Do I have a case for demanding my MAC?

Hi all,
Long time lurker but first time poster.

In short we've been with BT for almost 2 years now, always had around a 5mb connection, suddenly a few weeks back it dropped to around 1mb.
Checked our BRAS profile and it's set to 1mb, asked BT support to reset it as it'd been stuck there for 2 weeks. The chap from the call centre mumbled something about the UK weather and copper wires probably meaning we could only get 1mb now.
I explained that we'd enjoyed around 5mb for 2 years and he still went on about our weather.
I insisted he reset our profile as it was obviously stuck, he did a test and said we'd get disconnects if they reset it. I insisted he reset it as we are having problems using the hub phone and the internet at the same time (I'm guessing due to the low bandwidth).
He laughed at me and said "ok I will tell technical to reset it, but you will get connection problems".

One week later and they've done nothing, still stuck on 1mb.

I'm so sick of dealing with these Jokers in the call centre (had major issues when we first moved in 2 years ago for a month). Would we be entitled to demand our MAC code as the service we're paying for is not usable by us, i.e. we can't download anything and use the hub phone at the same time?

Sorry for the long post peeps and on a side note does anyone know of a similiar service to BTs where you get something similiar to the hub phone (yea I know about skype but the hub phone is fantastically easy when it's working right).

below are the stats from our hub.

Thanks for reading

John



DSL Connection

Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 0:18:59
Modulation: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 1,568
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 1.53 / 7.30
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.5 / 18.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31.5 / 57.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 9.0 / 7.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / TSTC
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 6,016
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 17
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 13
Line Profile: Interleaved

Your Attenuation has sky rocketed then - theres no way your gonna get 5Mbit on 57db - infact your gonna struggle to get above 2Mbit looking at those stats - something must have changed in the area

Its probably a good idea to check your local wiring, try changing microfilters if you have a spare its possible a filter is giving out, make sure all phones are properly filtered, etc. also make sure ring wire is disconnected.

Might be worth disconnecting everything and plugging into the test socket directly to test.

EDIT: I notice Attenuation seems to be creeping up and up on BT of late, even taking ADSL2+/WBC change over into account, not sure if its coz of the higher take up of DSL or more likely BT's incompetance but mines gone from 31db to 39db in the last couple of months or so and it was sub 30db on ADSL MAX.

Edited by deleted (Fri 03-Jul-09 21:19:24)

Yeah the OP's stat's aren't great. As for requesting a MAC code it's not grounds no, I cant imagine you in contract after 5 years anyway. Also changing ISP will do nothing, it won't remove the problem which is a physical one with your line.

Try talking to forum support on here, it's probably the best option. If you really want to leave unless you extended your contract with BT I see no reason you should migrate away. Your out-with any contract period at 2 years, unless your on option 1 which for whatever reason automatically renews itself.

As for another supplier with a hub phone idea, the only other is Orange. They have a similar router to the home hub, they don't have a phone you supply your own but that will be the closest. I'd check before moving that the new ISP is willing to sort out your problems and make sure you get assurances before taking out the contract with them. Smaller ISP's such as Andrews & Arnold offer a service where they specifically fix issues like this. They don't offer a hub phone type service and you will pay the extra for the expertise they hold, not a specific charge just a higher monthly charge.

Cheers for the help peeps.

tried it with a new filter, cable and connected to the master socket and got the exact same results :/

Something I did notice as well is that our voice line is dead, no tone on the phone at all (also tried a spare phone). We never use it so didn't notice before.
I guess the two problems are related and I'm just about to log a fault with BT, hopefully they'll eventually get it sorted.

Anyway thanks for the help and I'll post a follow up when anything happens.

John