ADSL Woes

Sorry for the rant in advance, but I need to vent.

Last Thursday I noted that my broadband speed dropped from their usual blindingly fast 1.2Mbps to 0.8Mbps. I awoke on Friday morning to no broadband whatsoever, which is how things remained until Sunday when my broadband coughed and spluttered back into life with a jaw dropping 0.2Mbps.

I've spoken to EE who said that there was a voice fault on the line, and an OpenReach engineer came out today. Anyway...surprise surprise there wasn't anything to find on the line despite nearly two hours of diagnostics. The engineer fiddled with the line, then said give it a few hours and my broadband connection should start to improve.

So here I am...10pm and absolutely no improvement to my broadband speeds whatsoever. I managed to speak to EE (Indian call centre) earlier and suggested to them that my line might be on a banded profile. After 20 minutes of box ticking questions, the chap finally agreed that I was on a banded profile and sai for me to leave it with him...and then promptly hung up on me.

My line stats are as follows:

adsl: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 8000
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 536 Kbps, Downstream rate = 672 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 440 Kbps, Downstream rate = 277 Kbps

Link Power State: L0
Mode: ADSL2
TPS-TC: ATM Mode
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 5.7 9.4
Attn(dB): 65.5 39.8
Pwr(dBm): 0.0 12.7

ADSL2 framing
Bearer 0
MSGc: 64 12
B: 8 55
M: 1 1
T: 1 1
R: 12 8
S: 0.9231 4.0000
L: 182 128
D: 32 8

Counters
Bearer 0
SF: 804500 721944
SFErr: 0 17
RS: 56314900 110103
RSCorr: 2990513 749
RSUnCorr: 0 0

Bearer 0
HEC: 0 20
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 8500375 13447504
Data Cells: 5722561 5913329
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 2190

ES: 0 18
SES: 0 0
UAS: 117 117
AS: 12990

Bearer 0
INP: 8.00 2.00
INPRein: 0 0
delay: 7 8
PER: 16.15 18.00
OR: 34.66 8.00

Bitswap: 5262/5263 0/0

Total time = 5 hours 44 sec
FEC: 4570783 1090
CRC: 0 39
ES: 0 18
SES: 0 0
UAS: 117 117
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 15 minutes time = 44 sec
FEC: 5744 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
FEC: 116375 12
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 1 day time = 5 hours 44 sec
FEC: 4570783 1090
CRC: 0 39
ES: 0 18
SES: 0 0
UAS: 117 117
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 1 day time = 0 sec
FEC: 0 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Since Link time = 3 hours 36 min 35 sec
FEC: 2990513 749
CRC: 0 17
ES: 0 9
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0

Does anyone have any idea what might be going on? Will I ever get my super amazing 1.blah Mbps broadband back or am I stuck with a connection that is barely better than dialup?

Cheers for sticking me with this far!
John

Are the attenuation figures in line with what you had before?

Evening,

Yes...no real difference. It is what is making me think that something else is going on :/

JT

Okay in which case I think the line may have been banded based on the upstream speed. Not very harsh banding but hints of it.

What you need now is EE to do what they should have done in the beginning and arrange a broadband engineer visit. Voice should only be booked if the voice line is playing up when all broadband hardware has been disconnected.

If the line is clean then the engineer can recommend a DLM reset so line can train from new once more.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Is the removal of the profile something EE can do without OpenReach intervention as the tech support guy suggested?

I got the distinct impression that I was being fobbed off tbh :/

JT

Removal is something BT Wholesale do, but usually they like to have gone through hoops to show its not an end-user wiring/hardware issue which the Openreach engineer will do. Resetting DLM when a fault exists is pretty useless as in a few days you end up back at the same position.

Some providers are better at handling all of this and some just say the right things so you go away.

Ok, thanks for that. I'll see if anything changes over the next 24 hours then give them another call.

So, after trying all day to get through to somebody who could help me (I was hung up on three times and fobbed off twice) I managed to get through to somebody who sounded like he knew what was causing the problem.

Apparently, there was a voice fault registered on my line and as such I'd been placed on a banded broadband profile. I have been told (after the chap consulted with Level 2 support) that by closing the fault, their system should remove the banding within 24 hours. If not, then I'm to call back tomorrow and they will register a broadband fault on the line.

I'm not holding my breath tbh, and I now seriously doubt that I'll be renewing my contract with EE when I'm up for renewal.

I guess you only find out how a good a company is when something goes wrong...

Hello,

So the total omnishambles continues. After speaking to five (yes...five) separate people today I managed to get a call back this evening from "Level 2" support....hooray!

Sadly...not hurray. They tried to go through the whole scripted nonsense yet again, but tonight I refused and decided not to play ball. After "tests" on the line they determined exactly what I'd been telling them all week, that the line should get between 1Mbps and 3Mbps...and that I was stuck at 0.2Mbps.

Their solution...another full day appointment for yet another BT engineer to come to my house. Anyway, I refused...if the engineer who was here for hours earlier in the week couldn't find a fault at my home, I'm presuming that the fault/issue must be somewhere between my house and the exchange. Honestly, my wife and I both work and can't sit in the house all day waiting for an engineer to come out...and the earliest it was going to happen was two weeks on Thursday!!!

So, I refused...and magically the fault has now been passed back to BT to deal with at the exchange...apparently.

EE should be totally ashamed...I've been lied to, hung up on, and fobbed off. If anyone is reading this please please please have absolutely nothing to do with EE. Their customer service is staffed by script reading robots, and their ability to deal with (quite frankly) basic faults is appalling.

Next stop for me will be Ofcom sadly...nobody should have to battle this hard to get a fault taken seriously.

Totally agree with your conclusion on EE.

I have had dealings with many ISPs over the years, but EE are by far the worst. I've never had a supplier charge me FOUR times for the same bill, then threaten to suspend my services, despite being over £300 in credit!

If it weren't for the fact I paid my line rental up front I'd transfer to another provider. As it is they still want another £100 if I cancel my contract.

I share your frustration, my disconnect issues have been ongoing since last October. EE and Openreach have had me miss 19 days of work in that time due to appointments not kept, insistence that I be there for phone calls when not needed and Mumbai failing top pass information on. Openreach finally called on 08/07/2015 at 1703 and told me I had to be in for an engineer visit on 09/07/2015 at 0800. I explained that I worked night shift and may not be available for 0800, engineer hummed and hawed about this as apparently less than 15 hours notice is fine!! went to work and boss said if I couldn't finish a whole shift due to this then I was to go home, so no pay there again. 0800 came an went with the engineer finally turning up at 1130 and doing....yet another copper line test, this being the fifth. Took out his REIN meter and proclaimed my equipment as fine (I had already done all this) then informed me that the issue was external. I explained that I had already told both EE and Openreach this and explained that I am a network engineer and had diagnosed this months ago. Talk about looking embarrassed. EE emailed today with an offer of £20 as compensation, for 10 months of absolute *Expletive deleted* service, never mind that I am out of pocket over £3000 in missed wages and bonuses, £20 will make it all better. Needless to say they were told where to stuff it.

"glad" to hear I'm not the only one!

Today has seen more of the same merry-go-round as the past 10 days. Apparently EE haven't got a complaints department (!) according to their call centre, and there isn't any way of being able to contact anyone in the UK for assistance...so frustrated.

I have been assured that my problem has been escalated to the "level 2" team; anyone know what that actually is? My experience so far is that the "level 2" team are twice as inept as the "technical support" team, but appear to be able to repeatedly blame BT for the problems that I'm experiencing...despite not being able to tell me what the problem actually is and why it is BT's fault.

So, another day and week goes by without any meaningful broadband connection. I just hope that this post stands as testament to how utterly, unbelievably, terribly awful EE broadband customer service is. I just wonder what would happen if somebody who wasn't able to deal with these utter muppets (e.g. elderly people or the technically illiterate) suffered a technical problem?

Do not sign up for EE home broadband...I cannot emphasise how terrible they are!

Edited by deleted (Fri 10-Jul-15 18:20:40)

So the nonsense continues...

Just had a call from "technical support" to book yet another engineer appointment to review my home setup!?!? I'm ashamed to say that I lost it on the phone somewhat...why on earth they need access to my home address when the problem is at the exchange is beyond me.

Then, to add insult to injury, apparently they didn't have my mobile number recorded properly...which is why nobody has been calling me back...despite the fact that they have been calling me back!!!

left hand....right hand...

So, no meaningful broadband connection until at least Tuesday...

EE broadband is a total joke...avoid

To be fair the broadband EE supply is OK, it's the support (can you call it support when it is so poor?) that is a "joke".

Even Ispa.org.uk have given up chasing EE in my case and passed me onto CISAS.

As I said before...it is good when it is good...when it is bad it is terrible :/

In reply to a post by hk11:

I have had dealings with many ISPs over the years, but EE are by far the worst. I've never had a supplier charge me FOUR times for the same bill, then threaten to suspend my services, despite being over £300 in credit!

I don�t understand how you could be charged four times for the same bill, one thing I like about EE is their customer accounts system. I have direct debits with Orange, T-Mobile and EE, every second and pence charged is accounted for and clearly displayed on the website.

I guess the OP is just unlucky. I've had plenty of companies change me multiple times for the same billing period...BT comes to mind.

In reply to a post by E7er:

I don�t understand how you could be charged four times for the same bill

Me neither.

I think there is some flaw in their accounts system. Their automated payment system managed to take two payments for the same bill: perhaps there is no distinction between debit and credit and when I became £100 in credit it decided I owed them £100, rather than the other way round? Fortunately I paid on crefit card and have left it up to my bank to sort it out with EE and hopefully they will, in time, get an explanation.

Just a final update for anyone who was watching this thread.

I gave up on EE in the end; the script reading numpties at Customer Services finally drove me to switching.

Whilst I've still got problems with my broadband line, I'm now with Zen who actually appear to understand the technology behind the service.

JT

Zen are one of the best you won't regret it or look back

In reply to a post by jdtanner:

I gave up on EE in the end;

I'm surprised more don't, but being tied to a contract doesn't help. It's about time something was done to stop these companies holding you to a contract when they can't provide a basic customer service!