Broadband Issue

treasach

Hi Guys,

I need advice if possible, please bear with me I'm terrible at these type of things.

Below is all the info regarding my situation, basically we are no closer to getting this sorted and we are just going around in circles and paying for the privilege. If I'm honest we just want rid of them but the contract doesn't run out until October.

·        We are with Talk Talk on the Fast Fibre Package.

·        We've been having issues with our broadband since beginning of February. At first there were two issues, first poor download MBPS between 0.5 and 3 (laptop plugged into router), second the router rebooting itself at random points each day completely dropping the internet.

·        After around 7 weeks, Talk Talk arranged for a BT Engineer to come out, he checked and we were getting 36mbps to the socket, but did advise that he could see the line was "choked" which will be affecting several houses around us. His comment was that unless every other house on the pole complains, BT will not look any further into this. He recommended a new router which Talk Talk provided.

·        The new router arrived after Talk Talk cancelling the order 3 times, the internet speed has picked up, however the router still kicks us off the internet each day, last of which was yesterday when I was working from home and on a business Call.

If you could point me in the right direction, that would be much appreciated 

Thanks

Si 

elsien

Are you using wifi or is the laptop permanently attached to the router?

treasach

No we use Wifi, the sky and the xbox one are plugged permanently into the router. I was advised to plug the laptop in to get a reading on the mbps as wifi can be missleading 

JJ_Egan

Use Ethernet connections for a couple of weeks.

36 to the master socket suggests an internal wiring problem .But it could be if tested over Ethernet only a problem with your line to the house .

Does Sky / XBox have the same problems .

treasach

Thank you, the Engineer changed the socket and gave me a new HTML cable, so along with the new router, everything from the wall to the router is new. Speed wise it's up to about 15mbps wireless now so we can actually use it, it's more when it completely drops out which affects everything 

JJ_Egan

You need to keep a log of dropouts .

Took me four years working with Open Reach to find the problem .

treasach

Yeah they are logged, when I report it to Talk Talk, they just go over the same process, test the line, line is fine, update the settings, very frustrating. The engineer said there'll probably be some damp in a joint which is causing it, but unless everyone else on the line complains they won't look at it. He did say there's no point changing provider as it will be the same issue unless we moved to Virgin as BT don't maintain their network. Which is what our plan is once this has run out

The engineer also checked the setup in the house and advised it shouldn't be causing any issue, we don't have any extenders etc 

elsien

Have you tried changing the wifi channel to see if that makes a difference?  

Croft12

Wifi channels can help a lot if that is a source of congestion.

The water in joint issues can be a nightmare to get sorted.

Annoyingly it often need to wait till it fails a line test for noise b4 they will fix it.

iniltous

So you had an Openreach engineer suggesting you move to Virgin and said there was nothing that can be done ?

Quite a lot makes no sense, if you are getting 36Mb sync at the router , and that’s in line with what you were told to expect, then that seems OK, if you get much worse throughput speeds , then that probably will vary with individual suppliers as they don’t all have the same backhaul, but depending on provider , you may well get a minimum speed guarantee and if you speed falls below , you get a refund or allowed to leave penalty free.
It seems to me the engineer doesn’t know what they were talking about or you have misinterpreted what they said, why would they , if in their opinion the line was choked ( strange choice of wording ) would they also suggest you need a new router ?, how would this help a choked line ?

treasach

Sorry for the late reply, no the openreach didn't recommend Virgin, although I did ask and he said he couldn't advise, sorry thats my poor description of whats happening. What he did say if we switch to another provider that uses the same BT line, we'd get exactly the same situation. The broadband speeds have picked up but occasionally drop back down to about 3mbps, wireless we are getting around 15mbps, but the main issue is the line completely dropping and cutting the internet off completely. Also it was two separate engineers, the first recommended a new router after saying we were getting 36mbps to the socket, when the line kept dropping out with the new router, the second engineer was the guy who advised that it was "choked"