Download speed normal; upload barely above zero

Hi,

I seem to be in a bit of a pickle with BT... My download speeds are normal - well above the 48Mbps guarantee BT give me. Just recently, my upload speeds have gone from the expected 15-20Mbps to barely above 0,5! BT have done their usual automated checks and found no problems. And I've talked to an agent who gave a somewhat circular argument: we do not guarantee upload ergo we don't investigate upload problems. Looking on my account I can see:

- The fault I reported today is not there.
- There is a problem reported 2nd Feb (not reported by me!) - Broadband - UpfrontTest, and fixed 11th Feb.

Now, I live just around the corner from the box and OpenReach seem to have a man their pretty much permanently so can well imagine this interfering with existing customers.

My product: Fibre with BT Halo 2 (one of the FTTC products)

Slightly concerned because it's not so long since I renewed the contract so worried I may be stuck with the product through to late this year if BT refuse to investigate. And no idea where I stand legally.

I'm full time WFH due to [censored], at the moment, so fortunate to have a very good 5G to fall back on.

Hmmm... after a good month of problems (culminating in so unusably slow that Alexa would just blink at my, vacantly, whenever I asked her to turn the light on), the problem seems to have mysteriously corrected itself. Perhaps bad end of call surveys and social media rants work (albeit disappointing they are required)?

I had this problem for a couple of weeks and it turned out that my BT Cloud app had gone rogue and was hogging all the upload bandwidth. I closed it down and everything is back to normal.

I don't use the cloud app. We did put some effort into finding out if something else in the house was doing what your cloud app was doing though. I had assumed it was simple contention with other households (terraced houses, so densely packed and everyone working from home/remote learning) but the eye opener was when I found myself wide awake at 4am, and decided to do some tests.

Internaut

Usually this is due to an automatic upload / backup on a device somewhere. Can be One drive, Google cloud, or any of the other dozen apps that try to keep all your data 'safe' .

If your download is ok the upload is working at some point as if the upload is completely swamped downloads become restricted due to Ack delays. This suggests it is a device issue as the upload is being restricted when downloads are taking place ( to enable the download) but when the upload starts it is being contended with the 'other' upload as the app will not be configured to give priority to a different upload.

While I do use some of these services (especially iCloud and OneDrive) there should be no significant backing up or syncing activity since everything is pretty much backed up already (so maintenance only). I should have mentioned that for my early hours test the only computing device switched on was the iPad used to make the test. If it happens again, I might try snooping my home network.

One thing that did occur to me.... What if a BT WiFi user is connecting to my Smart Hub and uploading a lot of data? BT's answer to that is that I have priority:

https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/bt-wi-fi--common-q...

My smarthub has a status page under the advanced section that tells me how much data has been uploaded/downloaded. If you were to keep an eye on that for 10 minutes or so and you would be able to see if anything was using the upload - if it doesn't go up then that isn't the problem but if it does then there is a device somewhere using bandwidth.

The BT wifi user shouldn't have access to all your bandwidth, it is a limited VPN type service.

If you had just switched the Ipad on, the apps have a habit of checking everything on start up so use quite a lot of bandwidth for the first x min, x depends on how much data you have on the device. .

We've had broadband for 12 months now and we have had service issues from day one ... we've had numerous engineers come to our property and try and resolve the issue but all have failed ...at the start of the issue if the fault wasn't fixed we received £8per day until it was fixed ...when they thought they had fixed it the fault would be closed ... the fault would happen again so another fault would be opened well this has been going on for 12 months now there was a period last summer for a few months our broadband seemed fine but from September 2020 it became terrible...we called in the fault as normal but then we was getting engineers not turn up when they was meant to bt gave us £20 for the no engineer showing up then they would book another to come out and again no engineers turned up and still our Internet would just drop out and unable to use ...in November I think in the space of 2 weeks 5 engineers never came out to us but two of them said they did but we have cctv at our property and I said I can prove they never came and I made a formal complaint regarding them engineers that said they had been here but never heard anything back regarding this.... my husband has had numerous phone calls to bt complaining about this once he was accused of being drunk by a member of staff because he raised his voice obviously its been very thrustraiting and has took its toll on the both of us all we wanted was a stable Internet connection that was promised when we signed up ...we then had a lady called Olivia sted taking over as she was higher up we were told but still nothing has been fixed ...the last conversation my husband had with bt a gentleman who was fairly rude and cocky in our eyes said he was taking over our case and that we wouldn't be receiving any compensation what so ever even though 2 weeks previously Olivia offered us compensation but we wasn't happy with it ... when I explained to the gentleman that at the beginning of our contract we was given £8 per day until the fault was fixed but from September we never received that and when added up was a fair bit of money his whole attitude changed to us we asked for someone else to take our complaint over he refused blatant and said its him or nothing ....we have decided to go with a different provider as how we have been treated during this who contract is absolutely not on and wouldn't wish anyone to go through the same
Remedy Requirements
Letter of apology

Reimbursement of time off of work due to engineers not coming

Reimbursement for stress that this has caused us both
And the mental strain it has caused during the time of covid has been made worse

If unnecessary cross posting four identical posts across these forums is an indication of your attitude when dealing with your supplier, don't expect much sympathy here!

I sympathies with anyone who is having ongoing issues with their broadband but I am drawn to your continued references to compensation and reimbursement rather than explaining what the issues are with your broadband.

There are lots of good people on this forum who may be able to advise on what could be causing these issues but you need to engage with them rather than just having a rant about the side show and compensation.

Edited by deleted (Wed 17-Feb-21 15:50:42)

In reply to a post by Internaut:

While I do use some of these services (especially iCloud and OneDrive) there should be no significant backing up or syncing activity since everything is pretty much backed up already (so maintenance only).

Presumption is the mother of all scew ups as they like to say. Or should and could being entirely different. There will almost certainly be something doing an upload that is hogging the bandwidth.

Just adding to Ian72's suggestion:
My BT Homehub6 has a My Network page which lists all individual items connected to my router, whether by network cable or WiFi. It shows the upload & download separately for each individual piece of equipment.
That might help identify if there has been a very large upload from one particular connected equipment, or you might even notice one going up quickly as you look.
Unfortunately, I don't think you can see equipment connected on the 'public' side of your router wifi. If anybody knows otherwise, please let me know, thanks.

In reply to a post by Dieng:

Just adding to Ian72's suggestion:
My BT Homehub6 has a My Network page which lists all individual items connected to my router, whether by network cable or WiFi. It shows the upload & download separately for each individual piece of equipment.
That might help identify if there has been a very large upload from one particular connected equipment, or you might even notice one going up quickly as you look.
Unfortunately, I don't think you can see equipment connected on the 'public' side of your router wifi. If anybody knows otherwise, please let me know, thanks.

Well my problem is back! So I'm looking at that right now. If the total uploaded data is since the last reset, earlier in the week, then I'm seeing nothing that would explain my suddenly degraded upload speed. Looking at it in upload order:

- The iPad is the worst offender having uploaded 2GB since Monday, explained by me uploading some photos to Creative Cloud.
- Followed by the Corporate Dell at 940MB (saving documents plus suspect FireEye sends a lot of Telemetry).
- After that, a few things in the 100s MBs (LG WebOS and so on) and then you have the mobile phones, light bulbs and so on.

Internaut

If it was ok then has just started up again. You may have a rare issue that is affecting upload frequencies only.. This may be something that is only used at weekends / evenings ( maybe an economy 7 device!). It may not be in your house but will be close.by. (Radio enthusiast etc)

It is not normal to just affect upload but can happen

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Internaut

If it was ok then has just started up again. You may have a rare issue that is affecting upload frequencies only.. This may be something that is only used at weekends / evenings ( maybe an economy 7 device!). It may not be in your house but will be close.by. (Radio enthusiast etc)

It is not normal to just affect upload but can happen

Thanks. I've been reading around this; quite an eye opener. I've not been able to isolate anything in the house that is never on when broadband is perfect. I have taken precautions. So, the table lamp (led) next to the router has been further away from the router (it was right on top of it). Nothing scientific, so far (it was already improving a little, at that point).

One thing to note: This isn't a suddenly bad/suddenly good thing. It's gradual in both directions. It started dropping off a little, Thursday night and was at its worst Friday afternoon, was up to to 10Mbps this morning and close to 20 thereafter. So not necessarily hours we'd associate with maintenance windows or work going on at the cabinet around the corner from us.

Internaut

System in the DSLAM works on frequency bands, so as a band deteriorates it cuts what is used. I do not know whether the bands are subdivided and are cut out bit by bit. If so this would explain the slow slide then the slow recovery.. Some Modems record the band usage so you can see what each is giving.

Upstream and downstream bands are normally interspersed so that distance and interference take both down a bit at a time rather than losing all of one. But it is possible for coincidence to take out all one way. ( you may be one of the few that are losing the lottery out of millions!)

Just an update on this. We've had a visit from an Open Reach engineer who ran some tests and, according to his equipment, from the wall socket our product is fine. The visit was coincidentally at a time when upload speeds were on the floor (it was a Tuesday visit and things had deteriorated badly over the previous weekend). He requested a new Smart Hub which arrived Wednesday and we installed it on Wednesday night.

Since then, I think the situation could best be described as acceptably bad . So, upload speeds reliably in the 3-10 Mbps range when tested, with just two tests where the final score was below 1 (we've done many) and, more importantly it's not stopped me working, doing video calls and saving my work to the corporate network. I'll keep an eye on it over the next couple of weeks.

Incidentally, we have excellent 5G coverage, locally, and that has been a real bacon saver (seriously, the only thing that would beat EE's 5G, in good coverage, would be FTTP and higher than BT's base product offering).

Incidentally, we have excellent 5G coverage, locally, and that has been a real bacon saver (seriously, the only thing that would beat EE's 5G, in good coverage, would be FTTP and higher than BT's base product offering).

Have you considered just ditching the landline based services altogether ?

A one off payment for a router which takes a mobile sim, then an eat all you want data sim .... sorted.

You can then wave bye-bye to your landline based service.

Have you considered just ditching the landline based services altogether ?

A one off payment for a router which takes a mobile sim, then an eat all you want data sim .... sorted.

You can then wave bye-bye to your landline based service.

I have looked into that in EE's £55 per month product looks pretty good.

In reply to a post by Internaut:

I have looked into that in EE's £55 per month product looks pretty good.

Go for an unlimited mobile phone sim for around £40 per month and get your own mobile broadband router, don't pay EE £55 per month for Mobile Broadband.

In reply to a post by Internaut:

Hi,

I seem to be in a bit of a pickle with BT... My download speeds are normal - well above the 48Mbps guarantee BT give me. Just recently, my upload speeds have gone from the expected 15-20Mbps to barely above 0,5! BT have done their usual automated checks and found no problems. And I've talked to an agent who gave a somewhat circular argument: we do not guarantee upload ergo we don't investigate upload problems. Looking on my account I can see:

- The fault I reported today is not there.
- There is a problem reported 2nd Feb (not reported by me!) - Broadband - UpfrontTest, and fixed 11th Feb.

Now, I live just around the corner from the box and OpenReach seem to have a man their pretty much permanently so can well imagine this interfering with existing customers.

My product: Fibre with BT Halo 2 (one of the FTTC products)

Slightly concerned because it's not so long since I renewed the contract so worried I may be stuck with the product through to late this year if BT refuse to investigate. And no idea where I stand legally.

I'm full time WFH due to [censored], at the moment, so fortunate to have a very good 5G to fall back on.

So things have gone pretty badly pear shaped again, with the internet unusable in the daytime (now, if anything, worse with the new router). As we very much depend on this utility, I've ordered a cheap 4G broadband router and a pretty attractive offer on a Smarty SIM (3's 4G is also very good, locally) as a (hopefully temporary) backup internet.

Obviously, I will just have to persist with with BT and see where I get with them. Looking at options going forward, bearing in mind the line from the wall socket seems to test fine:

- Is it worth obtaining a separate VDSL modem and testing that?
- What is the cost of walking away from a BT contract (in this case very) early?

I think the problem may be resolved by other means.... Router currently flashing purple and all attempts to rectify this locally (factory resets, re-seating cables and so on) have failed. BT are looking into it.

And just like that it's fixed. I do wish the Open Reach engineer had called me before going to work on the cabinet.