Poor Broadband Speed, Stuck in Contrct

corryl

I am with BT for my 'Broadband'.... I was told I could receive 'up to 1MB'.

This was the best I could get due to where I live...BUT....

Months into the contract, I find that my usual speed is a mere 500k/s...

Ok, so technically it is 'Up to 1MB'.... But to me this is not enough and nowhere near the 'estimated' speed that I agreed to.

As I said to them, if they said it was up to 50MB, they would still use that excuse...

On asking BT to cancel my contract I am told:
"In line with the regulatory confines BT is obliged to follow Broadband Service is deemed to be provided as long as the speed received is above 512kbs."

Hence they will not terminate my contract...

I know there are not morally correct, but are they legally correct??? Anyone advise how I can get rid of this awful service please... I can get a mobile dongle and get 4mb/s!!!!

Alternatively, what is the worst that will happen if I stop paying them - they will stop my service!!!! (or could they do worse???)

bod1467

Post your router stats. Let's see what your line is really capable of, and whether there is a fault.

macman

Yes, legally they are entirely right-'up to' means exactly what it says, and the regulatory definition is a minimum of 0.5Mbps. You are presumably a long way out from the exchange , and your line cannot defy the laws of physics. This will apply regardless of which ISP you use. Cancellng your DD will result in the termination of service, the eventual selling on of your debt, visits from a DCA, and your credit record being trashed.
You will not get 4MBps consistently on a 3G dongle.
PS: you say that you only discovered you're getting 0.5Mbps 'months into the contract'. So the speed was presumably adequate for your purposes until you discovered that?

Gordon_Hose

Thing is, if you're on a rural Market 1 exchange, there may be no other alternatives. And chances are any other ISP's on your exchange will be selling you re-branded BT Wholesale Broadband.

The only way you'd see any decent increase is if you have any unbundled ISP's there.

Check http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search to see what is available to you.

corryl

BT are saying 'Tough' still.... Have posted them results of speed tests showing 0.49MB/s but hey....

As I said to them, if you buy a car that can do 'Up to 70mph', and only get 35mph maximum, would you be happy???

Speed has always been that bat, but as the internet get more and more 'graphic' it is getting more and more useless as the days go by - I used to use Sky News for my daily news but cannot even load the page now!!

I find it very hard to believe that they can get away with this and charge me the same as someone who get 8MB/sec....

There must be some get out clause - Oh and when I started I could get 700k/s..... it is only the past month that the speed has dropped below the 500k/s mark on a consistent basis....

macman

As already explained, your line can only deliver the speed that it can physically support. The charge for broadband does not vary according to that speed. So you'll never get more than 0.7/1Mbps using ADSL.
There may be some other reason why the line is slower, which can be either a line fault, or numerous factors beyond BT control: your internal wiring, router set up, filters, wireless channel etc. There is no 'get out', so you need to make the most of the line you have. Which is why you were asked to post your router stats so that proper advice can be given.

Gordon_Hose

Ofcom have OK'd the "up to" statement used by ALL UK ISPs. That argument has been done to death.

I pay for "UP TO" 20Mb with Sky and 'only' get 9Mb.

To be fair, it's not BT's fault you live so far away from an exchange. ADSL has always been distance dependant, over the years that has got better, but it's still not great.

If you post your router stats like bod1467 suggested we can take a look and rule out any faults.

corryl

How and what router stats do you need to see?? I am using the BT Hub...

From the router info:
ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 8.6 dB / 11.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 74.0 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 1.1 dBm / 1.1 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 6565 / 588
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 386 / 742
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 959 / 559
Error Seconds (Local/Remote) 192 / 296

Gordon_Hose

Going by your stats you can get between 0.5Mb and 1Mb. So what you are getting is correct for your attenuation.

74dB is a line length in excess of 5km, so you are quite a distance from your exchange.

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/adsl2_checker.php

iniltous

Far for BT being morally wrong, I think they are both morally and technically correct.. if you were happy with the prospect of 1Mb and unhappy with 05.Mb, you obviously must think that there is a massive difference, but in practise, I doubt if you would even notice it, ..your line is obviously a very long line, you may be borderline being able to have broadband at all....plus your claim that you could get maybe 4Mb from a dongle may be true, but it will probably be with hefty fees if you download more that a couple of Gb per month......if you made a bad choice and now regret getting ADSL then I would run your contract to the end of the term then cancel ( to make you even happier, if you cancel without moving to another provider you will probably get a charge for the cancellation), if you think mobile broadband will be better then get one, but if your signal is poor, and you take up a minimum term contract, dont expect them to allow you to leave penalty free, if you used to get a reasonable service and its got worse, then perhaps you have a fault, either on your own kit, or on the line, have you done any checks like plugging directly into the test socket with a new filter and connected via a lan cable etc. ?

corryl

Looks like I will have to grin and bear it. Line investigated a few times and no faults.... When started had 700k/s, now less than 500k/s so effectively a 33% speed reduction..... mobile dongle at £25/month now getting more use but on a fair use package from years back... Just waiting for BT to tell me how long I have to pay for or how much penalty I have to pay.... But hey, they don't want or need my customer loyalty, and will keep making obscene profit whilst asking the government for more investment to upgrade THEIR network....

Thanks for all the 'advice', another case of Tough luck and get back in my (rather slow) box.... not even the Digital Britain Broadband pledge is going to help me in the year 20XX...