18 months of misery

[scwilson]

Hello,

I am hoping someone at BT sees this post and can offer me help as I am at my limit of tolerance.

I took out fibre broadband in 2014 and because of our distance from the exchange we ended up with 22Mb for several years. Every year this dropped, presumably because the cabinet population increased. We settled with a stable 16Mb/17Mb.

Last year, our speeds dropped to 5Mb/6Mb so multiple complaints were made. Multiple engineers from Cube came out and simply confirmed the problem was not in our property. Something was done to the line and it returned to our stable 16Mb/17Mb for several months.

The speed dropped again shortly after to 8Mb, again further complaints made. Engineers sent out wasting our time, some didn't turn up when promised. Most recently last Friday an Openreach engineer turned up and balanced our line, replaced connectors in the cabinet, confirmed our line can take 18Mb max and said it was balanced perfectly. Apparently he requested a new profile for our line. Our hub was reading 17Mb but after a few days it dropped again. Just checked now and it is reading 8Mb using the BT app.

We are using a SmartHub 2 and all of our internal wiring is fine and confirmed by 4 engineers so the problem is external yet we are getting messed around all the time. Every time I phone up I have to explain everything and we go round in circles. Our service is not fit for purpose.

Can anyone at BT help me?

[busterboy1]

@scwilson Our service is not fit for purpose.

___________________________________________________________________

What does that make mine then I've had for the last 10 years..

[imjolly]

 please can you post the stats from your router  advanced settings then technical log information . 

Have you tried the quiet line test? - dial 17070 option 2 - should hear nothing - best done with a corded phone. if cordless phone you may hear a 'dull hum' which is normal

enter your phone number and post results  remember to delete number   https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Someone may then be able to offer help/assistance/suggestions to your problem

[scwilson]

Thanks @imjolly  I ran the quiet line test and it was quiet. Openreach engineer also did this last Friday. Here are some stats ...

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Handback
Threshold(Mbps) WBC FTTC Availability Date WBC SOGEA Availability Date Left in Jumper
High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 24.4 16.5 3.1 1.7 13.1 Available Available --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 24.4 14.4 3.1 1.5 11.4 Available Available --
Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range (Mbps) Availability Date FTTP Install Process
FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- Available --
ADSL Products Downstream Line Rate (Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range(Mbps) ADSL Availability Date WBC SOADSL Availability Date Left in Jumper
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 2 -- 1 to 3 Available Available --
ADSL Max Up to 2 -- 1 to 3 Available Available --
WBC Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available Available --
Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available -- --
Observed Speeds VDSL
Max Observed Downstream Speed 8.63
Max Observed Upstream Speed 1.64
Observed Date 2020-08-22
Other Offerings Availability Date
VDSL Multicast Available
ADSL Multicast Available
Premise Environment Status
Bridge Tap N
VRI N
NTE FacePlate N
Last Test Date 13-08-2020

[imjolly]

can you post hub stats

[scwilson]

Here are my hub stats, it appears BT have done something and my speed has increased a bit, how long it will last I do not know ...

Product name	BT Smart Hub 2
Serial number	1926091448
Fireware version	v0.17.01.12312-BT (Mon May 11 18:49:53 2020)
Board version	R01
GUI version	1.56 15_02_2019
DSL uptime	0 days 16 Hours 38 Mins 47 Secs
Data rate	1.6 Mbps / 15.6 Mbps
Maximum Data rate	1.7 Mbps / 16.3 Mbps
Noise margin	6.2/6.8
Line attenuation	11.4/30.7
Signal attenuation	9.8/34.2
VLAN id	101
Upstream error control	Off
Downstream error control	Off
Data sent / received	387.9 MB Uploaded / 2.1 GB Downloaded
Broadband username	bthomehub@btbroadband.com
BT Wi-Fi	Not active
2.4 GHz wireless network name	xxx
2.4 GHz wireless channel	Smart (Channel11)
5 GHz wireless network name	xxx
5 GHz wireless channel	Smart (Channel36)
Wireless Security	WPA2 (Recommanded)
Wireless mode	Mode 1
Firewall	On
MAC address	04:A2:22:5A:32:39
Software variant	-
Boot loader	0.1.7-BT (Thu Nov 30 09:45:22 2017)

[imjolly]

your speed appears to be right at bottom of estimated range  what exchange and cab are you on?

[scwilson]

I am on Northbourne exchange and Cab 9.

We have had a couple more engineers out, they checked the cabinet and all okay. They checked a couple of joins in the street and said all was okay. My line comes out of my house, goes to the left to a join 20 feet or so away, then a bit further down (maybe 150 feet) to another join and from there back the other side of the road past my house and to the cabinet around 600-800 feet away.

Actually had two pairs into the house, previous business line which had better insulation so the engineer swapped to those. Reset the line last Friday lunchtime. We had 6 hours of our usual speed 16MB (ish) then around 19:30, the hub disconnected and spent approximately 4 hours flashing pink/orange trying to connect until around midnight then connected. All okay over the weekend. Monday evening (today) around 19:30 it disconnected again and is now currently flashing pink/orange again.

Driving me mad. We have nothing kicking in at that time that might cause electrical interference.

BT are sending me a new SmartHub 2 but I do feel it is an exchange issue.

We have no 4G signal so their mini hub is no use to us. No virgin media available so stuck with using BT lines. It all used to work fine until about 18 months ago.

Any thoughts?

[scwilson]

Forgot to mention on Friday last week when the openreach engineer came out he did a reset of the line.

Is it possible that the Friday evening not being able to connect between 19:30 and 00:15 and Monday evening (today) not being able to connect between 19:45 and 22:45 is related to the line reset? The engineer did mention the speed may fluctuate.

[scwilson]

Now Tuesday evening and our connection has just dropped around 20:15. The hub yet again is flashing pink/orange then blue for 10 secs, back to pink/orange .... This is driving me nuts. I have run the quiet line test while in this state and no noise at all. Help?