ISP Review Questions ISP's Over ADSLMax Problems

******: Small - Medium scale, most users regrades to 8mb have been on the whole successful and experiencing faster speeds. However where there have been problems these have been major ones.

Vispa: We have had a lot of communication with our customers regarding this and I would say the vast majority are having or have had a problem of some sort. The most recurring problem is the hardware continually disconnecting. The other is wildly fluctuating speeds. Most of these we have managed to stabilise but some are still on-going problems. The hard part is to convince BT that we do have an actual issue.

NewNet: There have been a number of reported problems from end-users – probably mostly
down to slow speeds, lower than expectations. Certainly there has been an impact on
the Helpdesk with many calls, online ticket submissions etc.

5) BT has already moved to address at least one of the initial problems, yet reports of appallingly slow speeds and random disconnections still appear to be quite common. What problems remain with the technology (that you’re aware of)?

******: Several, but for contractual reasons we cannot reveal these.

Vispa: We have so many different types of lines out there. We have copper but not line standard, there are different qualities of copper - .4, .5 and .6 - .6 being the best and .4 being the worst. We also have aluminium and TPON out there as well. All this needs to be taken into account but getting the actual records from BT as to the qualities is an art-form in itself.

Another thing we need to look at is the EU equipment. We had one customer who was using a BT Voyager 2110 wireless router. His connection was dropping every 3 to 7 seven minutes 24hrs a day seven days a week. He was to say the least becoming extremely despondent. As a test we gave him a BT Voyager 2100 wireless router and his line has become rock steady – not one single disconnection in fact it’s been up now for nearly two weeks solid. We have another customer, his speeds are really poor. We have had BT re-map his line now three times. Each time they do it his speeds increase and then after several days they return to unusable levels again. This one is still ongoing..

NewNet: We are aware that setting interleaving to ON increases the stability of the line and reduces the disconnection rate. Evidence from end users shows that setting interleaving to ON does improve line stability. BT now suggest that this may also enhance throughput (?).

6) How has BT moved to address these issues and do you have any complaints about their performance in responding to the difficulties?

******: No comment.

Vispa: I think BT are trying to play down any issues regarding the MAX service even though they must be fully aware of them. The e.Co fault reporting system is a real time wasting experience. The information it requires to be inputted is crazy and the most annoying thing of all is a human doesn’t appear to look at it first time around. The System says ‘user logged in’ so the fault is automatically cleared. We have to go back in and reject this clear the day after to get them to actually look at it. And even then it warns us there may be a charge if an engineer is dispatched. This all adds up to more time off-line for the EU which is not good.

NewNet: No comment.

[Print Page | Next Page (4)]>>