BT - Where do I go from here?

I live in rural NE Scotland and for three years have been trying to get BT to solve a problem with my broadband.

Because of my location my normal download speed never exceeds 1.8 Mb but in bad weatjer this drops to as low as 0.13.For the last five days my IP profile has been 135Kb.

In the past BT Total Broadband hi-level faults department have said the problem is damp on the line.

Last week I emailed both Sir Michael Rake and Ian Livingstone and have not even had the courtesy of an acknowledgement.

The fault has also been reported to BT - yesterday the engineer failed to reach me because of the weather. Later in the evening BT called me from India to tell me the fault had been repaired! Another engineer is now due on Thursday.

I am not expecting 8MB where I live but do not think it too much to ask for a consistent 1.8 connection.

Is there is minimum connection spped that must be maintained?

Where do I go from here to get the problem rectified?

Minimum is 28Kilo bits per second using dial-up

So they can legally just say take or it leave it with broadband.

A lot depends on how the case was presented to the people you contacted, and what information there is about this in your account, i.e. it may simply be a water ingress issue, but tracking this down in 4 or 5km of cable is difficult.

If its affecting the voice calls, then BT obligations are different, and you may stand a better chance, often because diagnosis is easier.

Thanks for the reply

It doesn't sound good for the 2MB across the country aim.

Where do you live in North East Scotland as I also live in North East Scotland

The 2Mega bits USC is a long way off since a date of 2015 has been set, and the launch of a satellite offering 10Meg to almost all the UK means it is possible now

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Minimum is 28Kilo bits per second using dial-up

So they can legally just say take or it leave it with broadband.

A lot depends on how the case was presented to the people you contacted, and what information there is about this in your account, i.e. it may simply be a water ingress issue, but tracking this down in 4 or 5km of cable is difficult.

If its affecting the voice calls, then BT obligations are different, and you may stand a better chance, often because diagnosis is easier.

I also live in a Rural area and 2.5 miles from the exchange. I have a choice BT or Virgin or Skye. I complained to BT regarding my poor speed and basicly was told tough yes it is slow.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The 2Mega bits USC is a long way off since a date of 2015 has been set, and the launch of a satellite offering 10Meg to almost all the UK means it is possible now

Spot on!! There appears to be this assumption that this 2mb by 2015 will be through and line or cable. We are soley at the mercy of private companies.

Edited by NilSatisOptimum (Thu 27-Jan-11 16:10:35)

My tale is almost identical to yours.

We also live approx' 2.5km from the exchange and should get 2 mbps, this fluctuates from 76 kbps up to 1.8 mbps on a good day. Our IP profile is at the moment set at 1750 but often drops to the magical 135!

We have had in excess of 10 engineer visits to our home and our problems still persist.
I have weekly contact with high level complaints / chairman's office. Tomorrow we are having another engineer out and if he cannot rectify the fault BT have said they will release us from our contract.

Whoopeee, released by BT but NO braoadband service.

Where do we go from here.

The major difference to your tale is that we do not live out in the sticks, but in the middle of the CITY OF LEEDS!

Come on BT sort all our problems out!

Use this to see what is available from your exchange, e.g. are there any LLU providers?

Post a link to the results please as this will help folk to suggest another ISP since you appear to be getting away from BT.

Of course your phone line wiring in the house will have to be OK no matter what ISP you use.

Do you have one of the new style sockets fitted as the master socket?

In reply to a post by Apprentice:

Use this to see what is available from your exchange, e.g. are there any LLU providers?

Post a link to the results please as this will help folk to suggest another ISP since you appear to be getting away from BT.

Of course your phone line wiring in the house will have to be OK no matter what ISP you use.

Do you have one of the new style sockets fitted as the master socket?

Apologies for hijacking the OP thread, hopefully the replies will benefit us both.

One of the problems we have had is the hub resetting when we receive an incoming phone call, but as you can see below we have had a continuous connection for over 6 days now which is a record!

Our Exchange

We had one of these BT vDSl sockets fitted two weeks ago

Our line stats from the BT Hub

ADSL line status

Connection Information

Line state Connected
Connection time 6 days, 06:20:04
Downstream 2,784 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) 8.5 dB / 15.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 59.0 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 4.3 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) 21156 / 860
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 2828 / 312
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 17514 / 245
Error Seconds (Local/Remote) 1164 / 241

And the BT Speedtester result

Test1 comprises of two tests

1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.

Download Speed
1502 Kbps

0 Kbps 2000 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 1502 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 800-2000 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :2784 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 1750 Kbps
The throughput of Best Efforts (BE) classes achieved during the test is - 2.9:16.74:80.42 (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
362 Kbps

0 Kbps 448 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

>Upload speed achieved during the test was - 362 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 448 Kbps

Many thanks