BT Grrrrrr!!!

Ewartm

My holiday home is in an area with very poor broadband speed with BT. I'm charged for 16 Mbps but am only supplied with 0.4 Mbps. BT will not reduce the charge as they claim as my home is so far away from the exchange they can only supply "broadband" at 0.4Mbps and it costs them the same to supply me as someone who is receiving 16Mbps. I have tried various companies but no one wants to know as they all have to use the same supply line and today Talk talk said they can't help as "the exchange is full" I feel BT is ripping me off as I have no other option. There is no mobile signal in the area also. Can anyone suggest something o I can escape the rip off merchants. Thank you.

DonnyDave

You can "escape" by not having a telephone and broadband connection.

Install your own exchange and run your own cables, having obtained necessary statutory permissions.

You have identified that other providers aren't interested. Presumably this is the case because it's not profitable. Perhaps you could make them an offer to entice them to serve you. This would likely cost far more than you are paying BT now though.

BT has a Universal Service Obligation which means that it must provide service when all others are no where to be seen. For that reason, you have service.

Ewartm

Thanks Dave:)

DonnyDave

If you have one or more wired extensions and you are using plug in filters (one in each socket) then disconnect the bell wire at the master socket. The bell wire isn't connected at the extension socket end, by virtue of the filter that is plugged in not making use of it. Hence it acts like an antenna picking up noise which degrades the broadband connection, to some degree. This should be done as a matter of course for speed optimisation.

See here. Terminal 3 on the inside of the master socket's removable frontplate is the bell wire.

If you can't connect your router/modem at the master socket then make sure that the extension cable isn't one of those flat ones. A flat cable is the last thing you need as that will pick up interference as well.

Ewartm

Thanks again Dave, will try it on the weekend.

DonnyDave

If you have a bell wire connected and you want to check the before and after speeds then look at the sync speed. This is the speed of the connection between you and the exchange.

Speed testers run online are between you, across the internet to their own server which means that the results vary according to what other traffic is about.

If you have a BT Home Hub, then Google something like bt home hub sync speed

There are different versions of the Home Hub so you might put its number after the word "hub" to get information on yours. I'm not sure if the way the interface works varies between models.

Myser

Some people have found major improvements in speed when switching to a local loop unbundled (LLU) service as this usually means moving your line on to newer (third-party) equipment at the local exchange.

As you've said, Talk Talk capacity is full but it might be worth seeing if there are any other LLU providers at the local exchange:

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

Ewartm

Thanks Myser and Dave