Tearing my hair out with MAAF

On about my fifth day of hell with MAAF. Been a customer of freenetname / MAAF for as long as I can remember possibly ten years +.

Loads of dropping off of broadband signals, done everything they asked about five times, new router, unplug this unplug that, plug into the master socket, new microfilter take the front off of the BT socket stand on one leg hopping blah blah blah.

After 3 days of this hell told not their fault it's BT's fault & I should contact BT. Ring BT, arrange for a BT engineer to come, doesn't turn up, deal with complaints section, I'm offered £10 for wasting five hours of my time waiting for him not to come.

Arranged for another BT engineer to come next Saturday. Suddenly tonight get a call from BT saying that they will only send an engineer if my voice phone is not working. If it's a broadband fault then MAAF have to request the engineer.

This has taken hours out of my life, about fifteen phone calls & really no further forward. I've done EVERYTHING that MAAF & BT ask of me & all each does is palm me off to the other.

Download speed less than upload speeds:-

Date Download Speed Upload Speed
Today 22:32 141 kbps (17.6kB/s) 327 kbps (40.9kB/s)
Today 06:54 157 kbps (19.6kB/s) 370 kbps (46.3kB/s)
Yesterday 18:03 138 kbps (17.3kB/s) 377 kbps (47.1kB/s)
Yesterday 17:08 137 kbps (17.1kB/s) 378 kbps (47.3kB/s)
Yesterday 12:51 140 kbps (17.5kB/s) 378 kbps (47.3kB/s)
Yesterday 12:18 171 kbps (21.4kB/s) 376 kbps (47 kB/s)
Yesterday 10:27 174 kbps (21.8kB/s) 378 kbps (47.3kB/s)

Can someone just advise me what to do? Is this a MAAF problem or a BT problem??? & who arranges what?

[Ticket number 34297658 ]

Edited by manic2 (Sun 18-Jul-10 23:34:01)

It's a MAAF problem which BT have to sort out. As long as you are sure it's not your equipment or wiring MAAF will have to order a BT Openreach Broadband Engineer to look at your line if it is the line. If it's your equipment eg router or wiring expect a hefty bill.

In summary MAAF is the point of contact for Broadband Faults and BT for Phone Faults unless you have your phone with MAAF, god help you.

Thanks Banger

On the basis that I've bought a new router, taken the front off of the main BT socket & plugged the new router into the test socket behind can I be sure that it's not my equipment or am I just at the mercy of someone telling me it's all my fault & landing me with the hefty bill?

You would have hoped that as MAAF are part of Plusnet which I think is part of BT then I wouldn't have to go through this hell of speaking with different people & getting contradictory advice. To me as a mere user if they are all a part of the same company I should be able to make one call & them sort out who tells what engineer to do what.

Edited by manic2 (Mon 19-Jul-10 08:07:41)

Now MMAF are telling me this:-

We have asked our wholesale broadband suppliers to turn interleaving on on your phone line to try and fix your current broadband problem.

Interleaving is a form of error correction that helps to improve the stability of high-speed broadband. One drawback of interleaving is that it can increase ping times, which may cause problems for online gamers.

We think that turning on interleaving may help with your connection problems. Interleaving usually takes 24 hours to turn on, but can take up to 5 days to take effect.

So looks like I'm being told just to wait & wait & wait for up to another 5 days! After which no doubt the hell will start again.

One thing worth checking for elimination purposes is audible noise on the phone line, if you connect a corded phone into the test socket within the master socket and then dial 17070 and choose option 2 then the quiet line test will take place. You shouldn't hear any forms of noise at all other than a voice saying quiet line test every so often if all is well with the line from your house to the exchange.

If you do hear any crackling or other sounds then that is a voice fault and should be reported to BT for them to fix (never mention broadband to BT when reporting a voice fault).

Interleaving explained by Kitz, it's worth having a look through the rest of her website when you've time.

Your connection is dropping between the BT (Wholesale) equipment in your exchange and your router. We act as your link to BT (Wholesale) to report this fault and if we can't fix it remotely we'll ask to send a BT (Openreach) engineer out to fix it locally.

I can see that we investigated this fault on the 17th and advised you that we located a fault on the telephone side of the network. This is likely to be the cause of the broadband fault and must be resolved first, as telephone is the priority service.

A telephone fault should be reported to your telephone provider (BT Retail) who must resolve it for you, then close the fault. Until this is done we cannot report or even test a broadband fault.

I can see that BT (Retail) have opened a telephone fault for you on the 17th. If they agreed to send out an engineer who then did not attend, it's likely that you need to re-arrange this visit. The telephone fault is still open in any case so this must be resolved and closed off before we can do anything further.

I'll reply to your ticket with this update too.

Ben

To reiterate our telephone conversation you advised that what MAAF told me regarding interleaving won't help at all. As I mentioned please imagine my frustration at reading on my support ticket that it may help with the problems then being told by you that it won't.

Also to reiterate whether it's MAAF, Plusnet, BT (Wholesale), BT (Openreach) or (BT Retail) as far as I'm concerned it's not working & I am just a middle man who doesn't know what he's talking about relating things to people who should.

Anyways spent THE WHOLE OF THE TIME SINCE WE SPOKE getting through to BT & speaking with BT. As I've said before I can make & receive phone calls just fine.

They just tell me to talk to my service provider. Asked to speak to a manager like you advised me to. Was told that a manager would just tell me the same thing.

Mate you are telling me you aren't going to do anything until BT resolve their issue. BT are telling me that they won't do anything until MAAF resolve their issue.

Where do we go from here? Got no hair left to pull out now!

Ben tried to contact you but after being put on hold for ages were told you were unavailable to take my call.

I had two extra questions:-

1. Should I try the 'Quiet Line test'.

2. Should I ask BT to close the open fault with them so you can do your testing.

Your telephone operative promised a call back from you today.

Thanks for your time on the telephone today. As discussed, BT Retail need to address this fault for you.

Please let us know when you have been able to resolve this issue as it will probably fix the broadband too. If it doesn't just let us know and we'll pick up the investigation from there.

Well ,don't know who has done what but:-

Today 18:32 3009 kbps (376kB/s) 351 kbps (43.9kB/s) Share
Today 18:31 2902 kbps (363kB/s) 330 kbps (41.3kB/s) Share
Today 07:34 155 kbps (19.4kB/s) 353 kbps (44.1kB/s) Share

Thanks to Ben for listening.