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Unbearably slow speeds, BT not helping at all...help!
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[Deleted User]
Posts: 9 Forum Member
Hi there,
A little background:
Came home yesterday and noticed straight away something was wrong. Did a speed test and the result was 0.13 down, 0.20 up. Did the usual routine of restart Home Hub, computer, change microfilter, still at around 0.15 down. I have a wired and wireless machines and all machines give the same result.
So I ring BT and they make me go through the whole process again, despite me telling them I've tried all their usual steps (been through all this before plus I work in IT). They did a line test and said that from what they can tell, the line is perfect. I had to leave the call, wasted 45 minutes and had to go.
I wake up this morning and the first thing I did was a speed test. Result, 3.5 down, my usual speed. Great I thought, must just be one of those things, now ironed out. Come home today however, same speed as yesterday evening, 0.15ish. My initial thought is they must be traffic shaping me or something.
Anyway had another hour long useless phone call with tech support where at one stage I had a tech guy asking me to clear my cookies "to increase speed". Had to explain politely to him that clearing cookies on one machine in my network of 4 isn't going to speed my overall line up lol. The guy basically couldn't really do anything and said that if it was running well this morning but not in the evening it must be due to high demand. I'm sorry but 0.15 down is unacceptable, whatever bloody time of day.
They said yesterday that it must be something to do with my local network because the line is fine. If it were a problem with my network then why was it fine this morning?
So the only thing I can think to try is request a new Home Hub.
Has anyone had similar issues to this? Is there anything else I can try? I'm going to see what the speeds like tomorrow morning and if it is 3.5mb then it must be them shaping me. They guy denied they are doing this but why else would it be this bad in the evening? I've experienced shaping before but its never gone below 2mb.
A little background:
Came home yesterday and noticed straight away something was wrong. Did a speed test and the result was 0.13 down, 0.20 up. Did the usual routine of restart Home Hub, computer, change microfilter, still at around 0.15 down. I have a wired and wireless machines and all machines give the same result.
So I ring BT and they make me go through the whole process again, despite me telling them I've tried all their usual steps (been through all this before plus I work in IT). They did a line test and said that from what they can tell, the line is perfect. I had to leave the call, wasted 45 minutes and had to go.
I wake up this morning and the first thing I did was a speed test. Result, 3.5 down, my usual speed. Great I thought, must just be one of those things, now ironed out. Come home today however, same speed as yesterday evening, 0.15ish. My initial thought is they must be traffic shaping me or something.
Anyway had another hour long useless phone call with tech support where at one stage I had a tech guy asking me to clear my cookies "to increase speed". Had to explain politely to him that clearing cookies on one machine in my network of 4 isn't going to speed my overall line up lol. The guy basically couldn't really do anything and said that if it was running well this morning but not in the evening it must be due to high demand. I'm sorry but 0.15 down is unacceptable, whatever bloody time of day.
They said yesterday that it must be something to do with my local network because the line is fine. If it were a problem with my network then why was it fine this morning?
So the only thing I can think to try is request a new Home Hub.
Has anyone had similar issues to this? Is there anything else I can try? I'm going to see what the speeds like tomorrow morning and if it is 3.5mb then it must be them shaping me. They guy denied they are doing this but why else would it be this bad in the evening? I've experienced shaping before but its never gone below 2mb.
0
Comments
You need to look at the hub stats http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php#10 and try and see whats going on. Does it disconnect to get to the 3.5 from a low speed and does it disconnect again to get back to mega slowville? Time up may indicate if/when its disconnecting. Is it cranking up lots of errors when its running at 3.5 and whats the down noise margin when ithe speed is low and high may also help. You also need to have a look at the stats from speedtester.bt.com including the line profile. If the line profile is 250, when its slow, something has set it low and if the profile is much higher and you are getting a much lower speed you have something that is inconsistent to argue with BT. if you copy and paste both sets of stats here someone may look.
Sounds like a line/exchange fault if you have not changed anything.
They may have actually done something to get it back to 3.5 which suggests the problem came back and knocked the speed back again. They are useless at monitoring whether what they did stays working.
Someone else may comment on whether it could be too many people on line or shaping. It looks a big drop for either?
Hopefully one of the helpful BT people will pop into the thread too.
.
It sounds like a DLM issue (it was one of my main reasons I left BT).
basically like you my line was only getting 3.5mb I live a fair distance from the exchange.
but say we had a power cut or i just lost my connection the speed would drop down to under 1mb or 1.5 mb.
normally meant a call to BT after weeks or scripted BS..(and 2 new home hubs) they retrained my line and suprise suprise it went to 4mb..but the same problem kept coming back all the time.in the end it got so bad I got intouch with Otelo they gave me a number/and ref to call BT
was allowed to leave my contract early.
Went to Ukonline got 4.5mb on the LLU service.
I cant see a new hub working.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=635147
rambo plays a massive role in these issues
Try another Call to BT ask about the lines profile and do they think it can be reset.
if you see the speed improve you know 100% its nothing to do with cookies.filters,hubs or UFO's..its 100% on BT's side. (something I wish they would realise is 90% of the time) because all they do is confuse an already mind numbing situation.
I know 100% how you feel because BT really dont help the situation at times with Crap like clearing out cookies..*facepalms*
What do you get here www.speedtester.bt.com on both occasions?
Thanks for the response. I'm getting the speed from speedtest.net but i've done some tests on speedtester.bt.com as well although you can only do one of those an hour.
I ran a test on speedtester.bt.com at 7am this morning and got my usual 3mb download speed, same test with speedtest.net shows roughly the same result.
Just went back on to check speed now and its back down to 0.2mb again. So there goes my theory that the are shaping me in the afternoon/evening but its still weird that every morning at 7am my speed is absolutely fine.
7.00am
Download:
Download speedachieved during the test was - 3221 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 1200-4000 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3584 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 3000 Kbps
The throughput of Best Efforts (BE) classes achieved during the test is - 16.41:25.83:57.76 (SBE:NBE:PBE)
Upload:
Upload speed achieved during the test was - 332 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 448 Kbps
10.30am
Download:
Download speedachieved during the test was - 372 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 1200-4000 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3584 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 3000 Kbps
The throughput of Best Efforts (BE) classes achieved during the test is - 33.52:30.9:35.57 (SBE:NBE:PBE)
Upload:
Upload speed achieved during the test was - 351 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 448 Kbps
As you can see upload speed doesn't seem to be affected at all. In fact in some instances my uploads been faster than my download!
Thanks for you help.
It seems to me that at certain times you have unacceptably high levels of Contention or Congestion.
Unfortunately the muppets that BT employ are unlikely to understand the issues let alone fix them. However, I would give BT Support [sic] one more try and make it clear that this is their LAST chance to fix the problem or you will write letter of compliant to Sir Michael Rake the Chairman of BT. If they fail, write the letter.
Ok, well thanks for looking. Just read some posts on the BT Broadband forum and it seems loads of people (although not in my area) are having similar issues which despite visits from engineers haven't been sorted for weeks. Not looking good!
By the way I did another speed test earlier and it seems my IP Profile has gone up to 4000k. What is this, is this something they control? Maybe they've been working on it today. Lines still slow though.
BTW, you could have engineer visits until the cows come home but they ain't got nuttin' to fix at your end.
I agree with Beer.Sadly BT will keep you like this basically until you almost go bonkers with them.I would think about Otelo also because its quite clear you have already tried to sort this situation out with BT.
dont get sucked into thinking this is a problem within the house because then comes out the visits and you getting stumped to pay for it when they find out theres nothing wrong inside the property.
it might be worth you checking the samknows website and just see what services are on the exchange you currently have I hope im proved wrong but by the script already posted it sounds like BT hasnt moved on in years
when I was with them it was 100% reverse namely if they came out and found NO fault a charge would apply which I found totally outrageous at the time.
but for me personally I found the more the issue carried on the more confusing the situation becam, which is why I started to email to get everything down in writing.
and as you can see by this post its still carrying on.
http://www.hotukdeals.com/misc/bt-engineer-call-out-charge/708269
lol
During the day the speed gradually drops off until it is about 0.5kbs at around 6pm. There is no congestion at my exchange.
I have had the engineer out, spoken to their fantastic (not) technical dept, had a lift and shift done and have now been referred to their complex cases team.
I have done numerous speed tests and yesterday they told me their suppliers have begun to investigate - one week after they told me their suppliers have begun to investigate?!
I am out of contract with BT - as of last week - and was wondering if I changed suppliers, would the problem follow me?
Initially I was on Orange (aka Freeservice, Wanadoo) and service was pants. I moved to Sky and had their Connect service as Sky/Easynet not available on my exchange. Speeds throttled evenings and weekends. Streaming via You Tube and other sites was not possible.
I then moved over to Vodafone @ Home which is a re-badged BT package. Even Speedtest reports my ISP as BT now. For nearly 5 months no speed issues, but now suddenly gone from 1.35 to 0.13 download and 0.20 upload.
Having had a couple of calls, it's gone up to 0.88 on average, but not where it was so ringing again today. Streaming again is hopeless and I don't download large amounts of data so I believe this is unfair and not getting the service I am paying for.
Since there are now LLU services on my exchange and none will come on in the immediate future as I live out in the sticks, it's constant phone calls and complaints. This will be ongoing for a significant amount of time me thinks. I don't want to leave VF as they are my employer and get a good deal with landline and BB @ £25. Around £3 cheaper than Sky.
Most ISPs, with some notable exceptions, provide a perfectly good service based on IPStream. BT is one of those ISPs and the OP's problem is unusual which is why I suggested the latter to Sir Michael Rake.
Why do you say not the same thing? If it is a M1 exchange as is mine then is Sky Connect not basically a re-badged BT Max product? I know that Sky will apply their own terms e.g. traffic managed to hell evenings and weekends but basically a rose by any other name.
I know you like to disagree with most of what people say on here, having read previous posts and I'm not saying I don't believe you, but in reality this is is happening all the time to other people not only on this forum and Sky BB users, but for other ISP's.
f there is no LLU service at their exchange and they move ISP's the problem eventually returns. Simple really.
It's happened to me, it's happened to people I work with and as I say the forum is littered with similar stories of caps, and restrictions on their accounts at the evening and weekends.
I understand about traffic management for those who go over their quota and download large amounts of data, but it's happening to me and I do not download movies or music etc etc. The closest I get is streaming videos on You Tube or similar sites.
IPStream is a BTW product that supplies for example the DSLAMs at the local exchange, to which the ISPs' subscribers' modem/routers connect over the local Loop, From the exchange, the data flows over BTW's network to the ISP's network. Some ISPs (typically those with large LLU customer bases) simply, do not rent enough bandwidth from BT to supply an adequate service at peak times.
As I have said before, many ISP have products based on IPStream and they work perfectly well. However others appear to woefully under-spec. their connection leading to the complaint about low speed at peak times.
Based on these observations my advice to anyone on an excahnge that does not have an LLU presence is to choose an ISP that does not have significant LLU customer base because they seem to treat their non-LLU subscribers as second class citizens.
Amen !
It's a shame this is happening and agree there. Problem is not everyone lives in a town or city. I live in a village and share the exchange from a neighbouring village so don't expect blistering speeds, but in this day and age at least 1MB stable connection isn't too much to ask ? As for them upgrading the exchange to the 21CN and beyond, it's not going to happen due to the amount of consumer and commercial customers using it.
So village life does have it's downsides and yeah are treated differently to those subscribers using LLU services. Of course it's not restricted to villagers either. Banbury is also having speed issues even with those living close by to the exchange.
I would not attempt to defend Sky Connect in any way as it is a woeful BB product. However, and this must be said, I was with BT for many many years prior to Sky and they were equally as bad in the evenings. This issue rather than cost was the biggest factor in my decision to leave BT. I am not on a congested exchange and there are less than 900 connections using the exchange. Daytime speeds are around 7mbps but horrible after 5pm, again the same as BT was.
As regards banbury_oddball's post. You do not have to live in the countryside to suffer with the problems you experience. I live in a city area but as you can see from the paragraph above I am connected to a tiny exchange. We are not even on BT's current ADSL2+ rollout list and I doubt we will ever get fibre in my lifetime.
All the grants and publicity is geared to people like yourself in country areas yet people like me on small urban exchanges have the worst of all worlds. Who's fighting our corner?
I have BT at home (Rural exchange with no LLU presence.) and there is almost no discernible difference between peak and non-peak performance.