BT Fibre upgrade is not as advertised - getting frustrated

I've had a good look through the forums and I guess I'm not the first, nor will I be the last to have this issue but any ideas for this non technical frustrated BT Fibre customer out there please?

I'be been running broadband at this address since I moved in 5 years ago, waiting for fibre to come and speed things up. Normal 2+2 family with a desktop PC, couple of laptops, I work from home half the week pulling stuff down pretty much MS Office stuff from company One Drive, SharePoint, using Skype for Business audio, conferencing and sometimes video calls, as well as web-ex for conferencing. My broadband was 'normal' ADSL on an 8Mb download package, as the poles/wires wouldn't give me more than that. I would see about 4-6mbs download on average and 0.2-0.4 upload on average. Things were pretty slow but between 0930 to 1530 most days I could just about cope with work by being selective with what I did, e.g. sharing my screen whilst audio and video conferencing was pretty much a no-no and would kill the connection or the lag / sound quality was so poor it was unworkable and I learned never to attempt to save or pull a file to/from OneDrive whilst in a conf call, as it basically ground to a halt. When the kids came in from school, it was a battle... one or two tablets would kill performance and the X-Box or PC Games were forbidden until after 18:00, as that would kill everything too.

Imagine the joy when after 5 years at "being designed" phase we got the nod and were able to upgrade to Fibre (BT Infinity). I stuck with BT and was delighted when we moved to their biggest available package in this area, which was 77-80 Mbs download, with a "guaranteed 70Mbps download"... they couldn't confirm upload speed but rumors were that it might be 15 to 20 Mbps or more... we had grown used to 0.2, where uploading a youtube vid (teenagers!) would require an overnight upload and even then, perhaps a few attempts over days to get it uploaded.

We went Fibre 12th July and was told that it might be flaky for a few days, up to 10 days. Day one was a little stressful as it came on late in the day and was very erratic, dropping in and out. We did a quick speed test and wow, it wasn't where we'd hoped but 35mbps download, 19mbps upload! Imagine when it gets to 70mbps download. Trouble is it has never got that close... for the first 4 days, I called BT perhaps 6 times, as the smart hub was dropping connection around 35 to 50 times through the day... working at home meant that my stress levels went through the roof... they fixed an issue, then had an engineer to the cabinet to fix another, and now they have another issue. The speed also dropped significantly and on average we see about 25mbps download and 6 to 7 mbps upload... between days 5 to 10 we had a big improvement over dropped connections with an average of around 5 or 6 drops per day.

My Fibre journey has been terrible so far and we still can't do the things we'd hoped, like watch the Amazon Firestick TV, whilst a tween was watching a youtube vid and a teen was playing a PC Game online... the thing is at day 12, we still get 2 to 3 drops of connections per day, we still have to ration out the usage between us, with restrictions on who can go on what device, when. We still are showing around 25Mbps down and 6mbps upload, I have an outstanding BT Level 2 engineer call outstanding as they think there might still be issues (yeah, really BT, you don't say?!) and I get a daily 1800 call from a person telling me they are working on some thing and asking "is it better today?" to which I say well, the package says guaranteed 70mbps download and I get 25, it falls over and the smart hub lights turn orange, lose connectivity a few times a day, we cannot watch TV whilst others are on devices, so no, it is not OK today thanks... OK, we'll phone you tomorrow then is the standard reply...

I am not a techie, I get a little lost with all this but I feel really frustrated. Have I been duped? Will I ever see 70Mbps that I'm paying for/ Will it ever be reliable?

In terms of physical stuff, we had some plastering work on te house done last year, so took the opportunity to move the wire coming into the house (it's on a pole). BT did that for us and at the time upgraded our old 1970's looking junction box in the loft with new wires, a new modern ("fibre ready") box that splits into two, one to the lounge point and one to the study point. We are 175 metres from the cabinet that now has fibre to it (they installed a new big green one about two months ago).

I'm lost... any advice (in non tech laymans terms) would be appreciated please

Thanks.

Can you put your number into here https://www.dslchecker.bt.com and post a screenshot of the results.

Can you also post up the connection stats from router/home hub manager page?

Is your kit connected to the master socket? Or an extensiom socket?

Are you testing over wireless or an Ethernet connection?

I am not a techie, I get a little lost with all this but I feel really frustrated.

So ring BT customer service and report the issue, they'll get a nice Openreach bod out to sort it out for you ...

The most likely cause is within the home environment, incorrect set up and the like.

In reply to a post by COYI:

the thing is at day 12, we still get 2 to 3 drops of connections per day, we still have to ration out the usage between us, with restrictions on who can go on what device, when. We still are showing around 25Mbps down and 6mbps upload

Will I ever see 70Mbps that I'm paying for/ Will it ever be reliable?

The best advice over this process: Forget the speeds for now, concentrate on the disconnections.

My FTTC connection stays up. period. All of the past ones have too, from distances of 100m from the cabinet to 700m from the cabinet. They only go down when I unplug the modem.

Whatever is causing outages is likely to mean pretty unstable speeds and lots of errors, and DLM will be getting involved ... knocking speeds down further in an effort to achieve stability.

So the first aim is for a line that doesn't disconnect.

Then, of course, you want it to be stable but with a decent speed.

Beyond this, any solution that we can help with is going to come from the statistics produced by the modem ... as requested by @lee111s. Unfortunately, when stability is the issue, it is better to have the statistics harvested continuously, or at least multiple sets of statistics, rather than just a one-off snapshot. And more detailed statistics than the BT HomeHub can give us.

I would keep asking for Openreach appointments until disconnections stop happening.

In reply to a post by COYI:

I am not a techie, I get a little lost with all this

One techie thing you can't escape is the notion of crosstalk: signal from other subscribers that interferes with your own signal.

FTTC gets affected by crosstalk, which means your speed can drop as more subscribers get added into the system. The impact accumulates, and is random.

The upshot is that you need to expect speed drops over time, even if everything is working correctly.

Do you know how far you are from the cabinet?

Do you know how far you are from the cabinet?

The OP mentioned 175m in the post Wombat.

I wonder also if theres mains electric in his loft, because it sounds like the NTE may be there, so bridge taps ahoy.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The most likely cause is within the home environment, incorrect set up and the like.

I agree.

For the OP:
If the master is in the loft, and it has split to 2 extensions (lounge and study), then the obvious question is ... how is the modem plugged in? And what kind of filter?

Did an Openreach engineer attend (as part of fibre activation) to sort out the wiring?

It is possible that this arrangement has been wired well for your modem, but it is also possible for the wiring to caused interference.

Explaining further, and making checks, requires a level of techie willingness. If you don't have it, then deferring to an engineer is the best bet.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Do you know how far you are from the cabinet?

The OP mentioned 175m in the post Wombat.

Ah yes - there was a lot of post to read through!

175m ought to be able to achieve 80/20 speeds; those speeds should get to 300m+, and further without crosstalk.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I wonder also if theres mains electric in his loft, because it sounds like the NTE may be there, so bridge taps ahoy.

Agree.

But if an engineer has been to check, then I'd have thought the siting and wiring of the master and any potential bridge taps would have been the first thing to check for.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/fix-my-broadband/unre...

While the phone part may not be relevant letting the connection run at the test socket for a few days and see if its more stable is worth while.

It is possible the wiring work done previously may not be optimal and impossible to tell without more information and thus may need the 'boost' engineer visit suggested. The double check is that when the test socket is visible like in the link that none of the other phone sockets in the home work.

Thanks and yes, I am testing over a wired ethernet connection.

I thought it was the master socket but might be an extension..... more to follow.

Thanks and you know, you;re on to something there

There is mains electric in the loft, yes.

Thank you, this is all useful and yes, I'll update in a sec but I got another engineer out, who just left actually... this was booked last week for them to work on the cabinet but a nice Open Reach (Kelly comms I think he is/was?) person knocked and asked to come in, have a look around etc. - very useful...

Spot on, yes I think now it's stuff in the house and the splits etc.

There was no engineer visit but I moved the telephone wire last year (BT did) as we had some renovations done (it was moved about 1.5 metres to a better height, up the soffit). At that time they put in decent (well, they look decent/modern) cabling in the loft and BT junction boxes...

Yep, I estimate 175 yards as we have a 'give way in 150 yards' road sign right outside my house, next to the telegraph pole, and the cabinet is at that junction 150 yards down.

Can you take some pictures of the sockets in use?

Thank you all for your comments so far... and apologies for my rambling OP. The good news is that after three visits to the cabinet, including this morning, they (BT/Open Reach/Kelly Comms?) reckon there were definitely at least two separate faults that are now resolved at that end, so the fella asked to come in, after identifying himself to check the stuff internally. I called BT level II people to check and they confirmed it was useful to let the fella have a look internally if I was OK with that... which I was.

The upshot is that I now understand more about this... he reckons he has fixed the dropping/connectivity issues (and so far so good on that front although it's still early days, as he only fixed the final cabinet fault this morning). He also checked the entry point upstairs and that box. The cabling and box up there are all good and, wow, he showed me that his tester was seeing 'up to 120mbps and 40mpbs download / upload' at that point... my package is 77-80 and min guaranteed 70mbps download so he reckons even with other contention issues and as more people come on line, that should be well achievable. That is good but there are three extensions of that. Weird that we only have two in the house, so there is a mystery third extension or wire that goes somewhere, probably lost in a wall somewhere in the house! He checked down at the router (smart hub) that effectively runs off the one split from that box and it sees 25mbps at best, which I know... so there is 80-90mbps getting l'ost' in the house. Because he was an unplanned call, I've booked a chap Friday afternoon, who will come and test everything properly internally. This fella today said in reality, I'll need to re-route my entry point so the one currently in the loft is relocated to the study where the router lives and it will get all the speed it needs there. Or another way would be to run a dedicated data extension cable to the study/router. Either way I'll need to route some cable but the engineer Friday will help me find the best solution. Apparently it is a free consultation visit Friday to help decide what to do, then I book the work in and that will be £149 added to my next bill... does this seem reasonable to folks, or is there another way maybe? Does it need to be a BT engineer for example?

Many thanks again for the advice so far and I'll see how this goes.

Thanks.

I just took one of the junction box thing in the loft but (sorry!) I can't see how to attach that pic to this post...?

Weirdly, the box shows a thick black cable going in and two (not three) small white cables coming out... odd that he said there are three extensions off that...

You need to host the image elsewhere and provide a link to it in your post

If as I understand it from another post, one incoming cable in the loft - the black one, and you know of two coming off that box, it the two coming off, once feeding your master socket and the other unused that is an issue.

This unused extension is creating what is called a bridge tap and that causes problems with the VDSL2 signal, since the extra cable picks up interference thus reducing your speeds.

You may not need a full re-route, but removing extra wires and living just the one you use might accomplish the better speeds, without seeing it all difficult to assess.

https://www.lifewire.com/free-image-hosting-sites-34...

Just upload here and link us

http://imgur.com/upload

Take pics of every socket and junction box. If there is no current master I feel it is unreasonable to charge you £149. If there is an existing master and you want a relocation, fair play.

In reply to a post by COYI:

... Apparently it is a free consultation visit Friday to help decide what to do, then I book the work in and that will be £149 added to my next bill... does this seem reasonable to folks, or is there another way maybe? Does it need to be a BT engineer for example?

Many thanks again for the advice so far and I'll see how this goes.

Thanks.

That does not sound too bad ... if you have no experience and worried about you capabilities then pay for it to be done. You will then have a nice clean set-up.

Getting another party in - what will they charge and what will they do?

Ah, that might be an answer too... the guy who came here today said what you might be able to do (emphasis on might) is just route (using the existing little white cable) the full beans through to study and bin the other socket that feeds the lounge... we don't use that at all as a phone point (main phone is study, with wireless handsets for example) but we have it there just as a point to plug in the skybox... he said, and I don't know if this is official, just kill that extension to the lounge, kill the unknown extension and just have the one on full beans into the study as a data extension, that might mean I won't need to reroute more cables but does mean sky won't be plugged in... this is the bit I'm not sure about as he said, some people simply never plug in sky anyway, to the telephone point, so forget that bit and don't worry... this sound right... I just assumed that you needed the skybox plugged in to get downloads, updates etc.??

Ps - yes there is a master in the loft (the bigger plug sized box) that has a thick black cable in, from outside and two little (thinner) white cables leading from that...

Your sky box doesn't need to be connected to your phone line

And the Sky box is connected without a filter it is likely that just adding a microfilter will significantly improve things.

NOTE: The £25 regularisation charge assumes engineer is attending already, so if its a visit to just switch out or relocate a master than the minimum visit fee is added on top - which explains £149

In reply to a post by COYI:

this is the bit I'm not sure about as he said, some people simply never plug in sky anyway, to the telephone point, so forget that bit and don't worry... this sound right... I just assumed that you needed the skybox plugged in to get downloads, updates etc.??

Well I have multi-room here and every Sky Box but one is connected to the phone line.

The one that isn't connected is the new version that doesn't have a RJ11 (phone connection) on it, so you could just connect the Sky Box via the RJ45 socket (Ethernet Connector) or Wi-Fi onto your LAN and let it connect that way.

I do know that Sky use to send us emails and letters stating when a Sky Box wasn't connected to the phone line, but that was a while ago, things might of changed since then.

TBH I am not too sure what the issue is, if you have everything disconnected and have the line go into only the Master Socket (NTE5A or NTE5C) and then by using a xDSL Filter Faceplate connect your phone extension(s) to that, you should be fine.

Paul

Sky dropped the phone line requirement for multiroom (or anything else) quite a while back - it can all now be done over the Internet so disconnecting it from the phone line is a very good idea.

Personally I would recommend unplugging them from the phone where people have FTTC or ADSL as it is not needed and could cause issues in future.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Your sky box doesn't need to be connected to your phone line

Erm, yes it does if you have Multi-Room.
We have 4 HD Boxes here which are connected up to our LAN to the internet, they are all but one also connected to the phone line.

The last time one box was removed from the phone line we received an email and a letter stating it needs to be connected to the phone line or we will be charged a separate subscription for each box.

Sky on the phone also confirmed this when I asked them, what is strange though is when you connect a Sky Box via an Ethernet connection it overrides the phone connection due to I cannot force a call-back while the LAN cable is connected.

I told Sky this and they still insist it being connected to the phone line.

Granted this was a little while back, so things might of changed since then.

I will unplug my HD Box from the phone line to see what happens.

*** update ***
Ok, you might be right, so I take all this back LOL

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Tue 25-Jul-17 13:36:56)

In reply to a post by ian72:

Sky dropped the phone line requirement for multiroom (or anything else) quite a while back - it can all now be done over the Internet so disconnecting it from the phone line is a very good idea.

Personally I would recommend unplugging them from the phone where people have FTTC or ADSL as it is not needed and could cause issues in future.

Oh ok, I stand corrected
We were just paranoid with all the emails and letters we got back then.

But yeah that makes sense.

Removing those from my line wouldn't any difference due to everything is over FVA, but will help with the OP on their line.

Paul

Bit more info, looks like it is marginally more complex - Sky website

To enjoy Sky Multiscreen, each TV in your house needs its own Sky box and they must all be connected to the same phone line, unless you activated your viewing card after 17 December 2013, in which case no phone line connection is needed. However, make sure your boxes are connected to your broadband network where possible.

And this

Sky Viewing Card

If you want to use an old viewing card you already have for a new Sky Multiscreen box, you�ll need to activate the viewing card again. For more information read our Sky viewing card guide.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Bit more info, looks like it is marginally more complex - Sky website

To enjoy Sky Multiscreen, each TV in your house needs its own Sky box and they must all be connected to the same phone line, unless you activated your viewing card after 17 December 2013, in which case no phone line connection is needed. However, make sure your boxes are connected to your broadband network where possible.

Ah, that's probably why we get the letters and emails, we have had our boxes since Sky started Sky HD / Sky Plus etc.

I am not too sure if they also class a pairing up the card and box as activation, but our boxes have all changed over the years, either they have died or we wanted a larger drive etc.

But I will give it another try with one box disconnected and see what happens.

Paul

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

And this

Sky Viewing Card

If you want to use an old viewing card you already have for a new Sky Multiscreen box, you�ll need to activate the viewing card again. For more information read our Sky viewing card guide.

Yeah, I just read that myself.

Anyway like I said I will try with my box without its phone cable connected and see what happens, prob won't hear for a month or two.

Paul

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

This unused extension is creating what is called a bridge tap and that causes problems with the VDSL2 signal, since the extra cable picks up interference thus reducing your speeds.

It isn't just that the unused extension cable picks up interference, but the far end of it reflects the signal back towards master socket. That reflection (reduced in power somewhat) mixes with a later version of the main signal down the used extension, making it less readable by the modem.

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Your sky box doesn't need to be connected to your phone line

Erm, yes it does if you have Multi-Room.
We have 4 HD Boxes here which are connected up to our LAN to the internet, they are all but one also connected to the phone line.

The last time one box was removed from the phone line we received an email and a letter stating it needs to be connected to the phone line or we will be charged a separate subscription for each box.

Sky on the phone also confirmed this when I asked them, what is strange though is when you connect a Sky Box via an Ethernet connection it overrides the phone connection due to I cannot force a call-back while the LAN cable is connected.

I told Sky this and they still insist it being connected to the phone line.

Granted this was a little while back, so things might of changed since then.

I will unplug my HD Box from the phone line to see what happens.

*** update ***
Ok, you might be right, so I take all this back LOL

Paul

the 2 sky boxes in this house have never been plugged into phone line (not needed for long time) but it has only been 2 years form when my brother moved us from virgin to sky (for TV as can only get 30mb on near fibre FTTC)

.
any way you Need to sort out the 20-50 disconnections per day as that is your problem (19mb upload norm means good download speeds) quick and easy way would be goto attic and remove the extensions you have and plug it directly into the master socket in the attic with your filter and router (if its done right they should be wired into the front plate that you can take off) if its stable after that you have a dodgy extension or somthing plugged in without a filter (if there are no wires connected to the front plate then its been done incorrectly and removing the front plate will not disconnect the extensions)

another thing you don't have an alarm system that is connected to your phone line do you, if that is not filtered that cause all sorts of issues (one house i was at had a ADSL connection go from 2mb to 21mb when i yanked the wires out that was going to the defunct alarm system)

Edited by leexgx (Wed 26-Jul-17 18:06:13)