BT Retail has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that the super slow broadband bug, which resulted in some of their up to 38-78Mbps capable BTInfinity superfast broadband (FTTC) customers experiencing sub-1Mbps speeds, is caused by a fault on the ISPs HomeHub3 (HH3) router and a fix will be released “as soon as possible“.
ISPreview.co.uk raised the problem earlier this week after several customers contacted us to highlight the situation (here). The sporadic issue appears to have been affecting an unspecified number of BT’s subscribers for the past few months. So far BT has been resolving the problem by dispatching engineers to replace the HH3, VDSL modem and reset the customer’s line profile.
Customers hit by the fault found that their connection speeds would frequently drop below 1Mbps (Megabits per second), in some cases collapsing to just 120Kbps, although this only occurred when the end-user was using a wired network (wifi wireless links seem to be unaffected).
A BT Spokeswoman told ISPreview.co.uk:
“We have identified an issue that occasionally affects a very small segment of our fibre base, and it is only affecting customers who try to connect their BT Home Hub 3 via a wired connection. Customers using wireless connections, are not affected by this problem – nor are non-fibre broadband customers. The issue is not connected to anything encountered previously.
We are working hard to resolve this; a proposed fix is currently in test and will be rolled out as soon as possible (it will be implemented remotely, Hub replacement will not be necessary). Should a customer experience this problem, they are able to fix it simply by pressing the restart button on the hub. The issue does not occur when connecting wirelessly.”
It’s worth pointing out that, according to BT’s customers, restarting the HH3 only provides for a temporary solution as the problem can quickly return (some users have been forced to restart their hubs 2-4 times per day). Unfortunately BT is still unable to say precisely when their proposed firmware fix will be rolled out.
In the meantime those being affected by the problems should consider switching to a wireless connection, though these often result in higher latency and a loss of speed (depending upon your environment).
UPDATE 25th July 2012
A firmware fix is now being deployed HERE.
Comments are closed