Can you improve things?

Hi,

I am currently with fast.co.uk, unfortunately I'm on a small rural exchange (20cn only STEASTK) and get some slow speeds at peak times, usually between 7pm and 11pm broadly speaking, I had the same issue before xmas and decided to give 'max premium' a go as understand this has lower contention ratio and priority traffic over BT's network, however this doesn't seem to have helped and now I'm paying £45 a month and I'm frequently getting between 1 and 5mbit during evenings, probably about 2-2.5 overall (I sync at 8Mbit), I average about 25gb per month up&down.

I'm not sure if the problem is exchange congestion or an ISP issue, I can no longer get the tap3 test on BT wholesale's speedtester to work but before xmas I was able to get 6.5mbit+ using the BT speedtest login a number of times where as using the ISP connection I would get average of 2mbit, fast say there is no problem with their capacity and BT via fast are saying no problem either so I'm a bit annoyed at spending £45 a month to get a 'value level' type service, I would rather get a better service and pay in this region but failing this I will just go to a cheapo ISP if BT is the problem as there is nothing to gain by paying more if the exchange capacity is fubar!!.

Don't know if you can advise if you would likely be able to improve things?, if you can I will request a MAC as I just seem to go round in circles with fast, they are generally helpful in answering but in the end nothing changes and the issue never goes away. Out of interest would an ISP be able to see if there was exchange level congestion or are they just relying on BT passing this information on (when it suits).

Have a read of their "We'll fix your line" offer.

http://www.aa.net.uk/broadband-trial.html

I took this offer up a few years ago and they did amazing job. From 2meg to 5.5meg.

Worth giving this a try!

In short your ISP will be able to find out. I Think the following site will also help
http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/

If i is congestion moving will not help, unless they have their own kit in the exchange, and its not congested either.

In reply to a post by AndrewW:

If i is congestion moving will not help, unless they have their own kit in the exchange, and its not congested either.

Hope i'm wrong but i suspect the OP and AAISP might not be able to do anything about it. I had the same problem problem on my 20CN/non LLU old, knackered, piddly, flea, rat-infested exchange in the Scottish Highlands. Was with niche ISPs such as Zen, IDNET, Goscomb and always experienced mega slowdowns at peak times on the 8128/832 service ( synced at the full 8 meg). Luckily TalkTalk LLU came along in 2010 and it was even FTTC'd a few weeks ago LOL

Thats what i think, so migrating to another ISP for performance reasons will be pointless, unless the new ISP has their own kit in the exchange and its not contended

In reply to a post by AndrewW:

In short your ISP will be able to find out. I Think the following site will also help
http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/

Forget that. Plusnet haven't updated it since January!

Post deleted by seb

Your comment on using the BT speetester and ISP congestion makes sense to me.

Why don't you give AAISP a call and explain your situation. "I'm thinking of moving over but..." etc
They may have data on your exchange or even better existing customers on there.

I'd be tempted to move anyway to give it a go as their home::1 tariff with premium looks to be £8 a month cheaper than you are paying now.

The units tariff on 20cn may be OK for you depending on usage pattern and you could always use this for a month to give it a go and then change to Home::1 if all is good.
Prices are eye watering between 9am and 6pm but OK if you only use the net between 6pm and 9pm plus weekends.

6 month minimum term on Home::1 and restrictions on business use.

Hi, yes, do give us a call, or pop in to our IRC channel - happy to talk and see what's possible for you.

I have requested a mac as its getting annoying currently getting 1.5mbit, I have been with fast for about 6 or 7 years so its a shame but they don't seem to be able to do anything and I have nothing to lose, will get in touch when I get my mac through.

Please do keep this post updated - I am very interested to see what AAISP can do for you.

Will do.

"moving ISP won't fix the issue unless you move to an LLU provider to escape BT Wholesale, but allowing us to continue to deal with the fault, and accepting an engineer will."

The above is what they have advised after I requested a mac, anyone think there is a point in going with this?, it's not a wiring issue so I'm reluctant and have said I will only do it if fast guarantee I won't get charged.

It depends on where the problem lies.

If it's a fault with your wiring there's nothing any ISP can do themselves.

If it's a problem with congestion at your exchange then A&A
a) are very good at kicking BT's backside until they agree to fix the problem
b) may be able to offer a line using the TT LLU service which despite having the TT name is actually an extremely good and reliable service.

If it's a problem with the ISPs own network then changing ISP WILL fix it (unless the new ISP has problems of it's own and this is an area where A&A put in a lot of effort to avoid having problems)

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-May-14 12:11:46)

Nothing other than BT 20CN is available at the OP's exchange, not even any LLU providers.

In my opinion, if the OP's usage is only 25GB per month, the Home:1 tariff (which gives 100GB a month as standard) sounds like a good move. There is only a 6 month contract with that too (as this is only an ADSL connection) so if things don't work out, or A&A are unable to genuinely improve things, the OP can always migrate away hassle free.

If the OP chooses to migrate to their unit based tariff, that is only a 1 month contract. That might be a good first move, at least to see if A&A are able to improve things. If not, OP can move on after only just one month of service.

Does http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-trial.html not apply to home::1?

Assuming the "slow internet" the OP is experiencing is seen as a fault, then I don't see why not. Best to check with A&A to be sure though.

Though I gather from the general tone of this thread that the issue is quite possibly exchange related (contention, congestion etc) as the line syncs at 8Mbit with a 2-2.5Mbit "overall" speed. I highly expect BT to turn around and say there's no fault, in all honesty. But that doesn't mean A&A will accept that.

Or the speed issues are the current ISP (fast.co.uk) themselves (contended BT gateways their side) so moving to A&A may just fix the problem immediately as A&A aim to never be the bottle neck: http://clueless.aa.net.uk/linkreport.cgi

aaisp seem to take the approach the customer is right, if there is doubt they side with the customer (at least thats how it was when I was there), they the only isp who managed to get BT to switch me to another vendor dslam. They even managed to send a BT guy round on a sunday to climb on my roof to remove old cabling etc. which might be causes of interference. So in terms of deal with BT I think aaisp are in a league of their own.

The advice to initially use the unit package and then move to home::1 if commiting is sound in my view.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 14-May-14 12:44:22)

what about when bt openmonkeys break a connection by swapping copper pairs back to the cab. not redundant pairs, pairs that are good quality and in use to get work done faster?

currently with zen and they are not living up to expectations (been with them 11 years) even though this same problem happened at the beginning of the year so they know i have had a perfect line and full sync since jan/feb the fault manager told me that the line was within tolerance. currently not syncing at full speed because i suspect the copper pairs have been swapped out back to the cab. an ex bt engineer and a current serving one have told me this is common practice in this area.

pavement cabs not poles if that makes a difference.

let me put it another way if you had a customer on a reliable sync of 80000/20000 and if you as an isp knew a member of bt openreach broke your customers connection while on a neighbours install and were trying to force a lesser sync speed what would you do? could you get it fixed back to the original quality?

currently using 150gb-200gb a month with zen mainly streaming netflix and am in contract with them until 30 sept.

Edited by deleted (Sun 24-Aug-14 15:08:16)