire"?

If you can get BT broadband then you have the choice of many ISPs as the BTw product is resold by all of them (including the BT division you are using for broadband).

It is quite likely that your problems are caused by poor internal extension wiring coupled with the BTw line management routines.

By all means ditch BT and their abysmal products but please don't make things worse for yourself - do some research.

penrhyn

All ISPs use the words 'Up to' to prefix their headline speeds.

Talk Talk will be happy to take all your services, but then like the hotel California you can never leave.

BT_company_representative

Hi Prud

I can see from your post you have had an engineer out, so there must be an open fault.

If you do not get any success email me at the address in my profile and I can have have this investigated.

Cheers

Stuart

Prud

kwikbreaks wrote: »

It is quite likely that your problems are caused by poor internal extension wiring coupled with the BTw line management routines.

By all means ditch BT and their abysmal products but please don't make things worse for yourself - do some research.

I know it’s not my internal wiring because I set up my hub directly to the Openreach socket and disconnected the single extension we had for a week. No change to the line speed, the only change was when the lines were replaced and I have not done anything to my internal wiring to cause a drop in speed to my current 1.5Meg.

I am getting sick and tired of asking BT to give me just the average service, it has been proved that with my current internal set up I can attain 3.5Meg and that this must mean BT are reducing my speed either intentionally or because of hardware faults. Either way I want this resolved. Switching to another provider is not something I want to do but as TalkTalk are the only other LLU operator at the exchange which means BT wholesale are not then affecting the service, what other choice do I have?

My borther-in-law is on TalkTalk and so is my son, both on exchanges where TalkTalk became an LLU and their speeds went from 3Meg upto 6Meg and if I switch I would save money too. I would switch to Sky but they are not an LLU and I can't see any point at bothering with anyone until they are LLU operators at the exchange. I went with BT because I mistakenly thought that they would be the best because they run the exchange through BT wholesale. How wrong was I......!:mad::mad::mad:

Prud

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi Prud

I can see from your post you have had an engineer out, so there must be an open fault.

If you do not get any success email me at the address in my profile and I can have have this investigated.

Cheers

Stuart

E-mail sent to you.

kwikbreaks

If the problem is BTw DLM then you are correct in assuming the problem would be carried across to any other ISP reselling IPstream.

As you have eliminated the internal wiring and it had no impact that only leaves the DLM, a line fault, or equipment fault. If you post up your router stats I can offer my opinion on them. I have seen issues recently where a BTw victim had a capped sync rate well below line capability and that may be your problem too.


BT are certainly an expensive ISP who give poor customer service. Many do not realise other options exist. It is true that moving to TT will set you free from the BTw DLM issue but I stand by my fryingpan and fire suggestion as TT attract a lot of complaints.

It seems you have at least done some research so sorry for suggesting that you hadn't - huge numbers don't appear to.
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php

Browntoa

it may have started at 3.5 meg but over 10 days the speed settles to the maximum stable speed that your line can sustain , which may only be 1.5 meg

this may be to a faulty cable in the area ( my speed used to be 2.2 until there was a fault up the road from me , after it was renewed my speed leapt to around 6.8) or issues in the BT cab with the krone strips

Prud

browntoa wrote: »

it may have started at 3.5 meg but over 10 days the speed settles to the maximum stable speed that your line can sustain , which may only be 1.5 meg

Here are my speed stats since December and my stable speed is 3.4. In January the tree problem was found and I am now told no faults are on my line. So expain the drop since 25th June??

date speed
11/12/2009 3.64
12/12/2009 2.54
12/12/2009 3.05
22/12/2009 6.18
08/01/2010 1.97
08/01/2010 1.97
08/01/2010 1.95
08/01/2010 1.95
15/01/2010 3.51
12/02/2010 5.11
06/03/2010 3.41
18/03/2010 3.42
19/03/2010 3.38
14/04/2010 2.93
18/05/2010 3.42
18/05/2010 3.44
18/05/2010 3.4
25/06/2010 1.67
26/06/2010 2.06
27/06/2010 1.44
28/06/2010 1.65
28/06/2010 1.62
28/06/2010 1.66
28/06/2010 1.72
28/06/2010 1.57
01/07/2010 1.52
09/07/2010 1.61
17/07/2010 1.53
18/07/2010 1.55

Prud

kwikbreaks wrote: »

If you post up your router stats I can offer my opinion on them.

Here they are, thanks

1. Product name BT Home Hub 2.0A
2. Serial number ********
3. Firmware version 8.1.H.J
4. Board version V21
5. ADSL uptime 1 day, 17:32:16
6. Bandwidth 448 / 2,112
7. Data sent / rec'd 38.67 / 845.04 MB
8. Broadband username bthomehub
9. Broadband Talk Service not activated
10. BT Fon No
11. Wireless network name (SSID) *************
12. Wireless connections Enabled
13. Wireless security WPA-PSK
14. Wireless channel Automatic/1
15. Firewall Standard
16. MAC address *************
17. VPI/VCI 0/38
18. Line Profile Interleaved
19. Software Variant BC
20. Boot Loader 1.0.2

kwikbreaks

Those figures are incomplete. To be of any use at all they must include sync (which they do) plus attenuation and noise margin (which they don't) Error counts together with uptime would be nice too.

This may have instructions for your router...

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php