Internet running slowly ?

[Kevin Milkins]

It's starting to wind me up now,grrrrrrr, every time I try to do my lottery on line it bombs me out at the confirm payment stage.

[RecQuery]

I had similar problems a while back, they were fixed for a bit but now they're back. This isn't something they're monitoring will pick up itself. I urge anyone with issues like this to report it to their ISP and to chase them up on it. If they come back saying no problem found or something similar report it again maybe they may actually do something if their stats are messed up. Plus if lots of people from the same area do it they may take it seriously.

Most ISPs are reluctant to pickup speed problems, because BT are very reluctant to acknowledge speed problems (see earlier link) so I urge everyone to just lie... and if you don't get anywhere ask to speak to a supervisor, floor walker, manager, senior analyst whatever your ISP calls them. Consider just hanging up completey and calling again sometimes depending on the person you get.

• Test speed at http://speedtester.bt.com/ ISPs and BT can see the results you get there, but back this test up with tests from else as the BT speedtester lies, it tests speed between you and the exchange not you and the Internet.
• Tell them you've tried connecting with another router (a standard ISP tactic is to mail you a router and hope you'll go away)
• Tell them you've tested while being the only device connected to the router and while using a cable
• Tell them you've tried replacing the microfilter
• tell them you've plugged into the master socket (this one is complete crap I've no idea why those script monkies ask it)
• Tell them you tried replacing the RJ11 cable (that's the one between the router and the micofilter)
• Tell them everything connected to the phoneline goes via a microfilter but that for good measure you've tried unplugging all fax machines and Sky boxes etc.
• Tell them you've tried testing speed via numerous devices and that you've ever rebooted into Safe Mode With Networking where applicable.

If you don't get anywhere with that try e-mailing them using a chat service if available, complaining etc.

One thing I notice recently actually is random disconnects or I'll be connected and traffic routing will just randomly stop.

[captain chaos]

Managed to find this about the castletown exchange. Phoned my provider "SKY" and got the usual idiot who wants you to check just what RecQuery has in the above post. Eventualy got so annoyed with him asked to be put through to disconnections.

Results: Castletown Code: NSCTW
County: Highland
Enabled: 23 Jun 2004
Market: 1

Virtual paths: Red

BT is reporting that some of the virtual paths at this exchange are not operating within BT Wholesale's planning guidance, although they are still operating within the product specification.

At busy times, your ADSL connection may operate at a reduced speed, although not all customers on your exchange may be affected. You should only contact support if there is no current ETA date set.

The ETA fix time is: 03 Mar 11

Record last updated: 04 Feb 11

[RecQuery]

Managed to find this about the castletown exchange. Phoned my provider "SKY" and got the usual idiot who wants you to check just what RecQuery has in the above post. Eventualy got so annoyed with him asked to be put through to disconnections.

Results: Castletown Code: NSCTW
County: Highland
Enabled: 23 Jun 2004
Market: 1

Virtual paths: Red

BT is reporting that some of the virtual paths at this exchange are not operating within BT Wholesale's planning guidance, although they are still operating within the product specification.

At busy times, your ADSL connection may operate at a reduced speed, although not all customers on your exchange may be affected. You should only contact support if there is no current ETA date set.

The ETA fix time is: 03 Mar 11

Record last updated: 04 Feb 11

The Thurso Exchange had VP issues a while back, what it basically means is that BT will massively oversubscribe the links between exchanges and their backend network (they usually come in 32MB and 64MB lines) so should everyone on the same link try to download something at the same time they'll get no where near the speed they should. It's like say fifty people in an office sharing the same toilet as long as they don't need to use it at the same time then it's not noticeable. I still think there's a deeper issue in the BT backend.

Part of the problem is most ISPs, call centres and helpdesks actually hire for 'customer service ability' instead of the ability to actually fix a problem or just hire the cheapest people they can find. They think they can train technical knowledge (whether IT knowledge, banking or whatever) into people in 2 to 4 weeks and then give them a script to follow. So you end up with people who sound like their smiling on the other end of the phone or who are really good at apologising but who can't actually help you. I seen this from the backend I've worked for a few IT helpdesks while at uni, these were business and corporate support things so you'd expect a higher quality but it was still just the same. I was convinced that they could answer the same volume of calls if not more and have happier customers with a quarter of the people if they just hired a better quality of person and paid more.

I still urge people to chase this up, call and mess up stats etc. It's the only way they take stuff seriously.

[lynne duncan]

ours is playing up too and so is my dad's but we're with talktalk and dad is with bt
and trying to get a speed test is very painful
just got 180k instead of my usual 1M hmmmm!

[gingernut]

Internet so slow here it's driving me mad. Can't even load the speedtest page let alone use it. I'm with Supanet isp but BT line. Is there anything can be done about this or do we just all have to wait until BT problems are fixed?

[Ambassador G'Kar]

Our usual 0.4 is down to 0.09M BT unaware of any problems - that's two- three days now!

Just got transferred to BT Broadband technical who would definitely know what was going on - 1/2 hour on the phone to talk to someone in India who by his own admission does not even have a map of the UK showing where Caithness is. I tried to give some idea of the scale of the problem by comparing with the size of Calcutta but he didn't have too much of an idea about his own country. Instead he cheerfully informed me that the engineer would tell me what the Caithness wide problem is on the 10th of February in a totally unrelated visit! I can,t wait only 5 days to go!

If you telephone 0800 1690 199 you will be updated on known issues - which as of now are all in England!

[RecQuery]

Internet so slow here it's driving me mad. Can't even load the speedtest page let alone use it. I'm with Supanet isp but BT line. Is there anything can be done about this or do we just all have to wait until BT problems are fixed?

Every ISP up here uses BT as the backend, they all essentially resell BT's network and that's part of the problem. As I've said before phone your ISP let them know the problem, tell them others in the area have it. If enough of them report it to BT they may actually do something.

I despise BT they never do anything right, surely by the law of averages they have to do something right at some point. They also have somehow managed to convince the general public to accept the crappy service they get.

Here's my usage graph for the day, I'm getting really crappy performance varying between 65 KB/s and 117 KB/s

[tommy1979]

my broadband line went off for about 20 mins there, thought yay thats them fixing it...came back on and yep you guessed it...still same crappy performance

[Venture]

Same here was looking forward to watching some programmes on bbci but when it came back on, there was no difference.

[Gronnuck]

I've just found my BT Broadband back to 'normal' out of the Barrock exchange. It's still ar$e but I have to live in hope that a newer, more reliable technology is just around the corner!

[The Angel Of Death]

Think that's mines fixed hub went down and then back up a few mins later downloads now flying down again and tv stuff maxing out at 8 mb

[Venture]

Everything back to normal for me too. If anything I'd say it's running better than before the fault. Happy browsing.

[gingernut]

Mine's back to normal too. Even though it's not great (Barrock exchange) it's an improvement on past few days.

[Serenity]

I had similar problems a while back, they were fixed for a bit but now they're back. This isn't something they're monitoring will pick up itself. I urge anyone with issues like this to report it to their ISP and to chase them up on it. If they come back saying no problem found or something similar report it again maybe they may actually do something if their stats are messed up. Plus if lots of people from the same area do it they may take it seriously.

Most ISPs are reluctant to pickup speed problems, because BT are very reluctant to acknowledge speed problems (see earlier link) so I urge everyone to just lie... and if you don't get anywhere ask to speak to a supervisor, floor walker, manager, senior analyst whatever your ISP calls them. Consider just hanging up completey and calling again sometimes depending on the person you get.

• Test speed at http://speedtester.bt.com/ ISPs and BT can see the results you get there, but back this test up with tests from else as the BT speedtester lies, it tests speed between you and the exchange not you and the Internet.
• Tell them you've tried connecting with another router (a standard ISP tactic is to mail you a router and hope you'll go away)
• Tell them you've tested while being the only device connected to the router and while using a cable
• Tell them you've tried replacing the microfilter
• tell them you've plugged into the master socket (this one is complete crap I've no idea why those script monkies ask it)
• Tell them you tried replacing the RJ11 cable (that's the one between the router and the micofilter)
• Tell them everything connected to the phoneline goes via a microfilter but that for good measure you've tried unplugging all fax machines and Sky boxes etc.
• Tell them you've tried testing speed via numerous devices and that you've ever rebooted into Safe Mode With Networking where applicable.

If you don't get anywhere with that try e-mailing them using a chat service if available, complaining etc.

One thing I notice recently actually is random disconnects or I'll be connected and traffic routing will just randomly stop.

The reason the "script monkies" ask if you are plugged into the master socket is to rule out faulty extensions. Also, it is generally better to have your router plugged into the main telephone socket and then use ethernet cables as the extensions as they are designed for internet data transfer, where as phone extensions aren't (designed for voice obv).

By all means lie to your ISP if you want but if they send a BT engineer out (or in unbundled areas, their own engineer) and find it is a faulty extension or microfilter be prepared for a nice big bill.
I have worked in tech support for 3 isps and I have seen the difference in the stats a microfilter change or plugging directly into the master socket can make. And I am no script monkey.

Obviously in this case it was a general problem in this area and RecQuery I normally find your advice spot on but in this case it is so off.

[Niall Fernie]

Although strangely everyone's problem seems to be fixed. My replacement router has not arrived and the splitter that I bought last time I was told to replace it seems to have worked as well as the old one that's now connected. I actually got a decent bloke at my ISP who said basically he has to get me to go through all the hoops in case as has been suggested a faullt really exists at my end of the line (dodgy router etc) but admitted that all would probably be well, regardless of who could see what problem at his end once the "priority one" problem was dealth with at the exchange. Sure enough, here I sit, same equipment in place and broadband is back to its usual grotty self, working but still not 8 meg

[Colin Manson]

mmm, most remember to come here first and check to see if everyone else is having bother before I rip everything apart and test it with 3 different routers. Now I just need to wait for my current line speed to catch up with my estimated speed and all will be fine.

[changilass]

Tut tut Colin, every one knows, if you wanna know summat, you come on the org lol

[Chrisf1961]

Everything back to normal for me too. If anything I'd say it's running better than before the fault. Happy browsing.

Flying along here as well although i did run crapcleaner......my son can now run his Charlie n Lola videos on you tube now ! ...wether thats a good or bad thing who knows

[veekay]

SCREAM I have just had a wonderful visit to Region 6 and have come back none the wiser. According to the gentleman the whole area is being upgraded - though he couldn't tell me which area it was he was talking about. He asked that I keep a note of my speeds - how when I can't do a speed test as it is running too slowly - and that he will telephone tomorrow to tell me he has sorted the problem. I am not going to be holding my breath. Any one out there aware of this county wide upgrade? And if we are being upgraded why when I telephone the number Ambassador G'Kar thoughtfully provided do I get information about Carlisle and no-where else? SCREAM!