BT Broadband Rip off scam?
Discussion
I live 200 yards from my local BT exchange. I have always had around 7-8mb throughput on the line. Had this for years.
Last month this has dropped to 2mb. Tried everything and its still 2mb. BT themselves sent me a new hub (even though I prefer my Netgear hub). Still no joy.
Just ragged around the BT help desk dude and still no joy. Demanded to speak to his manager all he could offer was to pay more and go up to another boradband option that would ensure that we had 'upto 8mb' - even though I have had this for two years previously.
His manager appologised for the previous help desk dude and indicated that the line had been auto capped to 2mb by the local server due to the additional people in the town signing up to the exchange (allegedly).
They lifted the cap and everything is now up to 'normal' again.
If I hadn't played up on the phone and was a little more naive I might have signed up for a higher option for the same service.
I bet there are plenty of people less technically able that would have fallen for this s
t.
Scam or what?
MikeB
Last month this has dropped to 2mb. Tried everything and its still 2mb. BT themselves sent me a new hub (even though I prefer my Netgear hub). Still no joy.
Just ragged around the BT help desk dude and still no joy. Demanded to speak to his manager all he could offer was to pay more and go up to another boradband option that would ensure that we had 'upto 8mb' - even though I have had this for two years previously.
His manager appologised for the previous help desk dude and indicated that the line had been auto capped to 2mb by the local server due to the additional people in the town signing up to the exchange (allegedly).
They lifted the cap and everything is now up to 'normal' again.
If I hadn't played up on the phone and was a little more naive I might have signed up for a higher option for the same service.
I bet there are plenty of people less technically able that would have fallen for this s
t.Scam or what?
MikeB
rottie102 said:
Well, wrong forum, that's for sure... 
All broadband advertising is crap, I've never seen anything near 20MB I pay for and I'm on fibreoptic Virgin Media and can throw stones at the exchange.
I've got 20Mb broadband with Virgin. I checked it when I upgraded a year ago, and about a week ago , for the first time in a year, I couldn't connect to the internet. Phoned them up, spoke to one of their guys whilst re-booting my modem and all was well again. Decided to question my line speed to try their service out and they ran through a few checks and said it should be 20MB. So I ran a speedcheck on my desktop... 18.5 to 19 MB. All broadband advertising is crap, I've never seen anything near 20MB I pay for and I'm on fibreoptic Virgin Media and can throw stones at the exchange.
Can't ask for much better then that!
Well this did happen about three months ago and the first help desk dude said that it would be fixed as there was 'an issue with the line'. Next day back up again full speed.
This second person this most recent time from their 'advanced technical help dept' said that as our line is one of those capable of receiving higher broadband speeds due to the proximity of the exchange it would get automatically capped. She reckoned that they will put an advisory for it not to happen again.
If it does I will burn the fracking exchange down!
Still it saves the constant dirge of war sounds coming from the online gaming of my boy on his Playstation 3.
MikeB
This second person this most recent time from their 'advanced technical help dept' said that as our line is one of those capable of receiving higher broadband speeds due to the proximity of the exchange it would get automatically capped. She reckoned that they will put an advisory for it not to happen again.
If it does I will burn the fracking exchange down!
Still it saves the constant dirge of war sounds coming from the online gaming of my boy on his Playstation 3.
MikeB
I've got ADSLMax, so in theory up to 8Mbps. I usually see 5.5-6.5Mbps. Sometimes it drifts down, presumably due to noise on the line etc.
Just retested now though with SpeedTest.net and seen 16.4, 8.6 and 12.8 with tests about 10 mins apart. Should that even be possible with ADSLMax? Not that I'm complaining!
Just retested now though with SpeedTest.net and seen 16.4, 8.6 and 12.8 with tests about 10 mins apart. Should that even be possible with ADSLMax? Not that I'm complaining!
May I recommend you try www.fast.co.uk .... just moevd to them two weeks ago.
Was getting 2Mb-5Mb from BT depending on time of day. I now get 7 Pretty Much all day every day.
The fact you speak to a techie straight away rather than a script monkey does wonders for your state of mind.
Was getting 2Mb-5Mb from BT depending on time of day. I now get 7 Pretty Much all day every day.
The fact you speak to a techie straight away rather than a script monkey does wonders for your state of mind.
Phil1 said:
I've got ADSLMax, so in theory up to 8Mbps. I usually see 5.5-6.5Mbps. Sometimes it drifts down, presumably due to noise on the line etc.
Just retested now though with SpeedTest.net and seen 16.4, 8.6 and 12.8 with tests about 10 mins apart. Should that even be possible with ADSLMax? Not that I'm complaining!
you have to bear in mind traffic between you and speedtest.net - changes in speed may not be your line, infact speedtest is one of the worse i've seen recently for fluctuations in results, used to be greatJust retested now though with SpeedTest.net and seen 16.4, 8.6 and 12.8 with tests about 10 mins apart. Should that even be possible with ADSLMax? Not that I'm complaining!
rottie102 said:
Well, wrong forum, that's for sure...
All broadband advertising is crap, I've never seen anything near 20MB.
I don't think anyone on the planet will see 20MB for some years yet! You might get near 20Mb though with a good ISP... and this is one of the misconceptions about broadband - People don't realise that 'MB' and 'Mb' are two different things. MB is megabytes and Mb is Megabits. A megabit is about one eighth of a megabyte. When broadband is advertised they refer to 'meg' meaning 'megabit', but when people are talking about hard-drives and RAM they refer to 'meg' meaning megabyte. ISPs have conveniently jumped on the back of this and, in a way which is not exactly lying, but is capitalising on a misconception, proudly talk about 20Mb broadband using terminology that would lead all but the experts to think they meant 20MB broadband.All broadband advertising is crap, I've never seen anything near 20MB.
This may be down to the bit of BT (wholesale I think) who supply the line rather than the bit of BT you buy your broadband from who supply the POP.
In my house I have two ADSL lines, one provided by IDNET which I pay for, and one provided by BT by my wife's work that they pay for.
They've both been great until recently when the IDNet one dropped off to 'no signal' and the BT one to 0.1mb. As there had been no changes to the equipment it *sounded* like it would be anything but what was in the house, or the ISPs..
A call was logged with IDNet but BT's self-test mechanism said 'everything is fine'. Being not fine they logged one with BT Wholesale. We had a phone call from an engineer saying they're working on it at the exchange and a few "is it fixed yet?". And then one saying they'll need to come round, BUT if it's a fault with my equipment (both sets on both lines) there'll be £180 charge. I get home that evening, and both are working. Ie. they did fix it at the exchange. Excellent! So I call to cancel the engineer attending the following morning and am whopped with £150 cancellation fee from BT Wholesale.
The system has many faults..
In my house I have two ADSL lines, one provided by IDNET which I pay for, and one provided by BT by my wife's work that they pay for.
They've both been great until recently when the IDNet one dropped off to 'no signal' and the BT one to 0.1mb. As there had been no changes to the equipment it *sounded* like it would be anything but what was in the house, or the ISPs..
A call was logged with IDNet but BT's self-test mechanism said 'everything is fine'. Being not fine they logged one with BT Wholesale. We had a phone call from an engineer saying they're working on it at the exchange and a few "is it fixed yet?". And then one saying they'll need to come round, BUT if it's a fault with my equipment (both sets on both lines) there'll be £180 charge. I get home that evening, and both are working. Ie. they did fix it at the exchange. Excellent! So I call to cancel the engineer attending the following morning and am whopped with £150 cancellation fee from BT Wholesale.
The system has many faults..
MitchT said:
rottie102 said:
Well, wrong forum, that's for sure...
All broadband advertising is crap, I've never seen anything near 20MB.
I don't think anyone on the planet will see 20MB for some years yet! You might get near 20Mb though with a good ISP... and this is one of the misconceptions about broadband - People don't realise that 'MB' and 'Mb' are two different things. MB is megabytes and Mb is Megabits. A megabit is about one eighth of a megabyte. When broadband is advertised they refer to 'meg' meaning 'megabit', but when people are talking about hard-drives and RAM they refer to 'meg' meaning megabyte. ISPs have conveniently jumped on the back of this and, in a way which is not exactly lying, but is capitalising on a misconception, proudly talk about 20Mb broadband using terminology that would lead all but the experts to think they meant 20MB broadband.All broadband advertising is crap, I've never seen anything near 20MB.
Networking speeds have ALWAYS been measured in bits.
Remember the days of the 14.4 and 28.8K modem. Same then as it is now.
My VDSL box connects at 22MBit/s downstream and 5MBit/s upstream. My upstream is now capped though at 1MBit/s.
Tests done at speedtest.net never fail to deliver less than a genuine sustained 20MBit/s downstream. The upstream spanks it right up to 5MBit/s before the cap winds it back in to a sustained 1MBit/s.
I regularly pull big files from CDNs at a sustained 2.5MB/s (Megabytes per second).
Agreed BT is a bit crap. My Mum has problems with her ADSL. Whilst she is at the frnge of availability (max speed is 1.0 - 1.5MBit/s or so) without fail at around 6pm each evening her ADSL sync is lost and the router reconnects at a much slower speed like 450kbit/s. Often the upsteam is faster than the downstream - ie: 450kbit/s down, 512kbit/s up - WTF is that about...?
Tests done at speedtest.net never fail to deliver less than a genuine sustained 20MBit/s downstream. The upstream spanks it right up to 5MBit/s before the cap winds it back in to a sustained 1MBit/s.
I regularly pull big files from CDNs at a sustained 2.5MB/s (Megabytes per second).
Agreed BT is a bit crap. My Mum has problems with her ADSL. Whilst she is at the frnge of availability (max speed is 1.0 - 1.5MBit/s or so) without fail at around 6pm each evening her ADSL sync is lost and the router reconnects at a much slower speed like 450kbit/s. Often the upsteam is faster than the downstream - ie: 450kbit/s down, 512kbit/s up - WTF is that about...?
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