Intermittent BT Broadband connection anyone?

alba37

I seem to be getting intermittent problems with my broadband a few evening per week over the last few weeks when I loose connection for half an hour to a hour. Normally 5.30ish onwards. I am presuming it must be a BT problem as it seems to happen around the same time. Any thoughts?

albertross_2

Do you have a home hub or wireless?

If not, try a different filter, if that doesn't work, speak to BT.

alba37

It's a home hub and have only experienced the problems since having it, although I don't think they started right away. I did phone BT one evening regarding this, but the agent who answered my call was so foreign I couldn't understand her, so had to hang up... that put me off calling them again. It's one of those problems that it doesn't bother me till it happens.

computerwoman

had this same problem, turns out it was the fridge on the other side of the wall,
if your hub is near a fridge or microwave, you may need to re-site the home hub, I had to move mine to the other side of the room, this then stopped the problem.
cw

alba37

Thanks CW, I have the hub on a shelf in the spare room. No electrical appliances near it or through the wall. The nearest thing would be a central heating radiator a few feet away. But anything is worth a try so I change the filter and if that doesn't help, I'll move it.

espresso

I have read somewhere that these Home Hubs do automatic updates and a recent firmware version 6.2.2.6 has caused lots of problems. Some users have been trying to find a way to stop these auto updates, as connectivity is lost while the update takes place (even if you are in the middle of an on-line financial transaction etc.).

I guess that this is a problem when the router is supplied by the likes of BT, Sky etc. and they can remotely update the router as and when they want! I would rather own my own router and stay in control.

:rolleyes:

computerwoman

yep.
this happened to me also
when they up-dated the hub,
all you have to do is leave it on over-night for afew days until it's up-dated
then things should be ok.
also,
they up-date the hub between 1am-6am
so bt told me to leave mine on for afew days which I did and things sorted them selves out,
as I normally turn it off at the socket
on a night or when I go to bed,
cw

bees_2

The official word from BT when this happens is "turn it off and on again". Apparently it's a build up of static which seems ridiculous to me!

Their phone service is fantastic when you want to buy things but suddenly terrible when you need any help.

I got told the oppposite to computerwoman - turn the hub off more often. I suspect they may be making things up as they go along but that's only an opinion.

alba37

I did email them last night, their reply:

Thank you for your e-mail dated 25th March 2007, your e-mail has been logged under the reference number xxxxxxxxxx

I understand from your e-mail that that you experience the issue of an intermittent connection in the evenings. You have even tried swapping the filters and the BT Home Hub, but the issue persists. I am sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Please be informed that the capability of every exchange is limited to support only a certain number of lines. Further, if all lines in the exchange are connected (which normally occurs in evenings and week ends), it would result in a traffic clog resulting in fluctuations in the connection. Once the traffic is low, the connection would become stable.

Thank you for using BT-Total Broadband.

So I emailed back, telling them I didn't appear to have the problems before having the hub, so should I change to another modem? The reply was:

I understand from your e-mail that you are experiencing issues with the BT Home Hub. I apologise for the inconvenience caused and am here to assist you in this regard.

At this stage, please perform a hard reset in your router. To do that, press the reset button (mostly present on the rear side) of the router. This will make all the settings in the router to its default value and resolve the issue. If the issue persists, please try using a different router and check the connection status. This will help us to narrow down the issue.

Thank you for using BT Total Broadband.

So the saga, continues... I'll wait till I loose connection again before resetting.