BT fucking benders

[Allmighty_phate]

our lines faulty, the phone crackles and the internet keeps cutting off...

emailed them ages back telling them about it... tried using several ADSL filters which i thought was the original problem, not helped, even got a new modem, tried two phones so its the line thats fucked defo...

"we did a line check and everything is fine" ...

because you did the fucking line check on the odd day that it was working.... try using the internet here for a month, or making a phone call!

"the line appears to be fine so there will be a call out charge for any technician we send"

fuck sake... all i ask is for the internet to run smoothly

[GTFO. Tinks]

BT are wank.

[Allmighty_phate]

thanks for that input tinks

trouble is i cant ring or email them to do a line check when its not working, which is when they need to do it!

[GTFO. WhiteRaven]

They really are fucking useless.

I made them run a line test to my house from LINX. The faults were found at the Birkdale Exchange.
BT's equiptment, BT's service hardware, BT's responsibility, BT'S FAULT!

They were overloading their lines to maximize profits. They were drastically increasing their contention rates forcing ISP's (such as Pipex and Sky) to reduce their quality of service.

They came back to me and said that a service speed of anywhere between 1:100 and 1:300 was fine and expected for my service. But i was paying to have 1:2200. They said that was my ISP's fault. The reduced service was caused by my ISP servers over loading their exchanges.

BT ARE BOLLOCKS.

[GTFO. al]

contention no longer applies in BT ADSL networks

[GTFO. Tinks]

I still find problems with the dynamic system they use to constantly re-evaluate your connection speed.

What happens to me is after a week or so of constant connection my noise margin is pushed close to the feasable limit, then in the evening when things busy up, my router manages to hang on to the connection but must be dropping data 'cos it slows right down.

A forced restart on the router cures the problem, then the whole thing starts again.

If I restart my router too often, the 'intellegent' system thinks i'm having problems and drops my connection rate right down, then monitors it for, I think 2-3 days then creeps it up, stabilises it, then again, the whole thing starts over.

Where I live we have no other option but to use the telephone line for internet. I would really like to downgrade to a fixed speed and opt out of this stupid 'lets see how fast we can get this connection' system, but have met with absolute idiocy when phoning their customer 'service'.

Like I said, BT are wank.

[GTFO. Tinks]

RIGHT!

I finally fix a bad memory call which has been keeping me off DOD:S for ages now (thanks G for the advice).

What do I find tonight?

My connection sync speed is swinging from 7.5 meg to 0.5 meg to nothing in the space of a couple of minutes over and over, I pick up the phone and it's like listening to a bowl of fucking rice crispies.

WTF!

Time for another round of BT customer 'service'.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

[GTFO. Celtickiller]

Shit sorry Tinks, I reported you to the cops saying you were helping islamic terrorists !

Told them you'd been practicing terror tactics on squirrels, and that you were seen knocking down buildings so guess they tapped the old phone !

[Cookie]

I pick up the phone and it's like listening to a bowl of fucking rice crispies.

where do you think this shit up tinks.

[GTFO. al]

if there is interference on the phone line ring 151

[GTFO. Tinks]

Rang that number, "line is fine, blah,blah".

2 days ago my rated throughput was 1500kbps, yesterday 6500kbps, first thing this morning 750kbps.

Last night my noise margin didn't go over 3db (ideally it should be above 10db for a stable connection but BT default is 6db) but strangely my attenuation has dropped right down to 15db (normally 45db), which is better, or have I got it the wrong way round?

al, do you know who I can call to get my service 'downgraded' to a fixed rate, i'm sure if I do that my connection will be much more reliable.

I will be going through my paperwork this morning to see when I can get out of this bt contract without penalty, I am getting mightily fed up with the so called 'service' I am paying for.

EDIT: Just checked my rate, now back to 6500kbps from 750kbps in the space of 1-2 hours, oh how I would love a 4meg fixed line, sigh.

[GTFO. al]

sounds like something on your line is causing intermittent interference then. usually this is your internal wiring.

i'd recommend replacing your master socket with this and getting rid of the crappy dongle filters you get by default with modems/routers.

you'll need a wiring punch tool

[GTFO. Tinks]

Had my wiring checked already, all cat5e and tested ok to take the connection speed easy.

Have thought about getting an all-in-one filtered faceplate, looks like I will have to.

The problem seems to be at it's worse during the evenings, maybe some interference from the neighbours tv's/dishwashers and sheer volume of traffic at the exchange etc etc.

Have monitored my connection whilst turning on and off all of our electrical gagetry so it's not us for sure.

I read somewhere that changes in the weather cause problems too, nice to be paying for a 'best effort' service, not.

[GTFO. Tinks]

This I do not understand.

This morning my line attenuation dropped from 45db to 15db, had a rock solid, fast connection all day.

Had a nice little dods session during the day, whacking players and such.

This evening around 7ish however, playing dods, lumpy as hell and almost impossible to shoot anyone, dropped from server a couple of times.

Internet browser slow to load up pages, checked my router, attenuation back up to 45db, sync speed still ok at 7200kbps, but margin dropping below 5db again.

[scratches head]

p.s. Sorry to hijack your post phate, but as far as bt are concerned, spread the hate.

[GTFO. al]

its impossible for the attenuation to drop 30dB.

15dB is a figure i see a lot in routers but it's just a bug when it doesn't read the loss correctly.

[GTFO. Tinks]

That's what I thought was strange al, attenuation is governed by the length and quality of the line isn't it, how can that change?

Do you think I should look to see if running a different firmware version on the router helps.

Getting desperate, remember I had some probs a few months back, I changed router and it sorted it out, now the probs are back.

[GTFO. al]

you don't seem to have that bad a line as you have 45dB line but can still sync well over 5mbit.

the SNR is the important bit rather than attenuation. when BT first brought out the max adsl i was worried at the 6dB margin it enforces as i find it too low and too prone to temporary interference which seems to be happening to you.

you could ring and see about getting your profile changed so it forces to a 9dB margin giving you more slack. it will mean you connect a bit slower but it should be more stable.

if you can hold off to monday i'll ask about the office and see if i can get a number inside BT that doesn't involve speaking to Srinath in Bangalore. I know they have help desks in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK so it is possible

BT is your ISP btw?

[GTFO. Tinks]

Yeah, thanks for the help al.

BTW look at this fucked up crazy shit.



"Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 135 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 7072 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 102 kbps

If you wish to discuss these results please contact your ISP.

If you are experiencing problems with specific applications, servers or websites please contact your ISP for assistance.

Your test has completed please close this window to exit the performance tester"

From bt's own speedtester.

My throughput this morning at 11am was 6500kbps.

[Allmighty_phate]

I read somewhere that changes in the weather cause problems too, nice to be paying for a 'best effort' service, not.

yep seems to be whats happening with mine... whenever the suns out and it gets warmer my conection goes to shit, late at night when its cool its fine

p.s. Sorry to hijack your post phate, but as far as bt are concerned, spread the hate.

no worries, some of what your saying may be of use to me you never know.... for instance ifiddled with the face unit thingy on the wall and so far touch wood its working ok, though like i say it runs better at night anyway..

get a number inside BT that doesn't involve speaking to Srinath in Bangalore

yup.. my dad got fed up earlier and rang BT (finally) and got a load of .. as my grandad would say "our colonial friends"

was on the phone for an hour to no real success, so got to see what its like in about a weeks time when we're back from holiday to see if what they told us to do (take apart that face unit thingy) has worked

[=Usopp=]

virgin media 2 meg FTW
cant beat £10 a month

[GTFO. Tinks]

Don't have cable in my area yet, so the problems would stay as Virgin only rent the same line and technology from BT to provide their telephone based broadband service.

My connection details according to my router are the same as last night, give or take a db, but my throughput is back up to 6000kbps.

This is driving me nuts, all I want is a stable connection.

[GTFO. al]

if you have one of the standard BT master sockets there is a test you can do to see if your internal wiring is causing the difficulties.

you need to unscrew the bottom half of the faceplate on the socket and remove it slowly (so you don't disconnect any of the wires). you should notice another socket on the right hand side that has been hidden. sometimes the bottom half of the socket actually slots into it. plug your router directly into that socket. as it's a normal phone socket, you'll maybe need one of the dongle filters connected and then plug your router into that.

then start it all up and post what speed you sync at and what the SNR is.

while you're plugged into that socket ONLY devices connected to that test socket work, so all your phone extensions will be disconnected. you can plug a phone into the dongle filter you use if you really need to.

once youre done just screw the plate back on as before.

[GTFO. Tinks]

Our telephone socket is of the old school variety with just the single socket and nothing but wires behind, where the line comes into the flat is just a blank plate with the extension circuit wired directly in with those bt jelly filled crimps.

BTW atm my line is syncing at an amazingly fast 800kbps at 9bd margin, with a throughput of 500kbps.

Yesterday it flew along at 7616kbps at 6.2db all day long and was rock solid (no time for dods tho unfortunately).

[GTFO. Tinks]

Again, a rock solid connection today, until the evening that is, as usual it turned to shite around the 7pm mark.

Got some quality play in today until all of a sudden my kpd nosedived and the game developed lumps.

[Koola]

You probs have a connection ratio of 100:1 lol. Most people go onto the net during the early evening thus your crappy connection.

I'm sure you can upgrade to packages where your ratio is lower thus giving a better line at peak times. I love my 1:1 DSL line

[GTFO. Tinks]

At last! The weekend and a connection.

Just trying out this...

http://dragonslight.altervista.org/ubergt/index.html

It's a beta so i'm keeping an eye on it, but the neat thing is that it's possible to set the target snr ratio, i've set it to 10-12dbs and the connection still syncs at 5632kbps.

Hopefully this will give me enough leeway with the drop in snr that I experience in the evenings to retain a stable connection, which I am not alone in suffering it seems from the many forums i've read through.

The target snr negotiation that BT sets at 6dbs is much to low for reliability, they only seem interested in pushing things to the limit to claim their 'up to 8meg' connection is worth the money.

Retards.

[Allmighty_phate]

im going with Virgin i think when i move back to leicester.. the cable is already installed so wont cost anything more...

unfortunatly the neighbors have snaged that my m8 has been leeching their 50mb (we think its an old peoples home offices 2 houses down) and have been switching it off at nights

[GTFO. Jamie]

i have virgin, works well for me.
And my mate goes back to leicster for uni on friday, is trying to get virgin hooked up in there new house too

[GTFO. Tinks]

Wish I had a virgin, then I would defo be OK

Just ordered a new master socket, a filtered faceplate and some new telephone cable from ASDL Nation.

Going to rewire my flat from the supply point onwards.

Today I have been logging the router history and the connection has been rock solid at 4480kbps at 20dbs. (thanks to the 3rd party router drivers allowing me to set the snr).

The proof will be in the evenings during the week tho, which is when it usually turns to shite.

I will sort this problem out even if it kills me.

EDIT:

Seems to be ok so far (fingers crossed) had a minor blip with the new router firmware trying to re-negotiate the sync speed constantly to obtain the best speed which fooled the bt system into thinking I was having problems connecting, the result being they step back the connection until it stabilises, ended up with a throughput of 132kps.

Switched that off and so far i've had a stable constant connection rate of 5megs for 24hrs which for me is very rare indeed.

Hope to have a good connection all week which will send me into raptures of ecstacy.

[GTFO. Tinks]

Well, things seem to be going a bit better so far, i've had a good solid connection now for a few days, hope it continues.

Anybody interested in keeping an eye on their router should look at this nifty bit of software....

http://vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm

You wouldn't think that to get a decent service from your ISP you'd have to change their supplied router, their filters, their wiring installation and their defaut settings would you?