Hi All,

Hopefully someone can help me here.

BT Broadband customer for just over a year. No real issues since Tuesday last week. Speeds ok during day (when there to check) and then at night drops down to 2mb and constantly dropping out then back on and so forth.

I did speak to someone on Sat at BT who promised me a new hub and I checked all free and said yes but didn't fill me with much hope so rang today to double check and no surprise no record of hub being ordered!!!

Other option is to upgrade to fibre (currently on standard) what are peoples opinions on this, is it worth the extra money per month and do you really get the extra speeds (read somewhere that some people still get low speeds)

Thanks in advance.

How are you measuring the speed? Are you using a cable connection to the hub or WiFi? You should really use a cable connection to the hub to eliminate any possible issues with WiFi interference.

Also ADSL broadband is usually a "contended" service. What this means is that the bandwidth from your exchange back to the ISP (in this case BT) will be shared between all their customers.

For example, if there are 20 customers each with a nominal 10Mb connection and only a 100Mb connection from exchange to ISP, then you can see that 20 x 10 does not go into 100. Depending on what everyone is doing the speed can go down for everyone. During the day when most people are at work it may be possible to get your full allocation of bandwidth but in the evening when more people go online this sharing means your speed can drop.

This may in part explain your drop off. But it would be a very odd fault that only happened during the evening/night time. Usually something like a line fault would affect you at random times during the day or all the time. You can get a poorly insulated joint that lets rain water in affecting performance when it rains then everything returns to normal when it dries out. But again that can happen any time of day or night.

If you are using WiFi to connect to the hub then try using a cable connection for a couple of days to see if that makes any difference. Make sure you turn off WiFi on the computer to ensure it is using the cable. If you don't get the same problem then that indicates you may be getting interference issues over WiFi. This can be a real pain when you have loads of neighbours all trying to squeeze their networks into the limited amount of spectrum allocated to WiFi. I can see over 20 at home so there are a lot of overlapping networks and very little clear space available.

If your local BT cabinet is fibre enabled then might be worth investigating fibre. You should see a speed increase. With ADSL the broadband kit is at the exchange so you can have miles of cable between you and the exchange messing things up. With Fibre the broadband kit is effectively brought out to the roadside next to the cabinet your line is attached to. So far less copper wire to cause problems.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply.

Apologies but I am not technical at all so have to bear with me.

I will need to check when I am at home but think it is wireless. Would the cable be Ethernet? If so where from hub do I plug other end of cable to?

Your explanation of ADSL make sense, thanks.

I ran lots of tests recently as driving me mad, looking at the results for 17th between 9.15am and 1pm it is around high 12mb to 13.3mb so seems decent enough. But then drops down to 8.58 at 3pm and 7.30pm 2.82mb 9pm 4.11mb.

As say I noticed the broadband going a lot on and off, especially Friday night whilst trying to watch the football online. It did go a bit Sat and Sun during day (although wasn't in great deal to tell you how much)

When you say connect to hub via a cable and turn wifi off on computer I am sorry but what do you mean? I don't use my laptop a great deal it is more for mobile phones. Sorry again if this is really basic to you but for me it is a mind field!!!

Yes, they have said I can have fibre and only £5 per month extra to what I am paying at present. Just bit wary to pay more if not going to improve things, and then think why should I pay extra, surely I should get a service anyway, regardless if paying for standard or fibre!?!?

If you think that upgrading from 2 Mbps to up to 75 Mbps is worth £5 extra a month, then yes, go for it . BT should be able to tell you the speed to expect in your location.

(Actually I have just looked at the web site and it says that "standard" BT Infinity is 52 Mbps.)

Yes that is what they are saying. I am very tempted but then as said before part of me thinks why should I. I was doing just fine until a week ago when all gone slow and BB dropping out totally.

Would fibre stop the cut outs or is it just faster downloads? No point having faster speeds if spend fair bit of time not on anyway.

Your laptop should have an Ethernet port on the side just like the ones on the back of the hub. So plug a cable from the hub into the laptop.

There will be some means to turn the WiFi off on the laptop. Possibly one of the function keys, likely have an icon of a radio tower on it. If not there should be a WiFi icon on the Taskbar on the laptop somewhere near the time display. if you click on that it should open the list of WiFi connections. You just locate yours and click on the "Disconnect" button.

What were you watching the football on? And how was it connected to the hub? How certain are you that it was the internet connection dropping out? There should be a set of indicator lights on the hub which will either go out or change colour depending on the connection state. It could be that the connection speed dropped momentarily and the streaming couldn't cope at that speed rather than any actual disconnection.

If you were using a WiFi connection then depending on factors such as how much interference you get from the neighbours and how far away from the hub you were using the device it could be issues with WiFi and nothing to do with your broadband.

Trouble is that if you use phones a lot of the time you don't really have much option but to use WiFi. But if possible try to use your laptop on a cabled connection to the hub for a day or so to compare how it works with other devices using WiFi.

If both the laptop and phones start having connection problems at the same time then you could have a broadband connection. Also check the indicators on the Hub and see if any change colour or go out. the manual for the hub will show what each does and what any different colours mean (the manuals are on the BT website if you've lost yours).

If though the laptop on cable works fine but the phones on WiFi are losing connection all over the place then the issue is your WiFi signal.

Oh and it is mine field. Though a mind field is probably less dangerous to walk across...

No-one can say for certain if fibre will have any effect at all on the dropouts. As I posted above you need to first determine if the problem really is the broadband connection cutting out or if it is a WiFi connection issue.

If it is a broadband issue then you next have to workout what is causing it. If it is the length of cable from the socket on your wall to the street cabinet then you are likely to get problems with fibre as well. Similarly if it is a fault with any extension wiring or devices plugged into the phone line in your home fibre may suffer as well. If it is a fault further down the cable between cabinet and the exchange then changing to fibre may cure it.

I was watching through an android box which made me think might be an issue but it has been fine since April when got it. It has also been off even when not watching it. I did wonder if the box was having an effect but yesterday was dropping out when not even switched on. This is connected via hdmi cable to TV and last month or so have had Ethernet cable from android box to BT hub as well.

The lights go from blue (fine) to flashing orange (connection lost)

I was having problems with BT keep cutting out and dropping to 2meg speeds last month on infinity 2 my router was over 2 years old so they sent me a new hub 5 lucky for me that was the problem.

I presume you mean the Hub light?

Which model of BT hub do you have. The Home Hub 3 flashes orange when the connection is lost and the Smart Hub flashes orange to show it is trying to connect or static orange if it can't connect. The Home Hub 4 & 5 show static orange on a problem with other indicators showing what the actual issue is.

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/d...piWiotbQ%3D%3D

If it is the hub showing a line fault then you need to work out what is causing it. If you have an NTE5 type master phone socket which has a two part front panel you can remove the lower section to reveal the test socket, see this image

http://www.hmmm.ip3.co.uk/images/nte5-test-web.png

Plug the hub into the test socket and test it for a while. The test socket is connected directly to the phone line and removing the faceplate section isolates any internal extension wiring you may have. This test will confirm pretty well if the fault is with the BT line or your internal wiring.

If you get perfect performance on the test socket then it is something wrong with either an extension cable or something plugged into an extension socket, eg a phone or other device without a filter. If however you still get dropouts then it is more likely a line fault. If possible try different filters as well just in case you have a dodgy one of those.

If you don't narrow down any fault to the line you could be staring at the wrong end of a three figure call out charge. If you get BT to send someone out to fix the problem and it is found to be your internal wiring or something you have plugged into the line then you will very likely be charged, which could be over £100. If the fault is on the incoming line then you should not be charged.

But you need to identify where the fault is because it may also affect fibre broadband should you decide to go for that.

Well I did speak to someone on Saturday at BT who promised me a new hub which was pleasant surprise. I rang today to ask about BT Sport issue and thought just double check about new hub as I didn't trust him and no surprise they was no record of new hub being ordered.

Ideally I would like a new hub and give that a try before moving to fibre (as seems can still have low speeds and cutting out as per your example)

I believe I am on BT hub 4.

I will give your suggestions a go. I just can't understand why would be working fine and all of a sudden is not if is internal wiring?

you could try the new smart one but its £50 to buy.

According to that link I posted the Hub 4 doesn't flash orange. It has a static orange light to show a fault with additional indicators on the silver strip to show what is actually wrong. This link shows the various Hub models

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/d...0do%20I%20have


First off do you have any extensions? If you don't then it can't be any internal wiring or anything plugged into a socket.

If you do have extensions wired off the master socket then you can very easily have a cable break pop up out of the blue somewhere. Especially if the cable wasn't run properly. If it was run under carpets where people can walk over it or round a door frame rather then through a hole in the frame then it is very easy for the cable to get damaged. Running a cable under a carpet doesn't necessarily protect it, just makes it harder to get at when it breaks

Also if you plug something into an extension without a filter that can affect the broadband performance. The Hub is actually the only device that doesn't need a filter! Everything else does need to be filtered, either by using individual filters at each socket that is in use or by using a special faceplate on the master socket with built in filtering for the extension cabling.

To be honest you have got me questioning myself now, maybe it doesn't flash then but I know it is definitely orange and wifi goes on phones etc (I will check next time it goes)

Yes I do have an extension cable (need them as got sky box, TV, android box, xbox, DVD player and so forth) It is behind the TV where nobody has access to.

I do appreciate all your help by the way!!!

When you say extension cable what do you mean? Do you mean something like this?

http://cpc.farnell.com/productimages...0520305-40.jpg

which plugs into the phone socket then you have the Hub plugged into the end?

If you do have something like that then that could very easily be the cause of the problem. And it might not even need to be damaged to cause a problem! Though depending on how it's run it could easily get damaged, more so than "proper" BT phone cable.

I actually meant one of those multi sockets https://www.amazon.co.uk/Multi-Socke.../dp/B003YLZ5I4

I will have a look when back if use one of those cables you highlight.

I'm not an expert in these things but it might be useful to recount my experience. I have a home hub 5 and had problems with losing the connection regularly. BT tested the line each time and it always said the problem was in my home. I chickened out of booking a home visit at first because of the dire warnings of charges.

I was getting nowhere but I knew it wasn't my fault and eventually called out an engineer, who tested my line at the main socket. He traced it to the distribution pole a couple of gardens away - so close that a remote test showed it as being on my premises. He shinned up the pole and found a corroded connection which had been the cause of all my problems.

That is a mains extension lead. Nothing at all to do with phones.

I mean extension phone sockets, I had assumed that would be obvious from the context of the discussion, maybe not?

Ha ha i did warn you I was rubbish.

It is a dsl472 like this

http://www.computerpartsworld.co.uk/...it-dsl472.html

I am guessing no charge incurred then and all fixed and sorted?

Yes - their problem. And yes, no further problems, after repeated calls to the help line in Mumbai or wherever who continually wanted me to do loads of pointless tests which I had already done before.

Sounds very familar. Promised a call back tonight and nothing. Formal complaint going in first thing tomorrow.

That is an ADSL filter. You do know what a phone extension is don't you? You know a second socket, (entirely separate to the master socket), where you can plug another phone into? I didn't think I would need to spell it out so explicitly to be honest.

Hi Chris.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge and understanding, feel really embarrassed!!! But do appreciate the time you have taken to help me out.

Had a look last night. I have a main socket with openreach on it which that adsl goes into. That has two bits, one that says adsl modem which goes into hub and phone which obviously goes into phone. Don't have anything else. I did take a photo if can send you?

Sorry and thanks again!!!