Fed up with ISP - how to get out of contract?

I'm with Vivaciti and I've tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but this is the third time in four months that my speed has dropped from 54 mbit to less than 4mbit. They said they were going to address the issue back in May and said it was a resulting of Microsoft patching. I'm in a contract until March next year but I want out now. What can I do, and how should I go about it?

Annoyingly the speed has gone back to normal now, before I had a chance to raise a support ticket.

Is your IP Profile changing or is it down to their capacity?

Who are they using as a FTTC wholesaler?

IP Profile does not change, it's down to capacity, and they acknowledged that on the second support ticket. They are using entanet.

In reply to a post by keymoo:

IP Profile does not change, it's down to capacity, and they acknowledged that on the second support ticket. They are using entanet.

I would first ask them to leave penalty free if they cannot provide enough bandwidth capacity (vivaciti) If they dismiss or won't agree or some to some financial compromise then take your complaint to their ADR (Entanet Adr ) is CISAS as Vivaciti don't appear to be registered with CISAS or the Onbudsman services

onbudsman services

CISAS

thinkbroadband thinks they are with Ombudsman Services. At the bottom of this page.

I think the networks of a lot of ISPs are going to take a beating when Windows 10 commences distribution as MS has never distributed a complete OS t so it'll be 'Patch Tuesday' traffic x1000.

Hopefully a lot of ISPs are in the process of ordering more capacity from their upstream (peering and/or transit providers) as well as their downstream (ADSL/VDSL backhaul) suppliers or are awaiting provisioning of such otherwise we could all be in for a slow and bumpy ride.

more likely they will claim the bandwidth load was unpredictable and caught them out

I think sky wont even break a sweat tho. BT retail will probably also be ok.

It does, but the onbudsman services web site does not list Vivaciti or J and V Data Services Ltd
So maybe they are no longer a member with either ADR so unless they registered in using another alias ??? The OP should gun for entanet

Strange, I'm also with Vivaciti and have had 2 issues with speed dropping away to almost nothing during "peak times" during the last month. At first I was told the first was a hot VP which was due to be dealt with by BT, and the next update was due in a few days, on calling back a few days later I was told the VP listing couldn't be found so the issue didn't exist, I then spent a few days running speedtests which showed clearly that there was a marked slowdown in the late afternoon/evenings with full speed returning around 11pm.

They were insisting on an engineer visit which of course means another half day off work because of broadband issues (there have been a lot on this line) but suddenly the issue resolved and all was well for around 2-3 weeks, then last night it started again.

Last week I noticed my BQM showing spikes of packet loss. Yesterday, my BQM showed a sudden surge in latency to the extent that the whole window was coloured due to latency. This morning it cleared, but I'm far from happy about it. this time last night my line that currently returns a 65Mbps was returning a 1.65 Mbps speedtest and wouldn't progress to a tap3 test. Its cleared today - how long for I wouldn't like to guess.

Reading the OP I'm starting to wonder how widespread this might be amongst the Vivaciti customer base. Support has been good at times - although one or two of the team seemed less than concerned - maybe I caught them on a bad day - but lets say they seemed a lot less helpful than some of their colleagues did - for example, the guy I spoke to last night with the broad Birmingham accent was great

Time will tell I guess.

Edited by deleted (Thu 16-Jul-15 20:57:48)

well by they so I am clear it wasnt targeted at vivaciti.

apparently there is issues on the BT wholesale network affecting circa 10% of BTw users, which is one reason I jumped over to sky today, those issues possibly may be your issue or possibly they not your issue.

Is vivaciti using the BT wholesale network or a different provider?

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 16-Jul-15 21:13:11)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

well by they so I am clear it wasnt targeted at vivaciti.

apparently there is issues on the BT wholesale network affecting circa 10% of BTw users, which is one reason I jumped over to sky today, those issues possibly may be your issue or possibly they not your issue.

Is vivaciti using the BT wholesale network or a different provider?

For FTTC i believe it uses BTW resold by Entanet they are the wholesaler who purchase the capacity and sell to ISP's such as Vivaciti and maybe also Aquiss (I know that data traverses Entanet's network so man in the middle) could be that

vivaciti aren't buying enough back haul transit from entanet, unless of course vivaciti order backhaul capacity directly from btw

I recall issues during office hours when i was with vivaciti on their BE wholesale product , jitter levels and sometimes latency would rise during office hrs, plus the base latency was higher than when with BE retail ,lol and that was above 8ms what was possible with other llu providers and even BTW, so my base latency to BBC ect was double what it should of been, entanet where the wholesaler then

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 16-Jul-15 21:37:29)

Same problem here, noticed on Wed morning my download dropped to <1 Mbps from >70Mbps for at least an hour( connection stats not affected and upload not badly affected)
Given same story about MS patches affecting Newcastle node.
Dont usually use the connection weekdays between 9:00 and 15:00 so dont know how common the problem is during workhours ?
Never have problems weekends or evenings.

Vivaciti are listed as members of Ombudsman Services which is an Ofcom approved ADR.

Of course being a member of an ADR is no guarantee of good service, it just means they are above board on this requirement.

I would advise the OP to try to work through their problems with with Vivaciti before going to ADR. The competitive nature of broadband means that people are free to choose poor providers as well as good providers and any ADR judgement may reflect this. Vivaciti may let you out of contract if you can't reconcile though as it would be cheaper than going to ADR for them

Out if interest, I've heard a lot of Pulse8 promotion across much of the forum lately. Anyone know which ADR Pulse8 are members of?

In reply to a post by partial:

Out if interest, I've heard a lot of Pulse8 promotion across much of the forum lately. Anyone know which ADR Pulse8 are members of?

A good point, but at the consumer level it doesn't really matter. All contracts are monthly. For their business packages it is a different matter.

Ombudsman services , isnt as good for consumer as CISAS are IMO

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 16-Jul-15 22:50:54)

The Consumer rarely has a choice. They have to complain to the one the ISP is registered to.

I left Vivaciti because of the patch Tuesday/Wednesday Entanet slowdown even on ADSL2+. I was on TTB package with them and this never occurred, until they switched me to the Entanet connection.

I spoke to Entanet about it and they said it was unprecedented demand, what 3 months in a row? Fortunately I was on a 1 month contract and went back to a TTB connection with Xilo.

In reply to a post by Banger:

I left Vivaciti because of the patch Tuesday/Wednesday Entanet slowdown even on ADSL2+. I was on TTB package with them and this never occurred, until they switched me to the Entanet connection.

I spoke to Entanet about it and they said it was unprecedented demand, what 3 months in a row? Fortunately I was on a 1 month contract and went back to a TTB connection with Xilo.

Lol, seems like they or Vivaciti aren't buying enough capacity, there's no excuses IMO Do Aquiss customers see the same issues? as they i think also go via Entanet

I dropped UKFSN because the service from Eatanet deteriorated, I migrated to an Enta service back in the days of the old centrals when they were amongst the best out there.

I then opted for Vivaciti because they were offering a service over TalkTalk when they unbundled our exchange. That was ok until Vivaciti moved me back to Enta and maybe I should have run away when I moved to FTTC, but Carl (SP?) was very persuasive when I called to end my contract, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt despite the misinformation I was given around the TT/Enta transfer,

Come December I will have the opportunity to leave without a fight and expect to do so. If things keep up like this I will be talking to them about an early release from contract, at this price-point I don't have any tolerance for a company that is cutting corners to save money for themselves.

Issues are happening again. Yesterday the internet was slow (around 1-2 mbit) from 8:30am till about 8pm. Then slow again today from 8am. See screenshot of my speedtest. I'm going to ask them if I can leave due to the ongoing issues but I'm in a contract until March 2016. Any hints on how to do about it?

Speedtest http://i.imgur.com/mVwGbK4.png
TAP3 test with BTW: http://i.imgur.com/xwLdtrb.png

Will let you know what they say.

Edited by keymoo (Thu 15-Oct-15 14:43:42)

In reply to a post by keymoo:

Issues are happening again. Yesterday the internet was slow (around 1-2 mbit) from 8:30am till about 8pm. Then slow again today from 8am. See screenshot of my speedtest. I'm going to ask them if I can leave due to the ongoing issues but I'm in a contract until March 2016. Any hints on how to do about it?

Speedtest http://i.imgur.com/mVwGbK4.png
TAP3 test with BTW: http://i.imgur.com/xwLdtrb.png

Will let you know what they say.

Send them links to those results and ask why it is that their end of things is causing so much congestion that it's reducing your throughput by a factor of 20 or more.

Not much else you can say, other than pointing out that this is happening on a regular basis and it's very poor.

Have had similar issues on and off for a couple of months.
Only affects my download speed.

Why is the Upload speed on the TAP3 test so much lower than on the normal test ?