BT Broadband - Tearing my hair out with frustration

rogcal

Why oh why do BT persist in taking their time to reset your broadband speed after a fault has been fixed.

After 3 weeks and three visits from Openreach an intermittent "noisy line" fault was finally fixed however every time the fault reappeared on the line during the 3 weeks my broadband speed would drop to below .25mbs from its usual 3mbs making he internet connection totally useless.

When the fault spontaneously cleared itself the broadband speed would slowly increase over the next 48 hours until it reached its normal operating speed but only to take a sudden dive back down to less than .25mbs when the fault came back again.

As I said after 3 weeks the fault was finally found and rectified (corroded connection two miles away) and would have hoped that the broadband speed would have risen back to its normal speed by now but it hasn't and 2 days after the fault was fixed, now sits at a totally useless .13mbs.

My biggest gripe is that every time I contact BT to ask for the speed to be raised I have to spend almost 20 minutes going through the whole Q&A process with the call centre operative which is extremely frustrating and particularly annoying when you tell them at the outset of the conversation that you have checked all the things BT expect you to check i.e. visit BT Wholesale to check your speed, turn off any other PCs, laptops, tablets that may be using the broadband connection, connected to the home hub via an ethernet lead, etc, etc and yet they still continue to ask all the damned questions again and again and again.

I know they have to follow a script and procedures but surely they can access the history of your ongoing fault and see that the problem is a recurring one and just get on with dealing with the request and sort out the slow broadband speed.

Not much to ask and for forty quid a month I'd hope for some better service but no it just doesn't work that way.

We have to spend literally hours of our lives dealing with call centre operatives who are tied to procedures and I suspect are under strict controls to follow them plus the time spent waiting in at home for the Openreach guy to call (times 3 in my case) and all the arrangements we have to make to be at home, so it's not surprising that I'm seriously considering moving to mobile internet as an alternative.

Do any of you know of any shortcuts to reach the people at BT that can deal with broadband speeds quickly and without the need to go through the maze of call centre menus and lengthy Q&A sessions with BT call centre staff?

I think that biggest kick in the teeth is that those of us that live in rural locations where the line comes across miles of fields seldom achieve broadband speeds above 3mbs yet we are paying the same as those living in towns that get faster speeds and if we get a fault on our lines it often takes weeks to find it whereas in towns where BT cabinets are regularly inspected and maintained fault tracing takes a matter of hours rather than weeks!

p.s I'm using the hotspot tether on my android phone to gain access to broadband at the moment and with a good 3G signal even out here in the wilds of rural Lincolnshire it's no wonder I'm considering ditching BT for phone and broadband in favour of a mobile alternative.

BT_company_representative

Hi rogcal

Apologies you have had problems getting this done. It really shouldn't be this big of a problem.

I'll be happy to sort it out.

Could you email me using the link in my profile please?

Cheers

Craig

rogcal

Craig, not sure if it was your involvement with my issue but my BB speed has now risen to approx 2.5mbs which is as close to the normal speeds achieved on my line.

Either way thanks for taking an interest.

JJ_Egan

Did you have you also asked your ISP to reset as i know that the BT reset may still need the ISP to reset
Worth an ask anyway .

rogcal

BT is the ISP and on the phone to them to reset the speed almost every other day for two weeks but with no success.

I get conflicting information on how broadband speeds are slowed and speeded up.

As far as I'm aware the "system" is constantly monitoring your broadband connection and if a fault occurs in your line it automatically drops your speed to match the capability of the line and when the line is fixed or as in my case spontaneously fixed itself, the monitoring system detects this and slowly starts increasing the speed to match the lines improved status and this process can take a number of days (as many as 3 days) before the speed reaches it's optimum for the line.

If there's anyone who can give a better explanation of how it works please feel free to do so as I'm keen to learn more about the process.

Thanks