Broadband Service Issues

Sleepysophie

I have BT broadband and since Sept 2021 I have had issues with the line dropping off and disconnecting. This means we have been unable to receive reliable broadband. I would report it and an engineer would attend. They would get it working again (so that it didn't "dop out") and all would be well again for 4 to 6 weeks, when it would happen again. I would have to call them again and the same pattern would happen. We have been managing like this which was not ideal, but I think I just got into the habit of accepting this is what we had to do. 
Then last year my daughter moved back home and she works from home 2 days a week. She couldn't manage with the unrealiable broadband and I was told that upgrading to the broadband with the EE back up would solve the issue. It didn't, because it wasn't the Wifi that was the issue, it was the broadband - however at that time, I didn't really understand that. 
In November 22 I logged a complaint via Resolver and listed the dates of all the faults and engineer visits. The complaints handler seemed like he wanted to help and just before Christmas he asked if he could close the complaint as he believed everything was resolved as our broadband was now restored. 
I did say, I was reluctant for him to do this as from past experience I knew it would only be "resolved" for 4 to 6 weeks. But he said I would open a new complaint if that happened. At that point he also put me on a new contract as they took out the EE wifi backup that had never worked and gave me £50 compensation (although I was never refunded for the EE upgrade I had had to pay for which had never worked). 
Anyway - in 6 weeks I was seeing the drops in service again (some days it dropped out more than 100 times an engineer told me). 
I asked for an engineer to attend but even though I got the message to say they would be attending, no one did. 
I've now re-registered the complaint and an engineer did attend and "fixed it" - this time, it lasted 2 weeks and its dropping out all the time again. 
The contact that I have in the complaints department said he is trying to book us another engineer visit but I don't feel like he's really that bothered because why do we have to wait so long? (its been almost 2 weeks since I raised it with him again). 
If I cancel the contract I am sufficiently confident that I can demonstrate that they have not provided the service they promised since they put me onto the new contract in December 22 but I was hoping someone might be able to tell me if its worth me moving to a new Broadband provider? They all use the same infrastructure, don't they? So will there be any point in me moving providers if I will still encounter the same issues? and is there anywhere I can go with this escalation wise, or is their complaints department the furthest I can take it? 

400ixl

What does the engineer do to fix it when they attend (assume they are an Openreach engineer)?

The EE backup I assume is that it would switch to using 4G/5G. If that is the case then it should have allowed service if the broadband between the router and the exchange was the issue.

All ISP's use the same Openreach infrastructure between your router and the exchange yes. The Routers will be their own though.

BT hub routers have been seen (personally had it) where they would drop connectivity (devices stay on the wifi) to the internet. It looked like an ISP problem, but was the router. Usually happened when iOS devices were connected to it. Would have intermittent drops and then every few weeks all internet access would stop. Fixed by a reboot of the router.

Sleepysophie

The Openreach engineer told us the EE boxes have to be activated but probably were not activated even though we paid for the service? I just know when the broadband dropped, it never kicked in with any back up. We have to use our mobile hotspots on our phones. We don't have very good 4G here either. The same engineer never attends twice and always says there is nothing on the notes to say what was done the last time - thats really annoying. My cyncial mind has been telling me that they know what the issue is but they can not repair it long term so have to keep doing temporary fixes. 

400ixl

Have you rebooted the router when it happens?

Sleepysophie

The line drops and then comes back up after about 5 minutes or so. If it doesn't come back within 5/10 mins then we may turn it off and on again but we usually just leave it. 

Sleepysophie

Oh and we have had a new router because the problem you mentioned before - I think they thought it might be that but no. its a replacement router since the problem started. Its just getting really frustrating now.  

400ixl

I have had 3 routers from BT and Plusnet and all did it. You can see it in the logs.

Only putting a router behind it for wifi and connecting devices to that every sold it. The BT Router is now a modem only and no issues since as there are no iOS devices connected directly to it.

Sleepysophie

This definitely sounds like something we could try! I mean, I have no idea how to do this myself but my husband knows a bit about IT generally and I guess if I mention this to the Openreach engineer ? I wonder why ios? I mean, most people use Apple products don't they? You would think BT would be well aware of this problem? 

400ixl

In our case it was tracked to a couple of iOS devices, one iPhone and one iPad, whilst others did not cause it.

If you look in the logs on the router at the time it happens you should be able to see it if it is the cause.

One such example https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/Constant-iphone-ipad-drop-outs-on-Hub-one/td-p/1755492

Sleepysophie

Thank you for this @400ixl however, I have just noticed by reading some of the entries on the link you sent that it is only affecting the IOS devices? I thought you meant the IOS devices were triggering something which was disconnecting every device. Its all the devices that disconnect. Its definitely the broadband dropping not just the connection to the Apple devices. 

400ixl

It can affect both, in our case it would crash the IP transport stack on the wifi which essentially stopped any traffic passing through the router at all. But the wifi was still present and would give IP's to devices, just not pass traffic. Made it look at first like the route to the broadband provider had gone down when it was in fact the BT router (and also with the Plusnet router when we moved to them as it is actually the same make / model.