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BT contention

Hi,

OK - so technically BT is not my ISP. However, it does involve them in as much as..... oh hell, i'll explain from the start.

In January 2007, I moved to my current house. I also moved my ISP (Nildram) to my new house. For the first few months, I was getting download speeds of around 400k / sec. After the first few months, my download speed changed to around 300k / sec. Nildram tell me that BT use automatic hardware at the exchange to re-rate your line, and thats what must've happened.

At the end of 2007, my speed continued to drop and levelled out at around 220k / sec - where it stayed for a few months. Then about a week ago, my speed dropped again down to around 70k / sec. I contacted Nildram (now bought by Tiscali) who say that its entirely down to BT.

So this morning, I called BT and asked them what kind of broadband speeds I could expect if I switched to their service. They tell me that I can only get half meg broadband.

So in the space of 16 months, i've experienced an overall drop from 4mb to a little over a half meg. BT say that it's a contention issue (having first blamed it on the quality of my line). I'm appx 3km from the exchange but still in the heart of Aberdeen (not a small place by any standards) but BT refuse to look into the issue because apparently half meg is within acceptible parameters.

So my question is - is this worth complaining to Ofcom about? I seem to remember some twonk politician stating that all of britain should be able to achieve at least 2mb broadband. I mean, when you look at telecoms abroad and the kinds of speeds that places like the Netherlands get in relation to our pitiful attempts at connectivity - it's embarassing!

Thoughts, opinions and suggestions are vastly welcome! I feel better now i've got that off my chest. :rolleyes:
 
Hi,
In January 2007, I moved to my current house. I also moved my ISP (Nildram) to my new house. For the first few months, I was getting download speeds of around 400k / sec. After the first few months, my download speed changed to around 300k / sec. Nildram tell me that BT use automatic hardware at the exchange to re-rate your line, and thats what must've happened.

Hi JonnyThunder welcome to ISPr lets see if we can find where you are being let down I do know BT system autmatically assess your line 24/7 and will lower your IP profile if your modem/router has a lot of disconnects. Your speed is governed by the sync your equipment I.E. ADSL modem/router syncs with the exchange.
Have you tried another modem to see if yours is going faulty?

At the end of 2007, my speed continued to drop and levelled out at around 220k / sec - where it stayed for a few months. Then about a week ago, my speed dropped again down to around 70k / sec. I contacted Nildram (now bought by Tiscali) who say that its entirely down to BT.

This is a typical sign that something is causing noise on the line which has become worse over a period of Time. Almost anything can cause this so you need to do a test to eliminate all electrical products in your home first.
This might help http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/adsltips/01.shtml

So this morning, I called BT and asked them what kind of broadband speeds I could expect if I switched to their service. They tell me that I can only get half meg broadband.

Another member had this when he used the Fast4 ISP since he moved to Aquiss I have heard his speed has gone up from 512k Your distance from the exchange and condition of the wire also has a contribution on the speed you get plus if there is noise on the phone line you can test this via BT. If you hear things on the line excessive crackle, radio anything while talking to people then you report this to BT so they can fix it.

So in the space of 16 months, i've experienced an overall drop from 4mb to a little over a half meg. BT say that it's a contention issue (having first blamed it on the quality of my line). I'm appx 3km from the exchange but still in the heart of Aberdeen (not a small place by any standards) but BT refuse to look into the issue because apparently half meg is within acceptible parameters.

Have they never asked you to do a BT speed test and send in the line stats from your modem/router?

Could you post them here so we can try to see where the problem is?
So my question is - is this worth complaining to Ofcom about? I seem to remember some twonk politician stating that all of britain should be able to achieve at least 2mb broadband. I mean, when you look at telecoms abroad and the kinds of speeds that places like the Netherlands get in relation to our pitiful attempts at connectivity - it's embarassing!

Thoughts, opinions and suggestions are vastly welcome! I feel better now i've got that off my chest. :rolleyes:

Not yet till we have eliminated all the possible factors that will reduce your connection to the internet I would also check your logs to see if you are disconnecting a lot. a good website to read is www.kitz.co.uk

Could you also do a BT speed test and post the results here?
http://test.speedtester.bt.com
 
First of all, thanks for taking time to reply. I work as a systems administrator, so Im technically capable. Here are some of the things i've looked at.

Removed the face plate from my BT socket and plugged direct behind the socked. It's the only socked in the house. I have done some of the speedtests (4 over the last 24 hours) with only the router connected to the socket (through the filter). The results were as follows:

16th March (14:45) : 551 kbps
16th March (18:15) : 609 kbps
16th March (22:02) : 817 kbps
17th March (08:19) : 719 kbps

As I said, we only have one socket in the house (there are no extensions at all). These tests were performed with nothing else connected except the router and the ADSL filter. I've tried another filter on the socket but haven't tried another router (yet). The voice quality of the line is extremely sharp to be honest - no sign of noise or overlaying radio / interference.

Yesterday, my ISP asked me to restore my router to factory default to try and start from scratch. Previous to doing this, the router showed the downspeed connection to be 2342 (or close to this). When I did the factory reset and reconnected again, it showed 3400 (appx) but the actual download speeds were unchanged. I've been testing the connection my maxing it out using 10+ connections to an HTTP based news server (Easynews). A while back, during the time where my connection claimed 2.2mb, I was getting around 240k / sec downloads. At the moment i'm getting about 70k downloads (after the router reset yesterday).
 
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P.s....

I was reading through the site you provided earlier which specifies that BT say anything over 400kbps is acceptible for the 2mbps 50:1 IP stream network. But its more a consideration that, at one stage I was getting 4mb connection! It's really maddening that a friend of mine who lives barely a few miles away, is getting 730k download speeds on his connection!
 
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