This topic

ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

judymeg — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 16:38:24 GMT

Hi everybody, I have had BT broadband for 2 years now with minimal connection problems until last Thursday. I could view web pages slowly but couldn't watch any videos on any of my devices. My neighbour let me piggy back off her BT ADSL broadband and I could watch video content on Amazon Prime Video faultlessly even through brick walls. I phoned BT who checked my line and couldn't find any faults and told me my Firestick is faulty, but I told them I could watch videos fine on it using my neighbour's WiFi and I couldn't watch videos on my phone or my laptop either. They can't all have gone wrong on the same day! After 4 hours on the phone and 4 different people the last person said he would send a new hub and book an appointment for an engineer to come here on Monday this week.

He arrived and did some tests and was getting good speeds like before it went wrong! He did confirm that I had had some outages. He did some tweaks with his laptop and I did see a bit of improvement for about 10 minutes after he'd gone and then it went back to buffering and freezing and being blurry and out of sync. I have another Firestick in the lounge and I showed him the difference between my connection and my neighbour's. He told me he thought my Firestick could be faulty!!!! I now have two faulty Firesticks, a faulty phone and laptop. It's ridiculous!

I bought new RJ11 and RJ45 cables and I have just connected them to my router and the test socket and have taken a variety of speedtests with my supposedly faulty laptop. Before last Thursday I was getting download speeds of 17 and 18 and I do match commentary for Andy Murray Tennis Fans and often I was told that I was quite a bit ahead of other people with my scores! I have been very pleased with my service.

I did take some more photos that were all like the first one showing 0 download and 0 upload! I've kept it plugged into the test socket in case it improves! I took photos with the phone connected and without and it made no difference. My landline is working perfectly. Any ideas what I can do?

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

iniltous — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 17:40:57 GMT

Post the return for your phone number , or if on Digital Voice use your address to see the predicted speed for your location .

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Also post your router ‘advanced’ connection statistics to see what your actual connection speed is , finally was the tech that visited a BT Home ‘expert’ or an Openreach tech , the BT Home experts only check your internal setup etc , if there were an issue on the line or ADSL/FTTC equipment they cannot help with that .

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

imjolly — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 17:54:58 GMT

Have you tried a new filter?

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

judymeg — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 19:31:31 GMT

I've never used a filter. I have a wall socket with a socket for the landline cable and one for the ADSL cable. Both cables are plugged straight into their sockets. It's worked fine for two years. Do you think it would help to put a filter in the ADSL set up?

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

imjolly — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 19:47:15 GMT

When you use the test socket there is no filter as that is in filtered faceplate

Try just connect filter to test socket and then hub connected to filter and no phone connection and see if connection improves

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

judymeg — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 10:58:11 GMT

I've photographed the results of what I should be getting and for the last two years I have been getting that. I don't know how to do the second part of your reply. I am 72 years old and not very technically savvy. Any help would be great! Sorry to be a pain in the **bleep**!

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

imjolly — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 11:26:39 GMT

@judymeg

Please delete your phone number from dslchecker as this is public forum and may lead to lots of spam

according to dslchecker results your expected speed is 16.5mb but it shows that on 25/5/23 your connection speed wa far better at 21.44mb

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 12:48:58 GMT

I'm confused.

If you don't have an ADSL filter & don't know how to plug into the test socket, why is there an image of an ADSL filter plugged into the test socket in you first post?

Edit: There may be some confusion here as without quote's, it's hard to tell who you're replying to.

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

iniltous — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 14:41:50 GMT

As can be seen form the Checker return your line at the end of July was actually performing better than predicted, TBH , at over 20Mb on an ADSL connection, you must be very close to the exchange.

The router stats would be helpful , but taking the speed test info , obviously something has happened between the end of July and now , to account for the speed reduction from 21MB to 9Mb.

The photo posted shows the master socket test port with an ADSL filter plugged into it , you should try another filter , but before that , plug the phone into the test port , dial 17070 and take the quiet line test , there should be no ‘noise’ ( crackle, pops , bangs etc ) if there is report your line noisy, if it’s quiet , then plug a wired device ( like a laptop ) into the new hub, and the hub plugged into a new filter in the test port and run a new speed test …but it would be better to see the router stats …( advanced settings )

https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/learn-about-broadband/learn-about-the-bt-hub-manager

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

judymeg — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 12:31:30 GMT

@Anonymous sorry about the confusion over the filters. I have tried 2 new microfilters in the test socket and 2 new RJ11 cables with little difference.

@iniltous it was a BT Home Expert that called here last Monday and didn't really find anything wrong. I did the quiet line test on my landline and it was completely silent.

I managed to get into the hub with my laptop and have taken some photos! I don't know if these help at all!

Taken yesterday at 16.10Taken yesterday at 16.20

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

imjolly — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 12:52:02 GMT

the hub stats confirm that your connection speed is 21mb better than dslchecker expected speed. is it possible to just connect the rj11 cable from filter to hub and disconnected the phone connection to filter so only connection is - test socket/filter/rj11/hub/ethernet cable/pc and then run btspeedtester

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

Anonymous — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 13:41:45 GMT

Has the new Hub been installed? It's unclear if it was changed or if the "engineer" just waffled. If it wasn't changed & you still have it then try swapping it out. Swap out the AC adapter as well.

Does your laptop have an ethernet port so that you can connect it directly to the Hub rather than by WiFi to test?

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

judymeg — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 19:21:44 GMT

@Anonymous I connected the new hub as soon as I got it and the engineer did all the tests on the new hub. I have returned the old one already. ALL of the tests I have done have been done with my laptop on a wired connection.

@imjolly I had a video conversation on Facebook last night with a friend and the connection was very very good. Not perfect but a lot better! This afternoon however I tried to watch iplayer and it just wouldn't connect long enough to watch it and I had to connect to my neighbour's wifi!

The first photo is of the speedtest WITHOUT the phone as requested above. The second is WITH the phone. Both done on my laptop with an ethernet connection. Both were done around 17.30 today. Much better aren't they!

MINUS PHONEPLUS PHONE

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

imjolly — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 19:41:11 GMT

@judymeg

These connection results look far better and nearer your actual connection speed

Re: ADSL BROADBAND CONNECTION PROBLEMS

Anonymous — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 20:00:00 GMT

I think you've eliminated everything bar an intermittent line fault.

You've changed the Hub
You've changed the filter & ADSL cable
You're in the test socket eliminating internal wiring
You're testing over ethernet eliminating local WiFi issues

That only really leaves the line itself. I can only suggest that next time the speed drops dramatically that you repeat the quiet line test immediately. If that's noisy go to MyBT & raise a PHONE issue. If it's still silent then try to log an issue with the broadband online. Go to:

MyBT > Help > Broadband > Fix a Problem > Broadband & WiFi

There you will find an option to test the broadband. Hopefully that will show the issue & get you an Openreach appointment.