Computer says no

I'm currently on cable and dissatisfied with VM so I've been watching the Infinity cabinets go in and waiting till I can order. I found that the exchange is accepting orders from activated cabinets and from the spreadsheet I know my postcode is all supposed to be served by cabinet 6 which appears to be up and running.

Using the checker I find that a house 8 doors up can order. My house is served by the next pole down from that one and can't. The next cab just down the road is also active and an address near that can also order so if by some screwup my house was served by that cabinet and not the one I thought I should still be OK.
One house over the road served by the same pole as me is good to go but the one next door to it - still on the same pole - is showing ADSL only.

When I binned the line a couple of years back because of an HRDIS which BT failed to fix one of the engineers said I was on the cab back towards the exchange (I assume 6 but it isn't numbered) when he swapped me onto a different pair to try and fix the fault.

So it seems to me that the backend data must be incorrect or for some reason most houses served by the pole my house is on have been excluded for some reason I can't fathom out. When I called BT retail to enquire they insisted the data cannot be wrong. Not sure what to do next - just wait or give up an Infinity and let VM have another chance by upgrading from the 10Mbps I downgraded to when the local congestion got to be appauling.

Edited by kwikbreaks (Sat 19-May-12 14:48:16)

What telephone number are you using to check? Is it on an active BT telephone line?

NOTE: BT Retail filters orders, and does not let you have infinity if the BT Wholesale checker says it might be slow.

May i ask your Reason for the dissatisfaction, the reason i ask is, i also have been VERY dissatisfaction with VM and was for 12 months. No help from customer services and constant issues, i then contacted the office of VM's CEO. after 2 months of messing and waiting my connection went from having 2500+ ping and jitter to local servers. to being generally very stable and usable for most things, But it takes persistence and patients. Ask for a VMG300 Modem over the terrible Superhub and get a third party router, ive also had suggestions that setting the superhub into modem only mode and using a router that is external to any VM equipment is MUCH better than using the superhubs built in router.

I suggest the EnGenius ESR6850 as it is a brilliant router and cost a lot less than the equivalent Big Brands, but does the same job as them.

Believe me i don't suggest for people to take VM if they have a choice not to, but if your with them there are ways around the issues, upgrading to the 100 Mbit service might also be more beneficial as the recent upgrades by VM for the "double speeds" that will be released in june/july and the fact that is now around £10 per month cheaper than it was, can be very much worth while, BUT you must complain to the HIGHEST level or your complaints fall on the ears of useless first line support, who in all fairness are about as trained as goldfish, in fact that is an insult to goldfish,

this is just my honest opinion, as a person who no can not have any other isp due to the way in which i canceled my BT line after 2 years of issues with the telephone line.

John

My own VM is fine, gone from 10Mb to 20Mb, added a superhub and now DOCSIS 3, but that does not help you. I have looked at Infinity, and we also have Digital Region in our area. Both were quite viable options, or so I thought.
Finally, the BT checker came up with Infinity as a possibility for my area, but they wanted a phone number to do a proper check - and the VM number I have failed of course. No, I cnanot order Infinity.
For both Inifinity/FTTC and Digital Region, the final mile comes into play. In my case it seems that we are connected to a cabinet that's 1300 metres away. Over three-quarters of a mile. That's despite there being several cabinets a lot closer, at least one must be on the route my particular line takes.
Both BT and DR suggest I could get about 18-20Mb, but the distance to the cabinet would have an effect on upload speed. I upload a lot of things I've worked on as part of a charity I volunteer with.
Overall I decided to stay where I am, The move to 20Mb has not done a lot for me as I was fine with 10Mb.
If the postcode check says Infinity is available then it's probably worth pushing with a couple of ISP's to see what they say. I was rather upset to discover that the nearest cab's to my home were not where I was connected.

In reply to a post by JonasTone:

No help from customer services and constant issues...

been there...

In reply to a post by JonasTone:

Ask for a VMG300 Modem over the terrible Superhub and get a third party router, ive also had suggestions that setting the superhub into modem only mode and using a router that is external to any VM equipment is MUCH better than using the superhubs built in router.

I never even tried the built in WiFi, just a single Ethernet port to set the service up when the Superhub arrived. It was then put in modem only mode and my own Belkin router connected. No problems at all. Pre-warned !

In reply to a post by JonasTone:

...this is just my honest opinion...

me too

How long is the line between you and the cabinet?

If it's over about 1400 metres, you probably won't be able to have Infinity because the line is too long (to do 15Mbps) so that may well be the answer.

If so you could still get service from another ISP, and if that's the case then you might see higher upstream than with 10 meg cable, but potentially no/not much faster downstream. Have you tried other ISPs to see what they say?

If cable turns out to still be the fastest or only option then you could upgrade back to 50Meg or whatever and keep demanding bill credits for poor performance. In this manner, you might get the fastest speed you can (even if it's only burst speed!), for the least money. Until they pull their finger out and upgrade capacity.

I looked in 192.com and got three business numbers. One is a vet a couple of doors down - no Infinity, one is a post office 15 doors up Infinity OK, and the third is just a bit further up towards the cab and OK for Infinity. Checking on postcode only the cutoff point is the pole one towards the cab. Daft thing as I said is that one postcode fed off the same pole as my house just over the road gets infinity OK on the checker. The cab I'm sure I'm on is 300 meters away the nearest which is further from the exchage is 200 meters away.

This is purely a data error. There is no obvious reason why my house cannot get Infinity as all those around it other than the handful coming off the same pole can order now. Trying to get anybody at BT to listen is going to be an uphill struggle so I'll just give it a few weeks and if it isn't sorted upgrade the cable which is working OK again now.

Edited by kwikbreaks (Sat 19-May-12 22:51:11)

I don't have constant problems - if I did I would have gone back to ADSL. My gripe is that when it went massively over utilised 5Mbps at times on a 50Mbps connection) the fix date was months away and they really didn't seem to care. I downgraded to 10Mbps which can be problematic with the low afternoon/evening cap if I exceed it.

The second issue I have with them is the car boot stall way they sell their products - a new customer now will get three times the speed I do for the same money. Sure I can call in and get a speed increase but only if I recontract or upgrade - my automatic speed upgrade is planed as Oct 2012 - July 2013.

I managed to get a VMNG300 modem in exchange for that bug ridden Pos the Superhub but any speed increase may result in them insisting I take a Superhub again as it is teir only supported CPE for 30Mbps and over.

300meters from the cab I think my line would be on and 200meters from the nearest.

If you post your postcode, I can tell which cabinet the December spreadsheet says your connected to, I can also post a list of postcodes that the cabinet serves, you can then also easily look up addresses and put them into the BT Wholesale checker to build up a picture of what's going on.

There does seem to be loads of errors in BT's data, seen it many a time on the forums, and in my own research.

Once you've gathered evidence you can then put it to Openreach or email the CEO of BT Group.

PS. to other posters, he's not too far from the cabinet, he stated the house across the road supplied from the same DP (distribution pole) can get fibre, and I doubt two different cabinets feed the same DP, although I guess it's possible.

In reply to a post by kwikbreaks:

I managed to get a VMNG300 modem in exchange for that bug ridden Pos the Superhub but any speed increase may result in them insisting I take a Superhub again as it is teir only supported CPE for 30Mbps and over.

Every time i call customer support im told the modem im using does not support 100 meg. well i can tell you now, for free, i can get 106.95 Mbits on my 100 Mbit connection at none peak times, i am only about 200 meters from my street cabinet.

So if any VM rep tells you that the modem isnt supporting the speed they are LYING to you as the technical primer for the DOCSIS 3.0 system virgin use states the equipment they provide should be able to use at minimum 3 channels, soon how ever VM are switching to 4 channels which this modem will not support, so i probably wont see the 120 Mbits as the VMG300 isn't capable where as the superhub (i have in a box brand new and wont be using unless i 100% have to) uses up to 6 channels i believe. but the actual hardware is beyond rubbish.

In reply to a post by JonasTone:

Every time i call customer support im told the modem im using does not support 100 meg. well i can tell you now, for free, i can get 106.95 Mbits on my 100 Mbit connection at none peak times, i am only about 200 meters from my street cabinet.

The VMNG300 supports 4 channels down. Most and possibly all VM areas have at least 4 DOCSIS3 down channels now - I think all the 3 channel areas were upgraded in the 100Mbps rollout. They will eventually upgrade to 8 down 2 up which the Superhub modem supports. The problem lies in it's abysmal firmware. I asked a while back about "upgrading" to 30 after having downgraded from 50 and was told I'd have to have a Superhub and it would cost me £30. As I have one up in the loft which works apart from the duff firmware I declined at the time but if BT continue to play silly I'll probably end up having one again although I'll only use it in modem mode.

I have the December spreadsheet and it shows all my postcode on cab 6. My section is the end of the northern range of EMHARDI cab 6 with the houses slightly further north being served by a different cabinet. I'll take a closer look at which houses are served by my pole - it's actually 3 postcodes as it's on a T junction and my road has a different postcode my side from the other. I'll note every drop cable and check all the postcodes with house numbers on the BT retail checker - as I said I'm pretty certain one is listed as Infinity enabled but I will recheck.

=== rechecked ===
Got of my backside and checked the numbers instead of just using the numbers off streetview for the houses across the road. In fact none of the addresses off the same pole as I am on can get Infinity. There is still no obvious reason why not but I think I'll just go for a cable upgrade instead as it really isn't worth busting a gut against "computer says no" now my cable area congestion appears to be fixed according to the TBB ping monitor. VM don't really deserve the business but then again nor do BT and they would be significantly more expensive.

=== end of update ===

Once I've got the data together who in BT would I write to - the drone on the phone was having none of it insisting the data was correct. I suppose it could be but I really don't see them serving a single pole direct from the exchange which is about a kilometer away and anyway during the HRDIS debacle I was told which cab the line was on by one of their engineers - mind you despite 5 visits, a new drop cable, and two swearing they'd changed my pair to the cab and another one the pair from the cab to the exchange they never fixed the fault which is why I went to cable in the first place.

Edited by kwikbreaks (Sun 20-May-12 12:10:42)

Hi,

The following postcodes are served from cab 6, if you have a read of this post and thread http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/f/4124753-can... it should give you quite a few pointers, and also tell you where to email.

Here's a map http://batchgeo.com/map/f5d6ec123b9bbae36da89e59968a...

Any postcodes with less than 100% are also supplied via another cabinet, which you can check in the spreadsheet.

SAU_ID Name Postcode SAU_NODE_ID Exchange Only Flag Percent Lines Uplift Phase Deployed FTTC or FTTP

EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48LR {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 3% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48NL {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 9% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48JA {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 34% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48JB {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 39% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48LG {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 50% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48ED {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 58% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48EE {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 61% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48NN {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 82% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48LQ {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 100% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48NP {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 100% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48LN {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 100% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48NG {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 100% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48NR {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 100% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48LJ {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 100% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48LH {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 100% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48LL {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 100% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC
EMHARDI HARDINGSTONE NN48NW {EMHARDI}{P6} 0 100% 2.84 8a Yes FTTC

Edited by R0NSKI (Sun 20-May-12 10:36:02)

I have the spreadsheet. Thanks for the pointer on where to complain. The link is actually busted but manually correctable.

After rechecking none off my pole can get Infinity. I think I'll just go for a speed upgrade on cable as life is too short to deal with this sort of issue although I have fired off a quick email to the CEO office.

Edited by kwikbreaks (Sun 20-May-12 13:42:45)

Had an email from Openreach - they've fixed the data and I can order now. Checked BT Retail site and yes I can. Will place the order in the morning - through a cashback site natuarally

Thanks for the suggestion to email CEO.

Glad to see you got this sorted!