Advice for ever decreasing broadband speeds

darrude

Hi looking for advise... Please


3 times in the last 7 years years our speed has dropped.  Every time BT have come and investigated and said, well it is what is, use your speed guarantee to get out of your contract and leave if you don't like it.

Latest drop was to 12meg, they have got up to 18 now after 3 visits.  When we first moved in we got 38meg.  We live on a country lane only 2 house, next door fed by same pole (end of the line), they get 45meg.

Do I have any recourse to get them to maintain the lines / get the speeds back, or do  I just have to accept the drops.  We are now both WFH, and it is starting to get problematic, I have to download / upload reasonably big files for my my job and 2 kids with playstations!

Thanks

Darren.

Neil_Jones

You're not doing anything like turning your router off are you?  If you are... there's your problem!

darrude

No, router is on 24/7. 

iniltous

Openreach are responsible for the external network, not BT ( presumably it is BT that are your ISP ) , post your router stats , they will give an idea if your line is underperforming, also post the results for your phone number ( or address if you have BT Digital Voice ) from 

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

If your line is below the minimum speed guarantee and your current ISP has failed to get the performance back over that minimum, as stated, use that to leave them penalty free and join someone else , but unfortunately if your line is effectively as good as it can be , then that’s it , previous performance isn’t necessarily going to be restored as there are some factors that are not faults so cannot be repaired but will reduce speed, the router connection statistics should help determine the state of your ‘line’ 

darrude

Thanks Initous, my provider is Zen.  Sorry I thought BT and open reach were one and same.  So openreach cut into the line outside my house to check the line condition and drop.  They said everything is functioning as it should be testing boths ways.

There was 1 packet drop a minute average which he said is very good, and to be honest the connection is very stable.  Measuring from where they cut into the line they got high 19's connection speed, my router is connecting at 19.4meg with 18.8 throughput, which they said is actually good for the extra distance so everything is functioning perfectly.  

So reading between the lines of what the engineer said, the lines from the cabinet at capacity so the can't switch my onto another pairing (think the technical term was the 'D side is full' and the only remaining option is a fault in the underground cabling near the cabinet, they have in the past found cross talk (although that is not currently happening).  I think what I'm interoperating from various conversations with them (and I could be getting this wrong), is that yes we know there is an issue, but to identify and fix is a big job, so aren't going to do anything, so I guess my question is it reasonable for me to expect that they do this work for one house..?

I've asked Zen if they can get a written statement from BT as to what the reasoning is, as the statements I'm being told currently do contradict each other, so I'm not sure if this is confusion from different investigation and chines whispers between open reach and zen or lies.

Exemplar

Let me try this again (mods please take note). I work for a BUSINESS ISP not a retail one so unless OP is spending £20K per month then it's not worth our while. I can, however, tell OP what BB speeds they can realistically expect at their home and give guidance to what to do with the speeds/ help speeds etc. This forum as about helping people and that is all I am trying to do, be helpful, not sell things.  

darrude

Exemplar said:

Let me try this again (mods please take note). I work for a BUSINESS ISP not a retail one so unless OP is spending £20K per month then it's not worth our while. I can, however, tell OP what BB speeds they can realistically expect at their home and give guidance to what to do with the speeds/ help speeds etc. This forum as about helping people and that is all I am trying to do, be helpful, not sell things.  

Not quite sure what you are trying to say, but I had 2 notifications for a reply, so I assume your original comment was deleted?  

I think you're telling me I might be being unreasonable?  this is what I'm trying to find out as don't know whether I should be kicking up a fuss or not.  

I ended up going back to zen, the last email I read was in contradiction to the info I was being told so have asked for a clear statement of the issue, they have raised a complaint on openreach so will see how it goes, but I'm not expecting much to come from it.  

The last Openreach have advised me to get a 2nd line as the 'D side' is at capacity, so it will force them to find an alternate routing to get a line to our house, but I can't get any guarantee this will be at decent speed either, and don't really want to be paying them more money for an ever decreasing service.

Exemplar

darrude said:

Exemplar said:

Let me try this again (mods please take note). I work for a BUSINESS ISP not a retail one so unless OP is spending £20K per month then it's not worth our while. I can, however, tell OP what BB speeds they can realistically expect at their home and give guidance to what to do with the speeds/ help speeds etc. This forum as about helping people and that is all I am trying to do, be helpful, not sell things.  

Not quite sure what you are trying to say, but I had 2 notifications for a reply, so I assume your original comment was deleted?  

I think you're telling me I might be being unreasonable?  this is what I'm trying to find out as don't know whether I should be kicking up a fuss or not.  

I ended up going back to zen, the last email I read was in contradiction to the info I was being told so have asked for a clear statement of the issue, they have raised a complaint on openreach so will see how it goes, but I'm not expecting much to come from it.  

The last Openreach have advised me to get a 2nd line as the 'D side' is at capacity, so it will force them to find an alternate routing to get a line to our house, but I can't get any guarantee this will be at decent speed either, and don't really want to be paying them more money for an ever decreasing service.

Hi, no I don't think you are being unreasonable at all!

Personally I would move to BT direct, the reason being as that there is only one tier of contact. People like Zen will have a portal to BT/ OR but you are reliant on them being prompt and also Zen's working hours. With BT you will have better access to them and better SLA's. As an example of this I contacted BT one Sunday about a year ago about an issue at 2000 and got an instant response! As I said above if you wanted to PM me some details I can see what speeds are available/ expected/ guaranteed. Hope that this helps. 

darrude

Thanks Exemplar, Zen have just told me they have opened a Level 2 complaint, and said something about a LLUMS issue.. I'll drop you a DM. 

Thanks