BT High Level Complaints

Hi

I have had ongoing problems with my broadband connection for a long time, resulting in excess of 15 engineering visits to my home, six router exchanges, but never any apologies.

Problems have been the usual slow speeds, drop in/ sticking Bras profile and recently my HH2 router resetting itself every time I receive or make a phone call.

At my last bout of problems they did say they would withdraw the service / release me from their contract as they could not find where the faults were occurring. My concern with that is where it would leave me to go.

Having communicated with BT High Level complaints throughout in the past they are now completely ignoring my emails and messages left on their answer phone.

What would you do?

ADSL line status

Connection Information

Line state Connected
Connection time 1 days, 01:50:28
Downstream 1,856 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 12.4 dB / 13.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 58.6 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 2.9 dBm / 1.3 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 943 / 199
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 167 / 81
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 856 / 68
Error Seconds (Local/Remote) 109 / 38

Edited by deleted (Wed 23-Feb-11 11:09:07)

Have you tried other ADSL hardware on the line, not all devices behave gracefully on longer lines that have noise issues.

A connection time of 24 hours suggests things are not horrendous.

Hi

I have only tried the BT HH2 as we utilise hub phones when we can receive and make phone calls.

I agree 24 hours is not horrendous, but I believe that is only because we were away all day yesterday and did not use the phone. For instance on Saturday morning we received 5 phone calls all of which were cut off and the hub reset itself on each occasion, which of course impacted on BT IP profiling.

Thanks

The hub phones have now been abandoned by BT, the home hub 3 doesn't support them, I wonder if that's because of lots of problems.

As BT allows you to use other ADSL kit as already suggested it might be worth hooking another router up just to see if that is the problem as I have seen reports that the HH2 can cause lots of disconnects.

HI. I would suggest virgin media if you are in there area. (Topcashback website £150 caskback).
Your line length is so long hence why you get slow speed.
I would remove the front cover of your bt socket (NTE5), This should disconnect all your phone extensions (if wired correctly). Now plug in your microfilter and router (front cover still off).
You can now test this and see if it has fixed your problems.

Another option is Three mobile, they have a mobile plan that is called the One Plan, This might be the best if you can not virgin media cable. The One plan (topcashback about £100) is £25 p/m 2000 mins and All You Can EAT Data usage. This means mobile broadband unlimited (using a mobile phone) and should be faster the your BT connection
.
Regards
Jon

Well BT must read this forum as they have finally rung.

Advised to plug into test socket and will come back to me on Saturday.

Here are the latest stats

Connection Information

Line state Connected
Connection time 0 days, 00:13:56
Downstream 2,336 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 9.1 dB / 15.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 58.9 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 3.7 dBm / 1.3 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 12 / 3
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 4 / 0
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 9 / 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote) 2 / 0



And BT Speedtestet

est1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.

Download Speed
1495 Kbps

0 Kbps 2000 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 1495 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 800-2000 Kbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 1750 Kbps
The throughput of Best Efforts (BE) classes achieved during the test is - 3.69:16.33:79.99 (SBE:NBE:PBE)

In reply to a post by commsguru:

HI. I would suggest virgin media if you are in there area. (Topcashback website £150 caskback).
Your line length is so long hence why you get slow speed.
I would remove the front cover of your bt socket (NTE5), This should disconnect all your phone extensions (if wired correctly). Now plug in your microfilter and router (front cover still off).
You can now test this and see if it has fixed your problems.

Another option is Three mobile, they have a mobile plan that is called the One Plan, This might be the best if you can not virgin media cable. The One plan (topcashback about £100) is £25 p/m 2000 mins and All You Can EAT Data usage. This means mobile broadband unlimited (using a mobile phone) and should be faster the your BT connection
.
Regards
Jon

Hi

I am now plugged directly into the test socket with a filter, although I cannot see it making any difference as the router is the only item plugged into the socket as we have no extensions etc

We already have the three dongle of using our laptop at our caravan, but it is no use to us at home with 2 PC's, 1 laptop, xbox live, PSP and smartphones.

We do not have cable in our area. But our exchange Hunslet does have BE LLU whom I have heard good reports about.

Thanks

Edited by deleted (Wed 23-Feb-11 12:06:12)

In reply to a post by undecidedadrian:

The hub phones have now been abandoned by BT, the home hub 3 doesn't support them, I wonder if that's because of lots of problems.

As BT allows you to use other ADSL kit as already suggested it might be worth hooking another router up just to see if that is the problem as I have seen reports that the HH2 can cause lots of disconnects.

That may be my next line of negotiation with BT. Shame because it will necessitate me buying a new telephone system when I have purchased 5 hub phones.

What other ADSL kit would you suggest and I wonder if BT would fund it?

Thanks

Sounds more like a power supply/firmware issue in the HH2 than an actual ADSL issue.

On a long line any reboot of the ADSL hardware can mean a noticeable drop in speed, whereas for those getting 4Meg or so, 0.5Meg up or down is not such a major issue.

As has been said the phones appear to have been dropped now, if you have spent a lot on them, and can find others having same issue, then you can say goods are not fit for the purpose they are sold for, i.e. return and refund time.

Problem is that while VoIP calls are cheap or free, a lot of the decent VoIP hardware is not.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

On a long line any reboot of the ADSL hardware can mean a noticeable drop in speed, whereas for those getting 4Meg or so, 0.5Meg up or down is not such a major issue.

How right you are there!

hi faz1964, Have you heard of MIFI by Three this will make 5 WIFI connections. But I have heard the one plan sim should not be used in this ;(
To go the one plan route you should use an IPhone or Andriod to make a WIFI Hotspot.
You haven't said if you can get Virgin Media Cable.

any luck using the test socket?
regards
Jon

Also the home hub phones is most likey been dropped because there is no line rental money involved. BT can make more money charging £13 p/m line rental.
I personally use Vonage £5.99 p/m inc uk calls.

Edited by deleted (Wed 23-Feb-11 12:43:47)

The OP is in the test socket now. "We do not have cable in our area."

In reply to a post by commsguru:

hi faz1964, Have you heard of MIFI by Three this will make 5 WIFI connections. But I have heard the one plan sim should not be used in this ;(
To go the one plan route you should use an IPhone or Andriod to make a WIFI Hotspot.
You haven't said if you can get Virgin Media Cable.

any luck using the test socket?
regards
Jon

Also the home hub phones is most likey been dropped because there is no line rental money involved. BT can make more money charging £13 p/m line rental.
I personally use Vonage £5.99 p/m inc uk calls.

Hi Jon

Have Android HTC Desire and can use it as a wifi hotspot. But I'm sure they would get wise to 2 PC's, laptop, xbox live, PSP and smartphone being used through it!

Regarding mifi I've heard bad reports about it, but there again............

No cable and so far so good with the test socket, but time will tell.

As for the hub phones, as I say I have five and the cheeky t...s are still selling them at £68.49

Thanks

Post deleted by faz1964

In reply to a post by faz1964:

Well BT must read this forum as they have finally rung.

Advised to plug into test socket and will come back to me on Saturday.

Here are the latest stats

Connection Information

Line state Connected
Connection time 0 days, 00:13:56
Downstream 2,336 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 9.1 dB / 15.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 58.9 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 3.7 dBm / 1.3 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 12 / 3
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 4 / 0
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 9 / 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote) 2 / 0



And BT Speedtestet

est1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.

Download Speed
1495 Kbps

0 Kbps 2000 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 1495 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 800-2000 Kbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 1750 Kbps
The throughput of Best Efforts (BE) classes achieved during the test is - 3.69:16.33:79.99 (SBE:NBE:PBE)

Well the stats are a bit better than your first ones. The higher sync looks to be due to the lower noise margin though, which might point to considerable noise variation - as your first one had been up less than 2 hours.

Given that sync for 3-5 days your IP Profile should rise to 2Mbps from the 1750kbps, so that would give you a bit more speed.

Were there any wires attached to the faceplate which you have removed?

Depending on your needs with the Hub, If the long line continues to be trouble, i would suggest 2700hvg business hub. Have a good record on hanging on to long lines and getting the best out of the situation.

In reply to a post by commsguru:

hi faz1964, Have you heard of MIFI by Three this will make 5 WIFI connections. But I have heard the one plan sim should not be used in this ;(
To go the one plan route you should use an IPhone or Andriod to make a WIFI Hotspot.
You haven't said if you can get Virgin Media Cable.

any luck using the test socket?
regards
Jon

Also the home hub phones is most likey been dropped because there is no line rental money involved. BT can make more money charging £13 p/m line rental.
I personally use Vonage £5.99 p/m inc uk calls.

When I was with BT, I slung the hub phones, because after they updated themselves with new firmware, they continually shut down during a call. i expect that is the reason for the discontinuation. I think the idea of it being related to line rental is laughable, as I never found a way to use BT broadband without first paying line rental.

when I contacted BT's chairmans office I was greeted by a standard response of "goto your services provider". Epic fail there from BT. Some people have had better success than me going down that route tho.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

when I contacted BT's chairmans office I was greeted by a standard response of "goto your services provider". Epic fail there from BT. Some people have had better success than me going down that route tho.

I had my line fixed within 3 days of contacting that email
And they are going to keep an eye on my line for 3 weeks to make sure all is good again

2 days ago i had a mass of errors and disconnections again and they got in contact with me to say they had seen the disconnections and errors and would fix it asap
Line was good again within 10 mins
Think its just your luck with them

Hi faz1964

I have just seen your post and would like to help you with this to see if there is anything I can do to get your broadband service sorted out. If you drop me an e-mail to [email protected] with your account number and a link to this thread I will gladly look into this for you.

Regards David

@faz1964

That's decent of BT_Care to offer some help.
BUT if you take up their offer can you please keep this thread updated as often the outcome doesn't get published on TBB (which is a forum to help others)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

when I contacted BT's chairmans office I was greeted by a standard response of "goto your services provider". Epic fail there from BT. Some people have had better success than me going down that route tho.

Had a similar response from Livingston too, the responsibility lies with your isp's,blah,blah blah, when it's the bt infrastructure the copper pair and it's routing & and it's close proximity to mains cables under the roads &footpaths to blame for interference poor speeds,high attenuation because the line is routed around your town before your home

bt wont usually reroute any cables etc just to boost adsl speeds without a request from council etc.., but if your isp raises a fault and is willing to pay to have network alterations done bt will be happy to do this. Unfortunetly the low price of adsl means they would be very unwilling to spend the thousands necessary. If the electric cables are causing interference then by raising a broadband fault you can have your line AC balance tested by an engineer who can tell if the noise generated from the power is causing a problem and they can get it sorted - either by swapping the pair or sorting with electricity board. There was an issue I heard of recently of a new street lighting system going up and knocking out / slowing down people adsl - turned out the lighting etc hadnt been properly earthed, something the electricity board quickly fixed.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

bt wont usually reroute any cables etc just to boost adsl speeds without a request from council etc.., but if your isp raises a fault and is willing to pay to have network alterations done bt will be happy to do this. Unfortunetly the low price of adsl means they would be very unwilling to spend the thousands necessary. If the electric cables are causing interference then by raising a broadband fault you can have your line AC balance tested by an engineer who can tell if the noise generated from the power is causing a problem and they can get it sorted - either by swapping the pair or sorting with electricity board. There was an issue I heard of recently of a new street lighting system going up and knocking out / slowing down people adsl - turned out the lighting etc hadnt been properly earthed, something the electricity board quickly fixed.

There is a person who used to be a regular here, he worked for an adsl isp and had good technical know howof what BT engineers can do, he had a situation where his attenuation shot up following a move to sky and he knew exactly what the cause was (switched back to unoptimal line routing), when the engineer visited he more or less told the engineer what to do in exact technical terms, the cabinet number to route through etc. and of course go tan extra couple meg on sync and atten reduced by a fair bit as well. Before he said this to the engineer he was fed the usual rubbish about it been an unfixable situation and tough luck.

Another interesting thing is the broadband map feature on this website, it shows the housing estate across the road from me is 90% red with yellow dots on the edges. Inside the middle there is the occasional green dot, clearly some lines are routed better than others, either by overide or just sheer luck of always been like that. That map is superb as its easy to trace the routing from the exchange by following the green to yellow to red trend. My routing is zig zagged about 3 times. In the past 18 months nearly every road between me and the exchange has had emergency roadworks done by the gas companies, so there was oppurtunity for BT to fix things cheaply if they cooperated with the gas company.

High level complaints got back to me and have said as my line seems to be running fine now from the test socket (Down from 1.8mbps to 1mbps, and Bras profile down from 2000 to 1000!) I need to go out and buy a new NTE5 faceplate to replace the one they have supplied me!

Still waiting for BT care to come back to me after supplying requested information.

Latest stats




Line state Connected
Connection time 1 days, 02:50:26
Downstream 2,144 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 6.5 dB / 15.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 59.2 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 3.4 dBm / 1.3 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 20012 / 299
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 10284 / 425
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 104200 / 343
Error Seconds (Local/Remote) 566 / 210

Edited by deleted (Sun 27-Feb-11 11:42:29)

yeah sounds like cab routings you are talking about for that isp guy. It happens around here sometimes. For example Cabinet 1 has 1000prs but only 100prs are copper the rest are ali. A customer rings sky and orders full LLU away from BT. Now this regularly happens: Engineer picks up job to get 2nd line to house for sky as BT line is still showing as worker as sky or the customer have not organised for the BT line to be shut of in tandem with the install. The engineer goes to customer and is told they dont want a second line just to swap provider. The sky line has been provided on the ali cables and wired up in exchange already as there are no copper pairs left, the engineer reruns the cabinet jumper to tie the end user to the sky dail-tone at the cabinet. Some time later the BT service gets ceased.
Now while all this was going on another eu complains of slow speeds - an engineer checks the database and sees that there is a BT line on the copper cable which is no longer in use and utilises the pair for the 2nd customer.
The first customer gets on the blower to sky to complain that their line is slower than before, sky send an openreach engineer who checks the database and finds that there are no longer any spare copper lines at the cabinet.
First customer is now stuck on the ali cable until he / she happens to raise a fault whilst there is a cancellation on the copper cable or the ISP pay to have the ali cable changed to copper (which they would never be able to do with the economics involved).
It is a nightmare for all involved. Despite engineers best efforts (and possibly now against competition rules) even when bumping PSTN only lines onto ali esides, or fibre customers onto ali esides (which wouldnt effect their service) there can be no guarantee that once you change your line provider that you will keep the same pair.
One method to help this would be giving engineers more time on each job so that they could investigate the original routing and redo any exchange work, but demands from CPs / ISps to have engineer services at low cost means we now have engineers on trackers running about like crazy trying to get as many jobs done as possible as cheaply as possible with the constant threat of dismissal. It is another unfortunate effect of having such an ever declining margin due to mass competition.

Hi Again, So it is working fom the test socket, You want to call bt and get them to replace the socket as it is BT responsablity. I dont understand how they have made so many engineer visits and not sorted it,
Glad its sorted, Jon

So far so good for my connection.

Bras profile still only 1250kbps so download only circa 1mbps.

Connection Information

Line state Connected
Connection time 3 days, 03:18:18
Downstream 2,304 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 8.9 dB / 14.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 58.7 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 3.7 dBm / 1.3 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 6337 / 607
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 11229 / 451
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 97724 / 378
Error Seconds (Local/Remote) 730 / 241

Spoke too soon my wife has just rung, phone cut off and router has reset! Arrrrrrrrrgggg



Connection Information

Line state Connected
Connection time 0 days, 00:02:34
Downstream 2,176 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 9.2 dB / 15.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 58.7 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 3.4 dBm / 1.4 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote) 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 7 / 2
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 100 / 13
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 1884 / 7
Error Seconds (Local/Remote) 2 / 2



Test1 comprises of two tests

1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.

Download Speed
1450 Kbps

0 Kbps 2000 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 1450 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 800-2000 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :2176 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 1250 Kbps
The throughput of Best Efforts (BE) classes achieved during the test is - 23.03:28.0:49.0 (SBE:NBE:PBE)
These figures represent the ratio while sententiously passing Sub BE, Normal BE and Priority BE marked traffic.

The results of this test will vary depending on the way your ISP has decided to use these traffic classes.

2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.

Upload Speed
356 Kbps

0 Kbps 448 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

>Upload speed achieved during the test was - 356 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 448 Kbps


We were unable to identify any performance problem with your service at this time.
It is possible that any problem you are currently, or had previously experienced may have been caused by traffic congestion on the Internet or by the server you were accessing responding slowly.
If you continue to encounter a problem with a specific server, please contact the administrator of that server in the first instance.

Edited by deleted (Thu 03-Mar-11 20:45:48)