Definitely not obliged but a nice guy would do it for you

Persuade him to do it. Claim it's a nightmare to use and there's often 5+ people using the broadband so it's almost like dial-up. Say that it often drops to below 1Mbps overnight in the router statistics... Tell him that all of the neighbours have better sync speed. Hopefully he'll take some sympathy on you and try to make it better

I'll certainly turn the charm on, thanks for the tips! I'll update again tomorrow after they have been.

Well - the BT Openreach engineer came out this morning and told me he was a line engineer not a broadband engineer as sky had raised this as a Line fault. After plying him with biscuits and tea I pushed forward anyway and told him my story. He seemed sympathetic but he wouldn't change the E-side cable. What he did do thought, to his credit, is look over every inch of the D-side. He checked the joint and original connection that we thought had water leaking in (it hadn't), he got a cherry picker out to go up the telegraph pole to check for corrosion on the wire (he found a little bit and removed it and reattached the line). He also recrimped me in the green cab as he said it wasn't as good as it could be. He then left after advising I re-raised with sky to put it through as a broadband issue rather than a line fault. I then checked my sync speed after he'd gone.

No change in line attenuation but my broadband speed had gone up 0.2Mbps. Not what I was hoping for but we all know that the biggest change would have been the e-side cable being changed. To top off a run of bad luck that 0.2Mbps pushed the broadband to be the absolute minimum that Sky would accept hence they won't call Openreach out again for a broadband fault. Catch 22.

It is patently ridiculous that I can get quicker internet on my phone rather than a dedicated line into the house, but there is literally nothing I can do now unless any of you guys have any ideas?

Edited by deleted (Sat 08-Sep-12 21:40:39)

but there is literally nothing I can do now unless any of you guys have any ideas?

Kick off with Sky, go round to your nieghbour and write down their line stats, keep on and on at Sky, they are your ISP, it is for them to resolve this. If they won't, then ask for a MAC code, and go to an ISP who will.

Just out of pure interest, I assume he puts me on a different E-side cable at the green cab? Does he then have to drive to the Exchange and re-patch me in the exchange? I've often wondered how it works.

Having found a good clean spare amongst those suggested by the routing and records team, the engineer will drive back to the exchange and run a new jumper (pair of wires) between the original (in your case) TAMS out block and the new barpair. If the engineer is VERY lucky, it will be a manned exchange and they can just ring up and have someone do it for them. This is VERY rare, at least round these parts.

There is no speed obligation, let alone an obligation to even provide a service. Providers are within their rights to say sorry we cannot meet your expectations, feel free to leave with no penalty

Which was my second option for the OP, leave and find another ISP who WILL fight one's corner.

Try rebooting the modem late at night, you might be able to lose the 0.2

Well good to see that the OR guy give it a good look over but would have been quicker / easer to just change out the E side ?

Perhaps but depends on what freedom of operation they had to do things. Or maybe there are no spare E sides to swap over to, or all the good ones are already occupied?