BT Broadband Woes

[stephenh]

We have had bt broadband and email for a couple of years now. Our braodband has become increasingly eratic.

Last year it would ocassionally fail, so we had no connection, then come back again, but very infrequently. More to the point it was very slow and viseo clips where often impossible to watch. We were told the exchange was due for upgrading, which was supposed to have happened last spring. Since then, we don't usually have a problem with speed so much as a frequent breakdown of the internet connection, so we cannot access the internet at all. Then it will come back for no obvious reason.

For the last 5 or 6 weeks it has gone from bad to worse, so it fails several times a day. I have noticed that it will often fail when we answer an incoming telephone call, but it also fails at other times.

BT have so far failed to solve the problem, but now as a result of me becoming increasingly cross, an engineer is coming out to look at it.

I am told it might be electromagnetic interference from something in the house, but also there is an intermitent drop in signal strength (my words) on the line.

Anyone know what this might be, and what I should be asking the engineer? I know nothing about these things.

[Norman Verona]

My advice is to remain ignorant. You pay your money you require a service. They may come up with all sorts of things that are not their fault. Just shrug and say it used to work and nothing material has changed in the house. 

[Mark (smokey mow)]

I've had similar happen in the past, in my case it turned out to be my BT hub failing. i called them up and they sent me out a new one FOC which fixed the problem.

[pickmaster Andy Lowe]

My advice is to remain ignorant. You pay your money you require a service. They may come up with all sorts of things that are not their fault. Just shrug and say it used to work and nothing material has changed in the house.

Great advice from Norman

We are on BT and when the wind blows we drop signal (branches and trees moving the lines I think) might be that if you have overhead lines

[blue ass fly]

I recently switched to bt from orange and gave nothing but problems

No connection,freezing and terrible for watching vids etc - and i bought myself a smart tv which is a waste of tine for youtube and iplayer

I was told that our speed would be very good as we are close to an exchange but sometimes its slower than 3g on my phone

I had years of trouble free with orange,and the worst part is ,orange was free as i had contract phones

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

The best service I've ever had for Broadband was with Be Internet; very few actual problems, and on the rare occasions they happened, the company were fantastic at getting them sorted out.

 

Had BT a few times over the years, been back with them for about eighteen months now having gone BT Infinity. You do get the odd system glitch, but it's usually resolved within an hour or so. I have to say though, given how much of a pain BT can often be, I've had no real issues with them over the years.

[Norman Verona]

Many, many years ago in a galaxy far far away when our modems ran at 300 one way and 1200 baud the other we had a real problem dialling into a dealer near Aylesbury.

I was there for some reason or other and walked round outside and noticed a birds nest on the telephone pole before the cables went into the building.

A call to BT and the nest was removed that day. Problem solved.

[Doug Dastardly]

^{I have frequent engineer visits as we have a very slow and unstable line.}

 

^{They never seem to find anything concrete but it always gets better when I raise a complaint}  

 

^{Although I hate BT, I find their engineers to be very good and helpful and often stay longer than their two hour allotted slot.}

 

^{They've got such sophisticated equipment, they really won't need much info from you.}

[Mooch]

I've just upgraded to a Home Hub 4, and that's proving to be pretty good so far and we are right out in the sticks.  Our connection starts on fibre optics, goes to copper wire and is a piece of string by the time it gets to us. 

 

Re the electromagnetic interference, we've got that, so don't discount it.  We have a running machine which my daughter uses.  Whenever she's on it, our broadband drops out.  I've tried changing the wireless channel, but that doesn't seem to do anything.

 

Mind you - that's another thing to try if you've not done so already - go to the home hub site and change the channel.  Just might be better for you.

[SootySport]

Main Reasons for the intermittant loss of broadband.  

1.  Too many extention sockets in the house with unfiltered handsets, poor wiring.

2.   Line imbalance, one wire is higher resistance than the other. 

3.   Airbourne electrical interference getting into the house wiring, photocopiers, microwaves, in fact any faulty power supplies especially the cheap Chinese plug top transformers,  high voltage overhead cables close to the BT overhead cables. Flashing Christmas tree lights. 

You could eliminate problems in the house wiring by connecting your router and phone to the main socket with one filter and leaving everything else disconnected.

[JustCallMeMac]

Have you tried changing the channel within your BT Home Hub?. (You'll usually find it within Advanced Settings / Wireless)

 

You might, (as is quite usual), be sharing the default channel setting with others, whose Wi-Fi networks are in range, (if applicable) and this can affect performance. The location of your router may also be an issue and affect signal strength. 

 

Download InSSider. It's a really useful little utility, (free), which provides a fair amount of info about your wi-fi network. Amongst other things, you can see which other local wi-fi networks are using your channel and you can also monitor signal strength, if you decide to move the router around.

 

PC version available here. http://download.cnet.com/inSSIDer/3000-18508_4-10848357.html

 

Worth a try.

 

Steve

[ACW]

See if you can persuade the engineer to do a 'lift and shift' of the line onto a fresh pair.

[SootySport]

Have you tried changing the channel within your BT Home Hub?. (You'll usually find it within Advanced Settings / Wireless)

 

You might, (as is quite usual), be sharing the default channel setting with others, whose Wi-Fi networks are in range, (if applicable) and this can affect performance. The location of your router may also be an issue and affect signal strength. 

 

Download InSSider. It's a really useful little utility, (free), which provides a fair amount of info about your wi-fi network. Amongst other things, you can see which other local wi-fi networks are using your channel and you can also monitor signal strength, if you decide to move the router around.

 

PC version available here. http://download.cnet.com/inSSIDer/3000-18508_4-10848357.html

 

Worth a try.

 

Steve

From what StephenH says, it's not a wireless problem, it's the line.

[FILFAN]

one of the main problems with broadband other than the above is the contention ratio for the equipment you are hanging off. on most of bt's equipment you can have up to 64 customers sharing a data connection it doesnt take much working out to see if everyone starts downloading there isn't allot to go around. then you add the distance from the exchange and you get a very low speed. you can ask to be put on a card with a lower ratio but i think they may charge thats if bt offer the service

[stephenh]

See if you can persuade the engineer to do a 'lift and shift' of the line onto a fresh pair.

Thanks, Adrian; I don't understand it but I'll suggest it if he can't come up with an answer easily.

As to others refering to wi-fi, my PC and Mrs H's are both desk tops, hard wired to the BT Home Hub 2.0 .We do have wi-fi, but it isn't used much, just for Mrs H's laptop. But that is mainly for use when we are away.