Fibre 900 stuck orders

Morning all

Does anyone else have a stuck order for the new Fibre 900 package which is an upgrade from the 300mbps package? I dont want to have to call BT again as I am sure they are very busy especially if there is a known issue with these upgrades not going through.

Yes, I ordered the Full Fibre 900 on the 26th March that was suppose to of gone live on the 27th at midnight which it didn't, BT first say its stuck at their Wholesale offices based in India and was told to wait 24 to 48 hours, so I did and still nothing.

So I phoned again and was told that Wholesale staff are now working from home and that its stuck at Openreach and to wait another 24 to 48 hours, which I did and still nothing.

So I phone again and they looked into it and put me on hold where I then get told there is an exception on the order and that an offline team will look into it and to wait another 24 to 48 hours and that I would get a phone call when its done or if there was any issues, so I did and still nothing, no call nothing.

So I phoned again where they did some checks with openreach and they tell me there is no issue (so I assume the offline team resolved the exception) and that its once again stuck at Wholesale and that they told BT that it WILL be resolved by the 8th, and I was told I have to wait until the 9th before phoning them back.

I did tell them that if its not resolved by the 9th that I WILL be making a complaint due to being messed about and all the issues with our account.

Their BT site under the "Your Products" section only shows we broadband that we can manage and that we don't have a phone line, also our bill also now says we are on the Full Fibre 900 (BT says we are not, but the bill says we are), even the BT Wholesale DSL Checker is broken and that you cannot doe address lookups on any address.

BT seems to be ping ponging the blame back and forth and I bet the next time it will be its stuck at openreach again.

I have been very patient and calm when speaking to BT about this issue and it seems to be getting nowhere.

Paul

I was told on the phone there's an issue with the Full Fibre 500 & 900 orders at the moment, so was forced to sign up for the Fibre 250 product.

Once that's active i'll joining the queue for a 900 regrade!

oh good. iwas looking to upgrade to the 900 package soon as well. perhaps things might sort themselves out in a few weeks time

Same situation here, stuck regrade 250>900 from the 23rd. Can't be bothered chasing it up, presumably they'll fix it when the staffing situation is sorted.

Looked at my bill just now and same as yours, the bill says Fibre 900. Curiously getting billed the sum of exactly £60.76 (no calls, that's the base package cost) - better than the £67 I was told over the phone. Package management still thinks I'm on the old 250 though, but track order says ....

"We've got a specialist team working on it and we'll let you know as soon as we have more news. Thanks for your patience."

Not sure, but perhaps that means something at the exchange needs done.

Edited by deleted (Tue 07-Apr-20 19:35:29)

Chipmunk77 and Paul

OR will have to ensure that the link from the PON Head end to the local Ethernet switch is above 1Gb ( at least 2.5Gb) this may mean a change of their connection. This would require a physical presence.

Wholesale will have to ensure you are on a VLAN that is at least 900Mb in size.

This should be doable remotely as long as their cablelink product is above 1Gb But if not it will require a change to 2,5Gb or 10Gb connection and would again require a physical presence.

Both physical presences may be problematic in some locations at the moment!

Ahh, interesting, thanks. Is this something that might require streetworks?

If it's relevant, dslchecker says 1000/220, but I guess that's a given or I wouldn't have been able to place the order.

Yeah, well Openreach upgraded our exchange ages ago, I asked them that when the 1000Mbit / 220Mbit become visible on the Wholesale checker.
They told me it had all been upgraded already and that those speeds are what is available for my fibre connection.

Also when BT spoke to Openreach they told them there was no issues at all and that they was even confused with the issue.

Paul

Chipmunk77

No, all the work would be in the exchange containing the Headend.

Sorry for your ordeal hopefully it gets resolved.
Personally I was able to upgrade through My BT. Was previously on fibre 2 80/20 and it was straightforward got upgraded shortly after midnight on monday

Yeah its every upgrade we do there is are these exact same issues which end up getting resolved, just annoying that's all.

Its the same all the time Wholesale blames Openreach, Openreach blames Wholesale, Left hand Right hand etc.

Paul

Got a call back from the sales team yesterday saying they have found the issue with my order (with openreach apparently) and this should be resolved by friday hopefully....

Nice, hopefully it will. Mine's still presumably stuck with no update yet. I'm waiting for a possible callback today from the person who is managing my order.

I called the ISP this morning about my regrade order from FTTPoD to FTTP as I'm now officially out of contract (should've been processed yesterday), the person I spoke to tried to put me through to the person managing my order but they weren't responding.

EDIT: Got a response, sadly bad news. There's a system issue at BT's end and is currently being raised with the product manager.

Edited by Ixel (Wed 15-Apr-20 15:16:18)

Yeah, I was told via SMS that their offline team was dealing with it and that they was having to do a manual cancelation and renew of the order and that they was suppose to contact me yesterday with the new order details, basically stating it should of been resolved by then.

I will be phoning them again either today or tomorrow and if no joy will be making a complaint due to all this fobbing off.

As for the System issue, BT's site is broken as hell, still thinks we have no phone line product with them, also says we cannot even get Full Fibre even though we are on it and that our voice product is via FVA.

BT still says that our contract hasn't started yet due to it being still an open order, yet all they site shows the new contract as already gone live also the billing shows this too.

So if this contract is in fact live then BT are in breach of contact.

That said, if its a System issue then how are others going live, even people changing ISP's have gone live.

I just wish BT would just tell the truth and say what the issue is instead of just plain lie.

Paul

You watch, Friday will come and go and it still won't be resolved, and guess what, they say that they spoke to Openreach and that they told them there was no issues and that the issue is with BT Wholesale and say they will look into it and guess what, it will be an issue with Openreach again.

They have been saying all this to me 3 lots of times now since the 26 March when I phoned for the upgrade.

Paul

I'm not sure, but, to clarify, when I say BT I mean BT Wholesale and not BT Retail/Consumer. It does however suck that a simple regrade can't be processed, something which can easily be done remotely and shouldn't take much more effort than clicking a few buttons. However, I'm not the first person to experience an issue with regrading from FTTPoD according to what Cerberus said. It's a good thing that the package I intend to pay for is slightly more than what FTTPoD's price is, otherwise I'd be even more frustrated.

It's a shambles, that pretty much summarises what should've been a fairly simple process. Hopefully these issues will be rectified before the end of the month.

Well just got off the phone to BT, absolutely no queue at all, so very fast getting through.

The lady I spoke to did some looking into the issue and told me that the order had already been cancelled on the Openreach System, but not on theirs for some reason.

She also told me that she has put this through to their "Special Offline Team" (her exact words) and that they would contact me via SMS on Monday to say the order is going or has gone through and that I would have to wait a further 24 to 48 hours after that date for it to go live.

I was also told when I ask about the price due to the SMS message I got and how it was said about new order details that the price might be different, but she told me that it would be the price we agreed to on the order that got stuck.

I did say if it doesn't this time that I will be contacting the Ombudsman to make a complaint due to a simple speed upgrade should never of had this issue and that other people changing providers have already gone live and that they did theirs after ours.

But like I have said before I bet it never happens, but I might be lucky.

Also spoke about FVA and their new Digital Voice Service, seems that we will remain on FVA to at the latest of 2025.
I also questioned about their business products supplying an Ethernet based VoIP Handset and that we would be happy to even pay for that phone in a one off payment.

She said phone lines currently over FVA will remain on that for a long while yet and that there is plenty of time to decide on other ways for them to supply their new Digital Voice Service.

But yeah, lets hope this ordering issues gets resolved before the end of the month.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

But like I have said before I bet it never happens, but I might be lucky.

I've just given up and assumed it'll be June at least, like all their other FTTP orders - regardless of whether it needs access to premises, or like me just a speed regrade.

"Computer says no" seems to be the deciding factor here.

Edited by deleted (Wed 15-Apr-20 22:40:30)

Well BT yesterday when asking if its still available for us at that same price that we already agreed to on the 26th March and she said yes its still available to us at that price we agreed too on the stuck order.

She did say it might take a couple of days for the old stuck order to be removed from BT's system, but I can already see its already been removed as of this morning.

I can now once again see our broadband information like we could before the stuck order, billing still says Full Fibre 900 Halo 1, so a bit confused there.

So now I just need to wait till Monday like she said, at this point I am unsure if the new order will be place before or on that day so it might go live after or on that date.

Soooo, at this point I will treat Monday as the date the new order will get placed and then 24 to 48 hours after that it "should" go live.

To be honest, I think I was just unlucky when I placed my upgrade order, where BT Wholesale offices in India went on lockdown and my order got lost and timed out, which was why other people that ordered before and after ours got done.

Paul

Fancy a race? i'm going to place my regrade order tomorrow

In reply to a post by rman:

Fancy a race? i'm going to place my regrade order tomorrow

LOL, No

You would probably still go live before me due to we always get issues when making changes to our broadband package.

What package are you on now and what you moving over to?

We had an issue going from ADSL2+ to Infinity 4, same going to Ultrafast 2 and also when going over to Ultrafast Fibre 250, sure they end up getting resolved and completed, but its all hassle I have to go through and noise I have to make to get them done and you shouldn't have to do this every time you want to change stuff.

TBH I wouldn't be too surprised if on Monday I get another issue like be told its not available or Full Fibre is not available to me, even though I am on it now (this has happened to me in the past) LOL

But I am hoping it will goes as planned without any more further issues.

Paul

Something seems up with faster speeds on FTTP (anything faster than 330) as I've noticed on the checker that was showing up to 1000 available for me now only shows up to 330.

Guess that is all wrapped up with the issues of upgrading that some are seeing.

In reply to a post by E300:

Something seems up with faster speeds on FTTP (anything faster than 330) as I've noticed on the checker that was showing up to 1000 available for me now only shows up to 330.

Guess that is all wrapped up with the issues of upgrading that some are seeing.

I just checked ours and ours still shows up as 1000Mbps down and 220Mbps up.

Paul

Address checker still seems to be down for me.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Address checker still seems to be down for me.

I check via NAD Key and District ID, shown >>> here <<<.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Fri 17-Apr-20 22:43:11)

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Address checker still seems to be down for me.

Ixel private message me, I can help you with that.

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

In reply to a post by rman:

Fancy a race? i'm going to place my regrade order tomorrow

LOL, No

You would probably still go live before me due to we always get issues when making changes to our broadband package.

What package are you on now and what you moving over to?

We had an issue going from ADSL2+ to Infinity 4, same going to Ultrafast 2 and also when going over to Ultrafast Fibre 250, sure they end up getting resolved and completed, but its all hassle I have to go through and noise I have to make to get them done and you shouldn't have to do this every time you want to change stuff.

TBH I wouldn't be too surprised if on Monday I get another issue like be told its not available or Full Fibre is not available to me, even though I am on it now (this has happened to me in the past) LOL

But I am hoping it will goes as planned without any more further issues.

Paul

I didn't get round to it in the end, going to sort it out on Monday. Will be interesting to see how yours goes.

My sign up with BT 250 went live Tues, no sign of the router yet though but i think that's down to Royal Mail. No plan on using that rubbish anyway, can't beat PfSense - i'm a developer so quite enjoy the tinkering! I came from a 300/30 FTTPoD service, so it's quite nice paying £80 less for a similar connection but with 20Mbit more upload - do miss the static IP though!

Where do you get your NAD key and District ID?

In reply to a post by rman:

I didn't get round to it in the end, going to sort it out on Monday. Will be interesting to see how yours goes.

Yeah.

In reply to a post by rman:

My sign up with BT 250 went live Tues, no sign of the router yet though but i think that's down to Royal Mail. No plan on using that rubbish anyway, can't beat PfSense - i'm a developer so quite enjoy the tinkering! I came from a 300/30 FTTPoD service, so it's quite nice paying £80 less for a similar connection but with 20Mbit more upload - do miss the static IP though!

Well I got my Smart Hub 2 the next day, but I did my order 8:20 am.
Yeah I would love a Static IP, but don't really need one here.

Paul

In reply to a post by lockyatlrg:

Where do you get your NAD key and District ID?

Well if the BT DSL Checker was still working you can get it from there, also you can still get it from the Openreach Site if you know how and where to look.

Paul

Thanks but on advice of another post I found out what my NAD key is by using Openreach's checker, and now the address checker works. It still says I can get 1000/220 which is good to know.

Yeah, Wholesale, Openreach and BT's actual checkers all show the info, some show slightly different extra info, all show the UPRN number, not that we can use that anymore.

But glad you now know how to get it

*** update ***
Try this new address: https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/

This is fully working and looks better.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Sat 18-Apr-20 13:39:10)

Any luck today Paul ?

I'm going to bet the answer to that question is "no", but we'll see. I've had no further update so far regarding my regrade, sadly. If I've heard nothing by Wednesday then I will chase up Cerberus for news (which I guess they'll then chase BT Wholesale for).

following this thread with interest as my fttp is due for renewal next month and I am hoping to get the 900 package but the checker for my exchange (walcott EAWCT) only shows 300 as the mav download speed.
how do i find out if this is correct? when I rang BT they did seem to think that an upgrade to 900 is possible so perhaps they have different checkers

I called up the sales team again today and they advised they were waiting for another update which is due tomorrow.....lets see how that goes!

In reply to a post by Ixel:

I'm going to bet the answer to that question is "no", but we'll see. I've had no further update so far regarding my regrade, sadly. If I've heard nothing by Wednesday then I will chase up Cerberus for news (which I guess they'll then chase BT Wholesale for).

I upgraded my FTToD with Cerberus. Raised the upgrade at the same time as you and it finally completed on Friday. From what I gather, the issue at BTW's end needed my connection converted to FTTP first and then upgraded to the 900Mbit product.
Can't complain with the results though, as expected I'm struggling to max out the download on speed tests but on multiple FTP tests I'm close to the cap.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

I'm going to bet the answer to that question is "no", but we'll see. I've had no further update so far regarding my regrade, sadly. If I've heard nothing by Wednesday then I will chase up Cerberus for news (which I guess they'll then chase BT Wholesale for).

Well we got a text message this morning saying that they are working on processing our order and that they will contact us again once its complete.

And that was it, to me that could mean one of two things:
1: They are working on the order and that it will be complete within 24 to 48 hours.
2: They are just fobbing me off hoping that I will just give up.

If number one then great, but if number two, boy are they in for a shock.

Anyhow I will be giving them 48 hours due to it takes 24 to 48 hours for a speed change order, if I hear nothing by then I will be phoning BT once again.

On top of that BT said a week or two ago that the new "Full Fibre 900" contract never started, but that is possibly incorrect due to it states we are on that package in our billing and have been for a month.

So I might speak to BT about that also.

*** update ***
I can see our old order flagged as cancelled as I thought it would be, this must of happened last week when they told me that they will be manually cancelling the stuck order, I find it strange that its not even showing a new order as yet where as before it was already displaying as an open order the same day it was placed.

So that being said, I am assuming no order has been placed as yet, so I will give it to tomorrow and "might" enquire if an order has actually been placed due to I was told that there would be one placed today.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Mon 20-Apr-20 20:39:26)

Mine (ordered 23/mar) just completed - showing in track orders. I never bothered contacting them, or had any update inbetween, it just happened.

Edited by deleted (Tue 21-Apr-20 14:40:05)

In reply to a post by 1nfern0:

I upgraded my FTToD with Cerberus. Raised the upgrade at the same time as you and it finally completed on Friday. From what I gather, the issue at BTW's end needed my connection converted to FTTP first and then upgraded to the 900Mbit product.
Can't complain with the results though, as expected I'm struggling to max out the download on speed tests but on multiple FTP tests I'm close to the cap.

I see, interesting. Well I've chased Cerberus for an update as it's been nearly one week since the last correspondence.

EDIT: I've had an update and will be done very much like yours was. Tomorrow I'll be put on to the standard FTTP at 330/30 and then presumably the day after (upgrade date unconfirmed for now) I'll finally be on the gigabit tier.

Edited by Ixel (Tue 21-Apr-20 14:50:19)

That sounds about right. I had no issues once the upgrade path was started.
I have to say, I'm enjoying the product, mostly due to the upload increase. Can't say I'll often cap the download speed but it's nice downloading 1Gb files in 12 secs.

After the hassle of actually getting FTTP installed and ordered it beggars belief that a simple regrade comes with the same ordeal. BT Openreach really ought to sort out this nonsense.
Thankfully I didn’t have to go through this it was an overnight job for 900 speeds but I remember what it took just to get them to install FTTP in the first place a few years back.

In reply to a post by PlocC89:

After the hassle of actually getting FTTP installed and ordered it beggars belief that a simple regrade comes with the same ordeal. BT Openreach really ought to sort out this nonsense.

Well it took 5 years of me and then my local MP pestering the CEO and Chairman of BT, it ended up me pestering them on a daily basis until they flipped the switch and enabled us.

TBH I think BT have just forgot what has FTTP installed and what hasn't, this can happen when doing this on a large scale and then getting told to complete all the BDUK work which has a contractual deadline that must be met.

I was fine with that, sadly they forgot to commission off the work as completed, so 5 years after me sending emails with photos of all the hardware BT decided on enabling the hardware by our pole.

In reply to a post by PlocC89:

Thankfully I didn’t have to go through this it was an overnight job for 900 speeds but I remember what it took just to get them to install FTTP in the first place a few years back.

Well you were lucky, like I have already said in this topic, every time a change is made to our broadband we have issues like exceptions etc, that normally gets resolved within a week or two where BT just say sorry its not available for us when it is, BTOR have even told me that our fibre connection is ready and can supply the speed listed on the Wholesale Checker.

Basically I was expecting there to be an issue when I was making the upgrade to Full Fibre 900, but was shocked when she told me yes its available for us and was also shocked that its at the same price we was paying for our Fibre 250 package.

Then all the issues then started to happen and then all the repeated we will resolve it in 5 days which comes and goes and still no upgrade, what is it with 5 days with BT?

Just like I was last told on the phone last week that on Monday just gone that they will be placing a new order and that it would take a further 24 to 48 hours to go live and that I will receive a TXT Message stating this, which I can say I got on Monday morning.

Sadly there is no open order as yet and I bet tomorrow it will be the same and when I phone for an update on Thursday I will be told to wait another 5 days.

See to me it seems like they are just fobbing me off over and over again and it didn't end well for BT the last time they fobbed me off like this.

But I like I said will wait to Thursday morning and if nothing has changed I will phone them and go on from their.

There is absolutely no reason why a speed regrade should be taking so long as it is and I will be brining this up Thursday.

Paul

Reading this thread you're obviously not the only person who has had a delay processing their order.

If you had just left your order as it was rather than cancelling it, it may have been regraded by now.

Like another user posted this morning

Mine (ordered 23/mar) just completed - showing in track orders. I never bothered contacting them, or had any update inbetween, it just happened

Clearly these are unprecedented times with much of OpenReach's backroom staff in India being severely disrupted.

It is somewhat odd that some orders are regraded overnight and others have taken over 4 weeks to complete.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Reading this thread you're obviously not the only person who has had a delay processing their order.

If you had just left your order as it was rather than cancelling it, it may have been regraded by now.

Like another user posted this morning

Mine (ordered 23/mar) just completed - showing in track orders. I never bothered contacting them, or had any update inbetween, it just happened

Clearly these are unprecedented times with much of OpenReach's backroom staff in India being severely disrupted.

It is somewhat odd that some orders are regraded overnight and others have taken over 4 weeks to complete.

I left mine as it was and I am still waiting for it to go live (should have gone live on the 24th). Time to call them back again methinks....

Well I never cancelled anything, BT told me that it timed out on the Openreach system and auto cancelled itself and that the BT Ordering system got stuck and that they had to do a cancelation manually so that they could do a fresh order

I never asked for it to be cancelled, so that's another thing I will bring up with them.

I only contact BT due to every change to our broadband has issues where I have to chase them up, like going from Infinity 4 to Ultrafast 2, I left that alone and 3 weeks went past and nothing, phoned BT if there was an issue and it was resolved during that call.

Paul

just got off the phone with them again - issue was apparently with Openreach Wholesale in India (no doubt it would be the other way round if we could ring openreach...) but they are apparently in less of a lockdown state than they were and are progressing orders.

A bridge case has been raised on my order to get it sorted and todays random sort date is now Thursday when they will call me back to confirm its all fine....

Funnily enough I ordered around the same time as many of you whose orders are stuck but there was no delay. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have to call BT at all.I Just logged into MyBT and went to the offers sections and was shown fibre 900 with halo1.
Although there were no offers available to me until the day I ordered (3/4/20) so might’ve just got lucky

Edited by deleted (Tue 21-Apr-20 19:04:48)

All going to plan. I noticed yesterday afternoon around the time Cerberus emailed me back to confirm 'step 1' (regrade to standard FTTP from FTTPoD) was underway that my PPP connection dropped for a moment, perhaps that was related. Anyway I had an email back today confirming 'step 1' is complete and 'step 2' (regrade to 900/110) should be completed tomorrow. I eagerly look forward to it, particularly the significantly improved upload speed.

Nice, hopefully not long now
Let us know how it goes.

I was also updated today and was told that there is an issue with our account (or something like that) which will be resolved on or by Friday where the new order will be placed.

I asked once again (just to make sure I am not quoted a different price than what we was quoted before) if its still available for us at the price we agreed to (told her the price) and she said yes its still available to us at that quoted price and that they just need to resolve the issue which will be completed on / by Friday.

I know that they have already said this all before but hopefully it will this time get resolved and the order gets placed.

Paul

All done! It went offline for a few seconds twice between midnight and 1am for me (according to the router log). I don't think the FireBrick 2900 is up to the job though, or something else is causing a slower result than I am expecting (speedtest.net - I believe multithreaded, I'm testing via Unraid). Still, between 250-500 megabits down and around 100-110 megabits up is superb (wired test). My current Wifi network won't max out the downstream, which is understandable (Wifi gen 5 - Orbi RBK50). I'll need Wifi gen 6 to get much closer to that, which is still too new to consider.

At a later date I will change the FB2900 to the EdgeRouter 8 Pro, which I believe should then maximise the downstream capability on wired devices as long as I only use QoS on the upstream (which I am, no need for QoS on roughly a gigabit capacity haha). I can't switch the router for now as I also use the FB2900 as a VoIP PBX.

Hopefully you'll be experiencing the world of gigabit FTTP very soon, fingers crossed Friday is the day when they can place the regrade order.

Edited by Ixel (Thu 23-Apr-20 08:22:30)

Awesome, pleased it has been completed.
I had quite a few problems finding a server to test against. Both TBB and numerous servers on speedtest had problems hitting more than 3-400Mbits. I cycled through a few servers before finding one that could hit 700mbit.
I'm using a ubiquiti amplifi Hardwired to my office and to be honest I thought it was my router causing the bottleneck, so much so that I ordered a ASUS GT-AX11000 to test it with. To be honest, there was no difference over ethernet although WIFI6 is awesome, my phone tested at 400Mbit The missus hated the router though, too big so it went back and I'm back to using the AmplifiHD with 3 APs, 2 of which are wired.
I do like the look of the Orbi AX6000 and the amplifi Alien but I'm not paying £700 for the privilege of wifi6 just yet.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

All done! It went offline for a few seconds twice between midnight and 1am for me (according to the router log). I don't think the FireBrick 2900 is up to the job though, or something else is causing a slower result than I am expecting (speedtest.net - I believe multithreaded, I'm testing via Unraid). Still, between 250-500 megabits down and around 100-110 megabits up is superb (wired test). My current Wifi network won't max out the downstream, which is understandable (Wifi gen 5 - Orbi RBK50). I'll need Wifi gen 6 to get much closer to that, which is still too new to consider.

At a later date I will change the FB2900 to the EdgeRouter 8 Pro, which I believe should then maximise the downstream capability on wired devices as long as I only use QoS on the upstream (which I am, no need for QoS on roughly a gigabit capacity haha). I can't switch the router for now as I also use the FB2900 as a VoIP PBX.

Hopefully you'll be experiencing the world of gigabit FTTP very soon, fingers crossed Friday is the day when they can place the regrade order.

I see, good to know it's not necessarily all related to my current network hardware then.

As for buying a Wifi 6 kit, yeah that's understandable, neither am I at the moment. The technology as I understand is still draft and there's been a few reports of users apparently having issues with Orbi's Wifi 6 kit. I'll stay with the RBK50 for now, perhaps in 6 months from now the Wifi 6 products might become more viable in price and possibly Wifi 6 will be considered to be a finalised specification too. I think the FB2900 is one of my bottlenecks though, as specs say it can only handle around 750 megabits per second if I recall correctly, so that will eventually need changing if I want wired devices to potentially be able to utilise up to the gigabit downstream.

Most importantly I have much better upload capacity and that's an important reason for me wanting the regrade.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

As for buying a Wifi 6 kit, yeah that's understandable, neither am I at the moment. The technology as I understand is still draft and there's been a few reports of users apparently having issues with Orbi's Wifi 6 kit.

I don't think its draft, there are some good articles on Small Net Builder. I have the ASUS RT-AX88U on my Virgin Media 200mbps line. I have dual mode enabled, so AC and N devices work with it quite well. I don't yet have any 6 (AX) devices. The dual WPA2 and WPA3 mode is clever. Only a 10 year old Core2 Duo laptop with very early intel WiFi N card won't connect, and I haven't bothered to troubleshoot.

The kit is still expensive, so I would only recommend it you like the "top end" but the developer of the Merlin firmware also uses an AX88U but says its expensive.

Check out the articles on SNB.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

All done! It went offline for a few seconds twice between midnight and 1am for me (according to the router log). I don't think the FireBrick 2900 is up to the job though, or something else is causing a slower result than I am expecting (speedtest.net - I believe multithreaded, I'm testing via Unraid). Still, between 250-500 megabits down and around 100-110 megabits up is superb (wired test).

There are some oddities with browsers. I just got 400ish with speedtest, but switch to their windows app and it's bang on 895, every time, using the same server location. Most speedtests seem to say 890-910ish though.

Actual real world is mostly a lot less, other than a Microsoft download that did max it out. Usenet can max it out too, but that's 40 connections - this is probably the best use for it, 7 Gigabytes in 60 seconds

Edited by deleted (Thu 23-Apr-20 14:29:05)

In reply to a post by Ixel:

All done! It went offline for a few seconds twice between midnight and 1am for me (according to the router log). I don't think the FireBrick 2900 is up to the job though, or something else is causing a slower result than I am expecting (speedtest.net - I believe multithreaded, I'm testing via Unraid). Still, between 250-500 megabits down and around 100-110 megabits up is superb (wired test). My current Wifi network won't max out the downstream, which is understandable (Wifi gen 5 - Orbi RBK50). I'll need Wifi gen 6 to get much closer to that, which is still too new to consider.

Nice, I am glad its all finally up and running for you

In reply to a post by Ixel:

At a later date I will change the FB2900 to the EdgeRouter 8 Pro, which I believe should then maximise the downstream capability on wired devices as long as I only use QoS on the upstream (which I am, no need for QoS on roughly a gigabit capacity haha). I can't switch the router for now as I also use the FB2900 as a VoIP PBX.

Yeah I have a new MikroTik Tik RB4011iGS+RM router which should handle our speeds great, just need to go through and setting it up.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Hopefully you'll be experiencing the world of gigabit FTTP very soon, fingers crossed Friday is the day when they can place the regrade order.

Well funny that you say that, just check MyBT and there is a new open order added today which is due to go live tomorrow, so not too sure if its midnight tonight or tomorrow night, probably tomorrow night.

It states its at the following order progress stage:

Fri 24 Apr 2020

Product update for Broadband
New broadband and contract

So either midnight tonight or tomorrow night

Paul

Nice, hopefully it means your regrade will be going live tonight (after midnight). Good luck.

I've improved my speed on wifi, I'm now using custom firmware for the Orbi RBK50 which seems to have helped a little. I've also changed some of the wifi settings to see what kind of impact they have (e.g. MU-MIMO, implicit Beamforming, Fast Roaming, etc).

As for the FireBrick 2900, I've configured it to shape the connection, for now, at 500/90 ish. Wifi speed tests are reaching close to the 500 megabits downstream limit I've currently configured which is also nice. I'll test higher limits soon and take note of when bufferbloat starts to become noticeable. I used to use shaper settings of roughly 80% of the package speed, which worked well for minimising ping spikes and virtually no bufferbloat. The only reason I'm currently shaping the downstream is because the FireBrick can't seem to handle much more than 700 megabits per second, at which point bufferbloat starts showing up due to no doubt hitting the upper limit of what the router can process.

Eventually I'll switch back to the EdgeRouter Pro 8, which I've had as a spare router that was originally replaced by the FireBrick as I had line bonding on FTTC with AAISP.

Edited by Ixel (Thu 23-Apr-20 17:30:49)

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Nice, hopefully it means your regrade will be going live tonight (after midnight). Good luck.

Yeah, hopefully, you never know with BT. LUL
But yeah I am sure it will all go as planned this time round.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

I've improved my speed on wifi, I'm now using custom firmware for the Orbi RBK50 which seems to have helped a little. I've also changed some of the wifi settings to see what kind of impact they have (e.g. MU-MIMO, implicit Beamforming, Fast Roaming, etc).

Just looked those up, so one is a Router (RBR50) and the other(s) are AP (RBS50) ?

I plan to use our current Linksys WRT 3200 ACM as an access point in the middle / rear of our house, Wi-Fi isn't really needed at the front part of the house, and if it becomes required I will just add an access point.

But I might just look into some new AP for the house as a whole.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

As for the FireBrick 2900, I've configured it to shape the connection, for now, at 500/90 ish. Wifi speed tests are reaching close to the 500 megabits downstream limit I've currently configured which is also nice. I'll test higher limits soon and take note of when bufferbloat starts to become noticeable. I used to use shaper settings of roughly 80% of the package speed, which worked well for minimising ping spikes and virtually no bufferbloat. The only reason I'm currently shaping the downstream is because the FireBrick can't seem to handle much more than 700 megabits per second, at which point bufferbloat starts showing up due to no doubt hitting the upper limit of what the router can process.

Eventually I'll switch back to the EdgeRouter Pro 8, which I've had as a spare router that was originally replaced by the FireBrick as I had line bonding on FTTC with AAISP.

So your FB2900 is the fully loaded version with bonding / load sharing then, would make sense to pay the extra £50 to get that.

As to buffer bloat, yeah we suffer with buffer bloat and or QOS issues here currently, also I would be watching a Twitch Live Stream and somebody would start up an online game and I will get buffering for a second or two which can be annoying as hell if you are moderating it.

Paul

In reply to a post by Ixel:

All done! It went offline for a few seconds twice between midnight and 1am for me (according to the router log). I don't think the FireBrick 2900 is up to the job though, or something else is causing a slower result than I am expecting

From the FireBrick website

The FB2900 is the successor to the FB2700, with redesigned main board, Power supply board. Using faster CPU and including an physical port in the form of an SFP carrier. Throughput has been measured at 750Mb/s making this ideal for Today's FTTC and FTTP connected premises.

Edited by j0hn83 (Thu 23-Apr-20 18:13:52)

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Just looked those up, so one is a Router (RBR50) and the other(s) are AP (RBS50) ?

So your FB2900 is the fully loaded version with bonding / load sharing then, would make sense to pay the extra £50 to get that.

As to buffer bloat, yeah we suffer with buffer bloat and or QOS issues here currently, also I would be watching a Twitch Live Stream and somebody would start up an online game and I will get buffering for a second or two which can be annoying as hell if you are moderating it.

Yes, I have an RBR50 as the wifi router and two RBS50's as the satellites (or access points). My FB2900 is the fully loaded version. It was highly useful while I had two FTTC connections bonded. Indeed, bufferbloat can be a little bit annoying at times.

My recent speedtest result on wifi: https://www.speedtest.net/result/9327821772.png

Can we have a virtual party when you finally get connected Paul.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Yes, I have an RBR50 as the wifi router and two RBS50's as the satellites (or access points). My FB2900 is the fully loaded version. It was highly useful while I had two FTTC connections bonded. Indeed, bufferbloat can be a little bit annoying at times.

My recent speedtest result on wifi: https://www.speedtest.net/result/9327821772.png

So you are using the FB2900 as the router and then the RBR50 connected to the FFB2900 and then the RBS50's are connected to your Ethernet LAN or are they via Wi-Fi ?

Yeah I got the Linksys WRT 3200 ACM so that I could run the Custom WRT Firmware, but never got around to do so, but the Wi-Fi was very good on it, but it still never covered the whole of the house.

I have been thinking about moving all networking hardware to a dedicated location in our house like in the old airing cupboard that's now empty, just been too ill to do so at the moment.
I know most of our new cable behind the wall and under the floor are Shielded Cat6e cable, only the cables in the rooms and accessible cables are non shielded, but they can be replaces if needed.

I can just run the WAN Cable from the ONT to that location into the new router and from there into the SamKnows White Box (if I can still use it) and then onto our LAN.

But yeah buffer bloat QOS is annoying when you notice it, hopefully this new router has some features to reduce this.

Also I thought you moved over to BT, or are you still with Cerberus and the issue was with BT providing that service for Cerberus.

But that's not a bad speed for over Wi-Fi

Paul

In reply to a post by busterboy:

Can we have a virtual party when you finally get connected Paul.

LOL, The invites will be sent out via email, please scan the email before opening it.
First drinks are on me LOL

That's assuming it all goes to plan.

Paul

So you are using the FB2900 as the router and then the RBR50 connected to the FFB2900 and then the RBS50's are connected to your Ethernet LAN or are they via Wi-Fi ?

Yes, the FB2900 is the main router while the RBR50 is simply a bridge to it. The RBS50's are wirelessly connected to the RBR50.

Yeah I got the Linksys WRT 3200 ACM so that I could run the Custom WRT Firmware, but never got around to do so, but the Wi-Fi was very good on it, but it still never covered the whole of the house.

I see.

I have been thinking about moving all networking hardware to a dedicated location in our house like in the old airing cupboard that's now empty, just been too ill to do so at the moment.

I use the third smallest bedroom as a room dedicated for networking and server equipment, is also air conditioned .

I can just run the WAN Cable from the ONT to that location into the new router and from there into the SamKnows White Box (if I can still use it) and then onto our LAN.

But yeah buffer bloat QOS is annoying when you notice it, hopefully this new router has some features to reduce this.

Yeah. Bufferbloat is certainly annoying when noticeable!

Also I thought you moved over to BT, or are you still with Cerberus and the issue was with BT providing that service for Cerberus.

Stayed with Cerberus due to static IP range, better customer support if I need it (doubtful), and wasn't charged an activation fee for the regrade. When I mentioned BT I was referring to BT Wholesale.

But that's not a bad speed for over Wi-Fi

Certainly isn't! I am amazed. It's not completely consistent but it doesn't usually drop below 300 megabits, most of the time above 400.

Ah, that right I recall you saying BT as in BT Wholesale.

I could still use the spare room as a Server / Networking room, but that was to be a TV Media room, just currently being used badly as a store / junk room

My Samsung S9+ is currently connecting up at 173Mbps but Wi-Fi is downstairs at the front of the house where ONT is located and I am atm located upstairs in the middle of the house.

But only Smart Devices like Phones and Tablets are connected via wireless and they don't require much above that, would be nice, but that that important due to everything else is wired.

Paul

Well didn't even know it went live, never lost our connection until I rebooted our router due to the down speed hadn't changed yet the upload did.

I am still using my Linksys due to I have yet to setup the new router, so all tests so far is using that router.

BT Wholesale Speedtest

On average I am getting about 860Mb down and 120Mb up and that's on this old router that's not suppose to handle that much of a throughput.

The Speedtest dot net tests had to be as multi threaded due to I couldn't find one that went over 300Mbits, but this might be due to my router.

I will know more once I get round to setting up the new router.

*** update ***
I think our router is having issues, seems to of dropped connections twice just now when testing the connection, so maybe I will setup the new router first thing tomorrow morning.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Fri 24-Apr-20 01:09:40)

so it looks like everyone is finally getting their regrades done apart from me.....that makes me sad.

BT advised they would call back by 5pm yesterday which obviously didnt happen, so I can see yet another call to BT Sales coming up shortly!

In reply to a post by ravingkamikaze2:

so it looks like everyone is finally getting their regrades done apart from me.....that makes me sad.

BT advised they would call back by 5pm yesterday which obviously didnt happen, so I can see yet another call to BT Sales coming up shortly!

Ouch, yeah I had a few of those "we will contact you on..." and never heard anything.
I am always polite and cheerful when I speak to them on the phone.

What was they last reason why it hasn't gone live yet, I was told loads of reasons why for our upgrade, but we had been waiting for about a month.

Paul

It was with Openreach and apparently my order was creating exceptions on the system. They could see a bridging case open on the system but were waiting for OR to get back to them.

In reply to a post by ravingkamikaze2:

It was with Openreach and apparently my order was creating exceptions on the system. They could see a bridging case open on the system but were waiting for OR to get back to them.

Oh we had a similar issue, had to have an offline team to look into it and they resolved that issue for us.

Paul

BTW did you compare the BQM's before and after, I have and you can see the latency is better too.
Ignore the RED and BLANK parts, the old Linksys Router kept rebooting so I disabled the BQM while I worked on the new router.

Paul

just got off the phone with them (47 mins long call!) and I now have a date of next Tuesday when it may be sorted by - cant fault the person on the phone as they phoned round various depts and managers trying to get it sorted in one call.

I mentioned its taken a month so far but didnt push it as my 300Mbps connection is rock solid and not really an issue, but she said she would raise a complaint against Openreach because they hadnt sorted it yet

Anyone wanna take any bets whether it will be sorted by Tuesday?

I didn't really take notice, but I know the average ping from before. I've not noticed a difference in latency, still averaging around 5ms which is superb.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

I didn't really take notice, but I know the average ping from before. I've not noticed a difference in latency, still averaging around 5ms which is superb.

Take a look at mine, like I said ignore the red and blank parts, that was due to the old router.
But look at the low yellow parts of before the red and blank parts and then look at the new start.

Pinging the BQM Server that is pinging my router I get about 2 to 3 ms which was the same as before, but I am no longer seeing the low yellow parts, I am wondering if my old router had issues.

I know this new router hasn't rebooted as yet and I have been changing stuff.

But overall I am liking it so far.

Paul

Oh, BQM as in TBB's ping monitor graph. I was thinking CQM from the FireBrick which shows the latency and such of the LNS I'm connected to. I don't have an active BQM for TBB but where do I find your one?

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Oh, BQM as in TBB's ping monitor graph. I was thinking CQM from the FireBrick which shows the latency and such of the LNS I'm connected to. I don't have an active BQM for TBB but where do I find your one?

Click on my BQM in my Sig.

Paul

Congrats, finally they managed to upgrade you. What max speed you're getting via speedtest.net?
I’m getting 895Mb 119Mb.

I had signatures disabled so that explains why I couldn't see it. I see what you mean by the difference.

About the same as you give or take a few Mbits, which might be down to my SamKnows White box having issues with the speed.

The Support at SamKnows did tell me that it should handle it fine, I might later on bypass the White Box and see.

But what's a few Mbits when you are paying the same as you did for the Fibre 250 package.

My results in my sigs have not been updated as yet, so I will have to do that at some point, the results in my sig was when I was using my old Linksys router that kept rebooting when under load LOL.

Paul

In reply to a post by Ixel:

I had signatures disabled so that explains why I couldn't see it. I see what you mean by the difference.

Yeah, those ramping started showing up when we had a power trip during a thunder storm and never was the same since.

What I have noticed is that I am no longer getting those long yellow spikes that happen around every couple of hours, I thought it was the SamKnows box but will find out after a days worth of new BQM.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

What I have noticed is that I am no longer getting those long yellow spikes that happen around every couple of hours, I thought it was the SamKnows box but will find out after a days worth of new BQM.

I had them with a SK box. I gave up passing all my wired devices through SK and then on to the router, as it limited my LAN -> WiFi speeds. I ended up connecting SK to its own port on the router. I sent mine back last year.

Well my SK box is still connected as it said in the documentation, those two small yellow blips on the new graph was from two speed tests, but I will find out once I get a full days worth.

Most of the stuff here is all wired, only a few devices require Wi-Fi and that's just for the internet.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Most of the stuff here is all wired, only a few devices require Wi-Fi and that's just for the internet.

I had most stuff wired, but now I've simplified, and all the entertainment devices, around the TV, are on a guest WiFi. The IT devices are all wired, except for my corporate laptop that is so thin is needs a dongle to connect, which gets in the way of my mouse cable, so that is WiFi.

My WiFi 6 (AX) router is in the same room, so its not been an issue (so far!).

Well just did a Speed Test and while it was doing the test I checked the resources on the MikroTik Tik RB4011iGS+RM (Router) and it was only at 25% Load, so very happy with this router.

The only downside was I had to do a load of reading wiki pages for this router due to it comes with no manual due to its online.

Most of it just works out of the box apart from the IPv6 not being enabled by default, so that got enabled.

Which was when I discovered that there were no IPv6 Firewall rules in place which resulted in even more reading.

So all seems to be working fine now, still some tweaking is needed with some of the settings, but other than that the price for the router was well worth it.

Paul

Glad you’ve finally got everything sorted

In reply to a post by PlocC89:

Glad you’ve finally got everything sorted

Thanks, at one point I did think it would never happen with all the issues and setbacks etc.
But we only did the upgrade for the faster upload, plus for the same price as our old package we get 3x the down and 2x the up, so a no brainer there.

Paul

Coming from 80/20 these speeds are so amazing. Never tried the 330/50 package was too expensive at the time.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/d/77825de0-97b1-449...

In reply to a post by PlocC89:

Coming from 80/20 these speeds are so amazing. Never tried the 330/50 package was too expensive at the time.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/d/77825de0-97b1-449...

Nice and grats on the upgrade.

Paul

I spoke with BT again today (after they failed to call back yesterday as they promised..) and they advised its still with the wholesale dept who havent done their part. They did advise there was a note on the call to say this should progress tomorrow but we shall see.

In reply to a post by max360:

I’m getting 895Mb 119Mb.

That's bang-on exactly what I get too.

Today I upgraded to Fibre 900 from the old Superfast Fibre 4 (330/30) without knowing of these issues. Wonder if it will go through!

I am sure it will, just need to keep on at them when they fail to contact you with an update.
Also remember to be nice and polite when speaking to them.

Paul

In reply to a post by PlocC89:

Coming from 80/20 these speeds are so amazing. Never tried the 330/50 package was too expensive at the time.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/d/77825de0-97b1-449...

You appear to be getting the full speed. Are you using the provided Hub 2 or your own router? And what's your computer specs?

I was wondering that too, I was going to start a topic asking the following:

ISP, Package, Router Used, Location and speed received.

Hopefully that might help people choose routers for the task.
So.…

ISP: BT
Package: Full Fibre 900 + FVA
Router: MikroTik Tik RB4011iGS+RM (CPU at 25% load when using full connection)
Location: London (about 5.4km / 3.3 miles from Telehouse Docklands)
Speed: 880 - 890 Mbps.

I also have a SamKnows White Box inline, so I might at one point try without that inline.
Might also try the Smart Hub 2 just as a comparison.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Thu 30-Apr-20 02:12:38)

ISP: Cerberus Networks
Package: 900/110 (FTTP Ultra2)
Router: FireBrick 2900 (Not sure on CPU usage but on multiple wired speed tests I'm only able to achieve around 500-550Mbps downstream and I'm aware the router has a routed throughput limitation of up to 750Mbps)
Location: Eastbourne
Speed: 500-550Mbps downstream, most likely due to router specifications not being up to the task of a full routed gigabit throughput

My main interest in the package was the significantly greater upstream speed, for which my home lab/server is appreciative of .

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

I was wondering that too, I was going to start a topic asking the following:

ISP, Package, Router Used, Location and speed received.

Hopefully that might help people choose routers for the task.
So.…

ISP: BT
Package: Full Fibre 900 + FVA
Router: MikroTik Tik RB4011iGS+RM (CPU at 25% load when using full connection)
Location: London (about 5.4km / 3.3 miles from Telehouse Docklands)
Speed: 880 - 890 Mbps.

I also have a SamKnows White Box inline, so I might at one point try without that inline.
Might also try the Smart Hub 2 just as a comparison.

Paul

Good post this Paul, very informative for other users.

I started a post not long ago regarding which router will people be using for the 900 package but this is better altogether.

Maybe start a new post with a new title.

In reply to a post by Brookzy:

Today I upgraded to Fibre 900 from the old Superfast Fibre 4 (330/30) without knowing of these issues. Wonder if it will go through!

Guessing you'll probably be ok - those in this thread were ordering pretty much exactly as the lockdown happened, which unsurprisingly screwed things up for BT as for everyone else.

Right. I'm here!

After 4-weeks of asking, begging and pleading, my ONT details have finally updated on OR system to reflect the fact that I have a 4-port ONT. It spent yesterday and the day before showing no service/ONT at all. Then this morning popped up as having available ports.

I called BT and they could see the spare ports available and were happy to set up on Port 2. Which means the previous BT call where they claimed they would only work on Port 1 was rubbish.
Then they got stuck over wanting to do a working line take over on my phone line and said they couldn't not do it. Transferred from Canterbury to Dundee and they set-up with a new number. Waded through the wifi guarantee (no I have better) and NowTV stuff. Eventually a vanilla Fibre 900 is ordered with a new number to follow.

Provisional start date is 15/5/2020!


From reading my ONT won't handle 900/110 and 330/30 when both are active but I will only use one and then cease the other. But then my USG-Pro-4 probably won't handle all of it either. Waiting for the UXG rather than the UDM-Pro which seems to have issues.

Fingers still crossed.

Dave

Good to hear.

Regarding the USG-Pro-4, I'm not sure. I guess it depends if you're going to use features like QoS. If the traffic is hardware off-loaded then surely it can cope with that connection speed. I intend to switch to the EdgeRouter Pro 8 within the next few weeks/months, whenever I sort out an alternative to the current VoIP setup which currently goes via the FireBrick 2900. I might setup 3CX on my home server/workstation system.

Edited by Ixel (Thu 30-Apr-20 12:42:51)

QoS off, DPI off, IDS off, I believe it is capable. But turn any of those on and its down to 250Mbps. They are old bits of kit and new/better is on its way. The UDM-Pro duplicates a lot of existing kit like cloud key, NVR, WiFi etc. The UXG which is not yet ready is supposed to be closed to the USG range which is just a router.

Now the internal network is only 1Gbps and some of the links back from remote buildings are in the 150Mbps range. May have to think about upgrading some of the wireless back hauls to fibre in the future! What a problem to have. And only a year ago we were on 4Mbps!

Can't wait - but I guess I will have to.

Cheers
Dave

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

From reading my ONT won't handle 900/110 and 330/30 when both are active

Only that your combined peak inbound won't exceed 1G. In practice you'll find it hard to reach that - if both are downloading at full tilt and achieve say 800+200, I doubt anyone will notice. Plus you get the full combined upload.

Glad you finally got the multi-port ONT sorted!

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Only that your combined peak inbound won't exceed 1G. In practice you'll find it hard to reach that - if both are downloading at full tilt and achieve say 800+200, I doubt anyone will notice. Plus you get the full combined upload.

Glad you finally got the multi-port ONT sorted!

They might notice the indiscriminate packet loss as there's no real queuing or flow control there, though.

In reply to a post by busterboy:

Good post this Paul, very informative for other users.

I started a post not long ago regarding which router will people be using for the 900 package but this is better altogether.

Maybe start a new post with a new title.

Yeah I might actually do that.

Paul

Believe it or not, I`m actually using the smart hub 2.

Haven`t got round to buying a new router but not having any issues with the BT hub,

On a fairly new PC too. Ryzen 5 3600 16gb ram etc.


ISP: BT
Package: Full Fibre 900
Router: BT Smart Hub 2
Location: London ( 6 Miles from the nearest Ookla Server)
Speed: 900+ Mbps.

update from BT today....

our suppliers have advised that they are still working on your order and a further update will be available on Monday 4th of May.



that will be 6 weeks since it was meant to go live.

Oh that is promising, yeah I thought you would also be in London

Yeah I am using an Intel i9 9900K myself with 64GB Ram.

I have started that new post here to save clogging up this topic:
For people currently on the 900:110 upwards packages...

So if people would like to post their info in that topic it would be nice.

Paul

In reply to a post by ravingkamikaze2:

update from BT today....

our suppliers have advised that they are still working on your order and a further update will be available on Monday 4th of May.



that will be 6 weeks since it was meant to go live.

Did they say what the actual issue was?

One time BT said it was stuck at Wholesale, then they said it was stuck at Openreach, then was told Openreach said no issue their end and that the issue was at Wholesale, we had their Special Team, Offline Team, Special Offline Team (so I was told) look at this issue, so not sure which team resolved it.

So I just told them that it is becoming a issue circle each blaming each other, and that I would give them another 5 days (which was when they said that they would get back to me) then I would be making a complaint to the Ombudsman and that I will also be contacting their executive complaints team due to this issue should never of happened in the first place.

I did tell BT I had expected a delay due to what is happening right now, but the issues that I was having was not due to the lack of staff, I always get this exact same issue (i.e. Exception Tags on order) every time I do changes on our broadband, which I was told was fixed and that it would never happen again, yet it has, so I was not happy.

The nice people at BT that I spoke to were all very apologetic due to all the issues and said that they have put all the issues that I have had in our notes, so if I did take that complaint route the info would be there, luckily exactly on that 5 day it was all live.

So it took just under a Month to get the open order go live.

Also I was very calm but firm when speaking to BT, no point is shouting or swearing at them, they are just doing their job.
I also sat down to work out what BT could possibly say as the reason why it hasn't gone live, always good to explain what was said last time, this can also help things like saving them doing checks that was done last time that wasn't the cause.

Paul

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

Right. I'm here!

After 4-weeks of asking, begging and pleading, my ONT details have finally updated on OR system to reflect the fact that I have a 4-port ONT. It spent yesterday and the day before showing no service/ONT at all. Then this morning popped up as having available ports.

I called BT and they could see the spare ports available and were happy to set up on Port 2. Which means the previous BT call where they claimed they would only work on Port 1 was rubbish.
Then they got stuck over wanting to do a working line take over on my phone line and said they couldn't not do it. Transferred from Canterbury to Dundee and they set-up with a new number. Waded through the wifi guarantee (no I have better) and NowTV stuff. Eventually a vanilla Fibre 900 is ordered with a new number to follow.

Provisional start date is 15/5/2020!


From reading my ONT won't handle 900/110 and 330/30 when both are active but I will only use one and then cease the other. But then my USG-Pro-4 probably won't handle all of it either. Waiting for the UXG rather than the UDM-Pro which seems to have issues.

Fingers still crossed.

Dave

Well thats the order cancelled already. Last night got notice from copper line provider that a 'Transfer Away Notification' had been received. Spoke to BT this morning and they have cancelled order and will get an offline team team to look at it tomorrow and re-raise the order with a new line. As I repeatedly pointed out that line is not in my name, it is in my wife's name I have no authority to move it. What compensation should I ask for as my wife now knows I was ordering broadband!

A shambolic start.

Dave

well it looks like its gone live now which is good....speed tests are a little all over the place with upload seemingly stuck at the 50 it was before but will mess with my router etc and test again (do you need a full modem reset for it to kick in?)


What I have noticed is my wifi speed on the smarthub 2 is garbage (wont go above 30Mbps despite being in the same room - the previous smart hub I had for the 300Mbps package would go upto 80 so will need to check that out as well)

The 50 Mbps upload issue is well-reported on the BT forums. It was allegedly fixed through a firmware update but some are still having issues.

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

Well thats the order cancelled already. Last night got notice from copper line provider that a 'Transfer Away Notification' had been received. Spoke to BT this morning and they have cancelled order and will get an offline team team to look at it tomorrow and re-raise the order with a new line. As I repeatedly pointed out that line is not in my name, it is in my wife's name I have no authority to move it. What compensation should I ask for as my wife now knows I was ordering broadband!

A shambolic start.

Dave

Got a text from the off-line tema Saturday, they can only provide copper broadband as it is the law that properties can only have one fibre line.
Spoke to BT this morning (at least 5-different people) ending in Accrington with the FTTH team. They have told me the only way a 4-port ONT can have a multiple connections is if they run multiple fibres to it. That they will not do this as it means using an additional port in the exchange and they providers will not allow individual homes to have multiple ports at the exchange otherwise someone else couldn't have one.

Yeah I pointed out that the 4-port ONT can only accept one fibre connection and therefore running multiple fibres was bogus.

Can some someone confirm if an additional port is used at the exchange for a second service (ASFAIK my fibre doesn't even go to the exchange).

Cheers
Dave

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

Got a text from the off-line tema Saturday, they can only provide copper broadband as it is the law that properties can only have one fibre line.

Oh gosh, why do people just make random cack up to get customers to go away

No, what you've been told is complete BS.

1. As you know, the 4-port ONT has only 1 fibre uplink. The point of the 4 ethernet ports is to deliver multiple logical services; they are multiplexed together (along with services to other customers).

2. A single OLT port on the exchange serves all the ONTs connected to the same splitter. Taking another logical service does not, and cannot possibly, use another OLT port.

The only resource that's being shared is the 2.4G downlink / 1.2G uplink. By providing you with multiple services from the same PON (whether that be via the same ONT or two different ONTs linked into the same splitter) you may be using a larger share of the bandwidth. But since GPON is a contended service anyway, that's not a problem. They'll happily sell 32 x 1000/110 services.

On top of this, you have FTTPoD, and there are almost certainly not 31 other users on your splitter!

If you order from an ISP who has a clue - which means pretty much anyone who sells FTTP apart from BT - they'll be able to provision your service on the second port.

Thanks - very useful info for when they call back.

Would happily not go to BT but Fibre 900 (900/110) at £59.99 inc VAT is unbeatable at the moment. Others aren't even close. The very fact they are so shambolic is why I won't cancel the service on Port 1 until it is in operation. Even then I could retain a lower service on Port 1 from another provider and Fibre 900 on Port 2 and still be cheaper than the 1Gbps from any other provider.

Cheers Dave

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

Spoke to BT this morning (at least 5-different people) ending in Accrington with the FTTH team. They have told me the only way a 4-port ONT can have a multiple connections is if they run multiple fibres to it.

Sorry but thats utter bollax (pardon my French). I have a 4 port ONT with just a single fibre hooked up and have 3 live FTTP services running off it - one is with BT Business on Port 3. You might want to wait for BT Business to release 1000/220 on FTTP (should be very soon) and place an order with them instead. Their Sales team seems to have a better understanding of FTTP than their Residential counterparts.

Awesome thanks for the confirmation that at least one part of BT can run a service on anything other than Port 1.

Yeah dealings on phone services have been better with BT Business but I suspect that 1000/200 via BT Business will be at a mighty premium compared to 1000/110 via BT residential. I may be pleasantly surprised. But at the moment until I move I am on FTTPoD at £100+VAT for 330/50 so savings are £40/month for triple the speed!

I guess if you really want the BT service you could do it in stages:

- take service from another ISP on port 2
- cancel existing service on port 1
- take service from BT on port 1

But I wouldn't put it past BT to screw up and terminate your service on port 2 at the same time.

Probably not the best time to be doing this either. I note for example that Aquiss have got rid of their three-month initial discount on FTTP, and replaced it with a £50 up-front charge... making them much less attractive as a choice for the port 2 ISP.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Probably not the best time to be doing this either. I note for example that Aquiss have got rid of their three-month initial discount on FTTP, and replaced it with a £50 up-front charge

Temp measure to currently slow the volume of "new installs" orders we are getting which during covid that are requiring far more managing. Openreach are really being quite slow across all departments, so our staff resources are being deployed to do more doing chasing at present.

I ordered an upgrade from BT Fibre 250 to BT Fibre 900 on 30 April. The upgrade went live today (4 May) at about 1:00 am.

Edited by dewi (Mon 04-May-20 16:24:11)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

I guess if you really want the BT service you could do it in stages:

- take service from another ISP on port 2
- cancel existing service on port 1
- take service from BT on port 1

But I wouldn't put it past BT to screw up and terminate your service on port 2 at the same time.

Probably not the best time to be doing this either. I note for example that Aquiss have got rid of their three-month initial discount on FTTP, and replaced it with a £50 up-front charge... making them much less attractive as a choice for the port 2 ISP.

Yeah thats next on my list of attempts if they stick to the current made up excuse of can't do Port2! I had been eyeing up the cheapest on Aquiss as a low cost 1-year back-up/transition provider. If it wasn't like it was now I may consider a termination/restart. Not really because if it wasn't like now we would be open and using broadband and I wouldn't want an outage. An outage now would be preferable to normal, we could survive on a dongle.

But given BT placed an order for service on Port 2 last week I don't see how they can claim they can't do it this week. The only issue last week was the working line takeover for phone.

I'll update when I hear back.
Dave

right, uploads and downloads are at the full speed now, so we are now down to the wireless issue on the smarthub 2. Spoke with BT who eventually agreed to send out a new smarthub 2 to see if that will fix the issue...roll on wednesday!

In reply to a post by dewi:

I ordered an upgrade from BT Fibre 250 to BT Fibre 900 on 30 April. The upgrade went live today (4 May) at about 1:00 am.

Yeah I didn't even notice when ours went live just after midnight the date that they said, there was no drop in connection, I only knew ours went live when I was uploading a file and I was getting faster then 51Mbps.

So I did a speed test and saw that the upload had gone from 51 to 119Mbps, however the download was still stuck at 280 to 295Mbps, so I did a reboot of the router and here we are

I did have to change routers due to my old Linksys couldn't handle the max download speed and kept rebooting.

Paul

In reply to a post by ravingkamikaze2:

right, uploads and downloads are at the full speed now, so we are now down to the wireless issue on the smarthub 2. Spoke with BT who eventually agreed to send out a new smarthub 2 to see if that will fix the issue...roll on wednesday!

You will probably find out there will be no change, I hope it does resolve your issues, but I have had 3 Smart Hubs sent to me in the past due to Wi-Fi, Hub being Sluggish and other issues, none of the replacements fixed those, yet all of my 3rd party routers had way better Wi-Fi than BT Hubs.

Don't get me wrong, the Smart Hubs are ok, they just work when you plug them in, but they are just soooooo locked down and to have it how you want you need another router used as a DMZ with the Smart Hub, so you might as well just remove the Smart Hub.

Maybe the Smart Hub 2 is different, ours is still in its box on the shelf to be used as a backup router or when there is a fault on the connection.

But that's just me.

Paul

What router you running at the moment?

In reply to a post by ravingkamikaze2:

What router you running at the moment?

I am currently using a MikroTik Tik RB4011iGS+RM (just a router without Wi-Fi) which is listed in my Sig.

Seems to be working great and at full load (i.e. using full connection) it only used 25% of the CPU, so plenty more resources available.

It comes with no Wi-Fi on this model which was why I chose it, I am using a Ubiquiti UniFi nanoHD Access Point for our Wi-Fi which works great.

I chose to separate the two so that if I wanted to upgrade one part I can.

I have the following issues with this router:

• The storage is a bit on the low side and there is no USB to add external storage, so at a later date I will have to setup a server to store the routers logs (Rsyslog).
• By default IPv6 is disabled, this is due to there is no Firewall Filters / Rules in place of IPv6, so I had to enable that and add those.
• It came with no manual due to its all online, sadly some of the examples don't work due to they are for an older / previous version of the firmware, but will hopefully get updated later on.

Other than that its running nice and cool at 27°C which is good for a fanless router considering its located right by the window.

I was also setting it all up while using the old router and just enabled the DHCP and changed its IP once I was ready to swap over, this sped things up some what.

So overall I rather like this router, please be aware this router is not as easy setting up as other routers, so just a heads up.

Paul

Got fed wih up waiting for BT Business to release the 1 Gig service so have placed an online order with BT Residential for Fibre 900 for £59.99/m. Went through Quidco so should hopefully get £100 cashback as a nice brucie bonus (not a biggie if I don't though).

Have been given an activation date of 22nd May and the service should be going live on Port 4 of the ONT. The icing on the cake was BT Residential should be able to transfer my yay.com landline VOIP number back to copper, which I've had for donkeys years. BT Business couldn't do the transfer when i asked them to do the same (apparently they don't do voip>voip number transfers just yet)

Will update once I go live, but not expecting any issues since I'm ordering as a new customer.

Happy days

You currently have 3 x 330/350Mb services on ports 1-3 is that right?

Are you aware that the 4 port ONT is apparently limited to 1Gb total downstream bandwidth?
Or is it your intention to cancel some/all of the feeds on ports 1-3?

If not the ONT might be quite the bottleneck on the downstream.

Yep aware of the bandwidth limitations on the HG8240.

Plan is to cease the services on ports 1 & 2 very soon. Once CityFibre install fibre by the end of year (spoke to CF local delivery manager who said my street will definitively be cabled up) , then I plan on getting rid of the BT Business 330/50 line as well. The BT 1000/115 line will purely be for personal use whilst I will take out a 1000/1000 CityFibre service through a reseller such as Highnet and that will be used for work where I really need the higher up upload.

In reply to a post by Highland76:

Got fed wih up waiting for BT Business to release the 1 Gig service so have placed an online order with BT Residential for Fibre 900 for £59.99/m.

Have been given an activation date of 22nd May and the service should be going live on Port 4 of the ONT.

[censored].... They cancelled mine as they can only do Port 1 apparently. I supposedly have a complaint open but hear nothing back. Please update if it goes live. Will be chasing complaint tomorrow.

Dave

So I thought I would have another go to sort a connection with BT.

Spoke to Michael in Dundee, he said no problem but then advised couldn't do anything as it was not possible to raise an order on Port 2. He did however put me through to Amy in FTTH team. Amy checked line and could raise a service on Port 2 but the only two options were port the existing number across or have a new line installed (not happening right now).

Apparently we are a BROWNFIELD site and no Voice over Fibre of any sort. Will continue to use copper phone line. So they will install a second phone line and then bin it by 2025!

Is this a thing?

Cheers

Dave

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

Apparently we are a BROWNFIELD site and no Voice over Fibre of any sort. Will continue to use copper phone line. So they will install a second phone line and then bin it by 2025!

Is this a thing?

I think it could be. I have a friend who lives in Milton Keynes (where there's FTTP) and they installed a separate copper pair for the "phone line" - no option not to take it. Was a few years ago though.

The sad thing with them forcing a copper line on you is then later on they will offer VoIP over fibre which people will take to get off copper and then they get charged the cease of copper line fee.

I asked BT when or if they will be providing SOGEA any time soon and they told me that they have no current plans to provide that, but then again they said the same for the faster speeds.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

I asked BT when or if they will be providing SOGEA any time soon and they told me that they have no current plans to provide that, but then again they said the same for the faster speeds.

Paul

That just goes to show that front line support staff know what they need to know to help customers and nothing more.

BT are doing some SOGEA already, it's Digital Voice over their FTTC products.
There's loads of examples of it on their forums.

Front line support staff aren't going to be in the know on what products are launching, let alone the date of such launches.
BT FTTP staff didn't have a clue the Full Fibre 900 product was coming. The 1st they knew of it was when customers started calling to order it.

I would be gobsmacked if I got a BT rep on the phone who had ever heard the term SOGEA before.
It's absolutely not the kind of thing they get trained in.
They have no need to know the name of the OpenReach product like SOTAP, SOGEA or SOGFAST.
BT staff will simply know of it as Digital Voice.

Edited by j0hn83 (Fri 15-May-20 21:58:44)

If you go to the BT Business website, all the FTTC options on offer at the top of the products are with Digital Voice. (Or were a few weeks ago). You have to scroll down and click for more to see the identical products with "normal line", or some such wording.