Help, BT Staff, Anyone?? FTTX 500mbps unstable

[kevinddt10]

Hi,

I am hopeful someone here can point me in the correct direction 

I joined BT in October 2019, from date of joining to date 04.01.2021 I have had repeated problems with bt fibre to the premises also showing as FTTX on 192.168.1.254 (Router login page). BT has sent openreach who installed a white box (ONT) who drilled in via the window frame itself  and left leaving myself to connect the smart hub 2 and discs even though BT advised they would do this as part of setup. Fault occurred and BT sent another Openreach engineer who confirmed the lighting speed to be within range and no fault could be found, they started to run more tests in the background and said there was a fault found as the speeds went from 900mbps down to 80mbps, engineer came out and said he was getting 75mbps and the reason was because of the package BT had changed me to without my consent, he then left noting no fault, another engineer came out who confirmed that he couldn't find a fault either.... note that none apart from one engineer went up the post its a new fibre service just released in the area, No equipment was linked up they only look at the lights on the ONT and advise not to touch even though bt TOLD ME to open the box and check the leads.  BT then sent Halo (Expert) who wasn't much of an expert as he arrived with no PPE and couldn't turn the ethernet connection on his own laptop, he done a few wired tests after being shown how to turn on the ethernet in network and internet settings, he seen the speeds jump hard wired from 50mbps to 700mbps but I explained this couldn't be correct as the 900 package was changed to a 500 package weeks ago and it shows as completed on my order history also confirmed by bt, in fairness bt has sent out power line adapters and added redress onto the account but the fault is still here, I am hearing echo and noise on a digital telephone line, the speeds or all over the place wired and wireless. I have noticed internet freezing and youtube/prime freezing. I have 3 of bt black discs (complete wifi)  with smart hub 2. I have only today been sent a replacement smart hub 2 to check if the router is the issue. I cant perform any tests on bt speedtest as it loads to 10% then fails. instead BT has told me to run my tests on fast.com which is a netflix server for netflix users only. again speeds all over the place.  I have tried to leave BT but been advised that no other network (EE, TALKTALK) and so on cant accept an order due to the line being digital and i would lose access to my telephone line and telephone number which is needed for medical reasons. Openreach cut two of my copper lines when they installed the fibre cable though they haven't done this on any other customers I have spoken to i even was in a house when fibre was installed and i asked the engineer who confirmed no we don't remove them. openreach has also confirmed that they dont have a practice for removing copper lines until 2025  as a result BT want me to pay £130+ for each line to be installed again to put me back in control on my setup before they messed everything up, to top this off Openreach was due to arrive today 04.01.2021 to install a battery back up unit onto the ONT but this failed due to Openreach not showing up and BT insist this is because of covid, no notice no backup. (quoted england new lockdown, I am in N.Ireland so it hasn't applied to us yet. The service provided by bt has been the worse service I have ever seen in my lifetime apart from one manager who has tried to help but hasn't been successful to date. I don't no how I am to prove that the connection is all over the place if Openreach or reporting no fault found and not completing there job by doing a detail report on what has been checked and what has not been check, BT advise they cant give or read the Openreach report and Openreach advise I am not there customer and to deal with BT. I have contacted Offcom and raised a complaint, my next step would be the ombudsman but that's a long process. The tec team advise that as long as I can get 10mbps from a complete wifi  disc then the wifi promise doesn't take effect and the only way i can check what speed the smart hub 2 is getting is by taking BT word from the tec team as it doesn't show on router page. I am also unable to use a 3rd party router due to the digital line. Today I spoke to faults who said the backup unit is £200+ and gives maximum of 5 minutes talk time which is clearly wrong advise as its a minimum of 60 minutes she hung up on me after waiting 1 hour 48 minutes,  I believe it should be much longer for people who need the backup during downtime of electric although 60 minutes should be enough they could at least make it last 24hrs for the size of the unit they provide. The big backup battery unit is no good if the ONT has no power as the digital link is lost and the hub becomes a useless flashing light with no access to telephones. The cable runs to a post then to my home in the air instead of how bt and openreach show how it should be connected, its worse when rain happens as well..

Note: Call diversion on BT Landline is a free add on its however NOT free to use it doesn't come out of your unlimited allowance 

Any questions please ask, if I missed anything let me know and I will add

[woodstockahem]

Couple of things I can suggest. 

You can purchased some UPS and connect ONT ( and possibly router) to it. Will be much cheaper than the £200+ for the quoted.

The hybrid FTTP cable installation could had been better solution for phone connection.

To diagnose the internet issues. Try connecting a laptop/PC directly to ONT and check speed coming in. You can find more info about directly connecting to ONT in other threads in this forum. Fast.com or many other speed checker sites can be used by anyone. 

In case the speeds coming out of ONT is decent then the problem might be internal to your property. Like router onwards.

[kevinddt10]

You can purchased some UPS and connect ONT ( and possibly router) to it. 

Sorry to be dumb but what is ups??

The hybrid FTTP cable installation could had been better solution for phone connection. 

I see the above solution in the hub settings but what exactly is this and what pros or cons does it have?

In case the speeds coming out of ONT is decent then the problem might be internal to your property. Like router onwards.

Router changed, 5 complete wifi discs tried and removed one by one on different days to see if this helped even bt wifi checker showd the wifi as poor in the same room as the hub and discs but discs show as excellent in my bt. Speed rates keep changing all the time by massive amounts 100mbps +

Have tried changing the bands etc no joy. Digital voice also on line but going to get this moved onto copper and see if that caused the issue then by 3rd party router for the fibre line. Hope this will work though 

Any other steps?

[woodstockahem]

- UPS -> Uninterrupted Power Supply . The one which is connected to any electronic device and provides emergency power when electricity supply goes off. Depends if you have frequent power cuts.

- Hybrid FTTP Cable -> Not talking about the Router /Hub settings. It was actually the cable coming in which had the copper wire. I have phone working via copper and internet via actual fibre. For the time being it keeps it simple for the phone line ( till copper is retired everywhere)

- Now to the Internet bit. The internet is effective in the property as soon as it's out of your ONT. ONT is converting light pulses coming from fibre into digital signals and back to light pulses.  Simply put, you can attach any computer itself to ONT and start checking if the first point of internet connection into the property. Search for "Setting up PPPoE connection for broadband". This way you are finding if there are any issues before the internet connect is getting into the Router. Try doing various speedtests and take average reading.To be honest it is BT responsibility to provide decent connection upto the point of ONT.If you find this bit difficult then let's move onto Router.

- Router -> As the name says, only routing traffic inside your property. Amongst other things, ensures each devices talks to the outside world and between themselves internally. You can temporarily disable wi-fi on the router( to nuke all other connections to router), connect one computer wired to the router and then do the speed tests. Just go to few websites offering speedtests and take average. Again upto this point (upto wired connection) to a BT provided router, It's their responsibility to provide decent connection.

- wi-fi Discs -> these or any other kinds of internet extensions (like powerline , other range extenders etc) will always be a hit and miss. Each property is different and there are multiple factors that will affect the speeds you get. That's why BT plays it safe and commits to 10 Mbps. Hence my earlier suggestion to do a sole wired test from router.

- Other observations -> The Digital Voice connection is connection is restricting you down. If the internet issues are internal to you property like WiFi Discs , weak ISP supplied router etc. then sometimes throwing money at the problem solves few things. I am talking getting a good third party router with Wi-fi 6 combined with wi-fi 6 extenders.

On terms of wireless extensions, wi-fi 6 and wi-fi 6E are massive jump on what went before it. BT provided equipment is wi-fi 5.

Apologies if I have confused you more with some technical stuff, but unfortunately all these things are getting complicated as time goes by. It's upto us consumers to try self-learn and diagnose/fix problems. Sometimes that's the only way if the ISP isnt able to do it for us.

All the best !!

[kevinddt10]

I have put the order in to move the digital voice back onto copper line so that I can use a wifi 6 router have you any recommendations for such a router for range and speed on WiFi? 

The cable you refer to which I thought was about the router setting can you explain abit more on this and the advantages or disadvantage hybrid or something interested in learning more about this. 

I will run the tests on ONT when you say poe I have a cctv system that uses this but they have a box you plug into ring elite 

[woodstockahem]

Many folks here prefer - ASUS RT-AX88U Wireless-AX6000  as a decent Router.

I have preferred  TP-Link Archer AX6000 as the router and have put couple of  TP-Link RE505X AX1500 range extenders. All are Wi-Fi 6 . The range extenders have a 1 Gig Ethernet port which i connect to ethernet switch for nearby devices.

Other routers like from Netgear are also good. Choice is yours.

I don't like wires running around the house and powerline adapters were ok up to a point when i had FTTC connection. 

once your digital voice will revert to copper, don't worry about the hybrid thingy. All you need is a stable working landline phone(there is still few years for copper) and a stable fast internet.

For PPPoE connection, see if the information in the link helps -> https://www.tp-link.com/uk/support/faq/921/

Steps 1 to 6. In Step 6 use bthomehub@btbroadband.com as Username and BT as Password. 

Basically just take out the Ethernet cable from the ONT to Router (Router End) and attach to a windows laptop.

[kevinddt10]

I was thinking of this one

Archer C5400X Tri-Band Wi-Fi Gaming Antivirus Router - 8 Gigabit LAN Ports, Archer C5400X

But I'm not sure which is the better to go for its this sort of range of money I am willing to pay out. I already use BT powerline 1gb connections but they only supply about 150 of connection 

[pippincp]

The Archer C5400X is only a WiFi 5 router whereas the ASUS mentioned above is WiFi 6. If that doesn't matter to you then go for the Archer.

[kevinddt10]

• https://www.tp-link.com/uk/compare/?typeId=9&productIds=29321%2C40650 

Can you tell me which is better, I don't game but like the option going forward just wondering if I could use the 5gz band for say one phone then the other 5gz for all other devices? Can't seem to find an answer online so thought I ask you guys

[kevinddt10]

I have a hybrid cable going to house half is fibre optic other half is copper, I have the copper plugged into mastersocket and fibre into ont, only thing is bt advised that they can't connect the other part of copper to the post without lossing my number or creating a 2nd line, seems odd as I have seen copper and digital line both ring at same time at friends  house same setup as me. Wondering why I can't get them.to connect at post and allow me to use the ont for broadband and mastersocket for landline.