PM me when you call support please so I can monitor the Faults progress.

All the best,

i will do, decided to wait and monitor the problem this evening in case the problems im seeing currently are BT working/upgrading on equipment in the exchange (sat and sunday night? who knows how they work). speedtests 8pm onwards last night were very variable sometimes less than 10Mbps but it's the packetloss that's the annoying thing. It's been ok so far today.

the main reason i decided to wait is i found this snippet from a post dated 1/3/14 over on the bt forums n0w2 kindly linked.



"I had another update from Plusnet yesterday which pretty much echoes StephanieG's post from yesterday i.e. faults have been found with two core links at the exchange. They acknowledged that whilst some customers (like n0w2, Crib and myself) have seen a big improvement over the last few days, many customers are still having problems. They asked me to contiune monitoring packet loss and connection speed whilst they continue to work on the problem. They also mentioned "Should this be the cause then extensive engineering work will be carried out overnight in the early part of next week".



So, whilst it's not resolved for everyone yet, they are now working hard to figure out what the problems are and we do seem to be getting somewhere."

so they might actually be working on the problem, lets hope so. i wont jump to conclusions just yet but the packetloss and problems i have been seeing since around the middle of last week looks suspiciously like contention problems, let's see tonight. as long as it's a temporary thing while they are working on the problem i'm ok with it.

Edited by deleted (Mon 03-Mar-14 15:11:54)

Please do keep me posted as you go along. If I can help I certainly will.

hi, you have llu right? how do you connect to the core links.


im nosey.

Edited by deleted (Tue 04-Mar-14 19:57:58)

I'm on the New LLU platform. I connect straight through the MSAN and from there to our AR's and in.

This is the same setup for all the new LLU platforms.

it was more of a general thing. to see how BT are slacking. they swapped it out now.


how do you as an isp connect into the bt backbone. seems sky was ok on this exchange so it only boils down to [censored] BT again. im wondering why it took so long to diagnose and repair (and how you allowed it to happen). i want answers. i dont pay you for the service i have had since xmas. it's now nearly 3 months later, disgusting. someone needs to answer and payup for it.

the sooner you bring in 1 month rolling contracts the better. anyway the [censored] i put up with your technical staff at the start when we had this problem i have more or less decided to move when contract is up anyway.


Till September is a long time to be grinding my teeth, let me go early? i didnt take any compensation you offered but i am unhappy with the service you gave so let me go to someone that can do what you used to do. send me a mac code. refuse and i will force the issue.

Edited by deleted (Sat 08-Mar-14 18:12:15)

I don't want to comment on the OP's case per se; that said, I can sympathise with the situation that he finds himself in. What I would like to do is to say something positive about Zen Support. On Thursday evening, I replaced a router and lost CHAP authentication. I switched back to my original router and again the router would not authenticate. Yesterday morning I contacted Zen Support and did a PPPoE check to a laptop which authenticated. Zen offered some advice but quite rightly (but somewhat frustratingly) said the problem was at my end of the connection. I spent the morning switching routers etc but despite having a DSL synchronisation I just couldn't get any of my 3 routers to authenticate. I then connected my laptop again directly to the OR modem and called Zen again for advice. This time the laptop would not authenticate. Zen took me through various tests with different usernames and passwords- all to no avail; they then agreed that there was a fault that would have to be referred back to BT. Within 10 minutes a Ticket had been raised followed by further updates as required. Authentication was re-established in the early hours of this morning. Zen are continuing to monitor the line. I am not sure that any ISP would have done more.

I appreciate that our 2 situations are not like-for-like.

So there are 2 different ways for an ISP to connect you to their network.

The first way is via LLU. An ISP puts a DSLAM into the exchange. The copper pairs that run to your house are then connected into this DSLAM. The ISP must then put connectivity into the exchange to connect the DSLAM back to their network to a BNG device (BNG stands for Broadband Network Gateway. This is also referred to as a BRAS, an LNS or a gateway).

The second way is via a wholesale provider. The most common of these is BT Wholesale, but talktalk as well as a few others also offer wholesale services. The wholesale provider install and manage the DSLAM. They then put connectivity in back to their network. The ISP then connects to the wholesale provider in a more central location straight into their BNG. BTWS have 20 locations in the UK where this occurs, and I believe this is a fairly poorly kept secret.

Zen have rolled out LLU connectivity to approx. 200 exchanges in the UK. From your description it doesn't appear that you are on one of these exchanges, so you are probably using BTWS to connect back into Zen's network. I would imagine from what you are describing that BTWS have congestion in the link from your exchange into their network.

Apparently BTWS are having this problem at a number of exchanges at the moment. Hopefully they will sort this problem out soon.

Edited by Geordish (Mon 10-Mar-14 10:27:59)

Are you saying Zen has 200 exchanges offering LLU ADSL2+ services, or as I understand it Zen has rented or installed its own backhaul network into some 200 Fibre Handover nodes (modern name for an exchange) and thus is able to transit GEA-FTTC traffic for a lot less cost in many urban areas.

Would it not make sense to do both?