Internet Dropping Issue

[eme172]

Hi there, 

We have had an ongoing issue with our broadband for over a month now. We have tried to get a resolution but BT is making it very very hard.

Some info:

• Internet goes off every few days, mostly we have the internet from 1600-early hours of the morning. Then it's generally off from early hours-1600 (if we're lucky). This happens until once a week the internet is off for 2+ days straight, then the 1600-early hours ON cycle continues. Twice a week we have internet all day. My favourite days of the week. There is a definite pattern here. 
• BT have honestly been a nightmare to deal with, booking the wrong engineer tickets multiple times. Hence the one month+ without resolution. The hours I have spent on the phone... 
• Important to note that we had NO ISSUES for the first month we lived here (almost to the day), then the second month it was like something changed and all of a sudden our internet was non-existent most of the week.
• BT engineer suggested it's possibly because we live too far from our local village for FIBRE.
• So, we opted to change to copper because of his suggestion.
• Order was cancelled 3x by BT. No explanations from them.
• BT engineer came round to our house this time to confirm it's the above FIBRE issue.
• However he couldn't even do his checks because it caused our internet to drop apparently? So he suggested the above resolution, aka change to copper for a more stable connection. We had internet that day, his check prompted it to drop, then for the rest of the day we had no internet. 
• So we call to do this order AGAIN and we then get told our copper was activated all along... (I do not believe this as the pattern remains the same, nothing has changed about our connection, no more stable, no more drop outs, it's the same pattern).
• We were told no line issues this entire time.
• We did a million troubleshooting checks with the customer service agents, ridiculous at this point, no we do not use a filter thank you. 
• The engineer did not mention any concerns with our wiring or phone line. Simply our location from the local village. 3km or so. 

All this being said, we have internet right now. Please can someone tell me how to check on the technical log if we're operating on fibre or not. Surely the engineer would've seen that we were no longer on fibre when he came over to the house. I feel like BT have a huge issue on their end with viewing our account details or something. The customer service agents have done us dirty numerous times. Any help or advice would be so appreciated. We work from home and we cannot right now, for over a month. We obviously have nowhere else to go to work and we have no phone signal here to make matters worse. Thank you in advance. 

Some stats from WifiMan as of right now:

3.0Mbps Download

1.0Mbps Upload

Our internet has been on for about 4 hours today, it's 9am ish now. 

I do not know what to post from the technical log so please let me know. 

[Keith_Beddoe]

@eme172 

Welcome to this user forum.

Enter your phone number into this form and display the results here, but edit out your phone number before you post the results.

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

Which BT Home hub are you using?

[eme172]

Hi Keith,

Thank you for your reply. Results above. Hope they're visible. 

Technical log product code: Smart Hub 2

Thank you.

[Keith_Beddoe]

Thanks.

I assume you are on an ADSL 2+ connection, with a connection speed between 4.5 and 11Mbs?

Is there any noise on your phone calls? Dial 17070 and select option 2, there should be no noise between the announcements.

What is the connection information from the home hub?

As  you are using the BT Smart hub you can get your connection stats by, Opening a new web browser on your connected device and type 192.168.1.254 or bthomehub.home into the address bar. This will open the Hub Manager.  Click ‘Advanced Settings’ and then ‘Technical log’

[eme172]

Product code:Smart Hub 2

Serial number:+091298+2036018197

Firmware version:v0.24.04.11017-BT

Firmware updated:Wed Jan 6 16:49:52 2021

Board version:R01

GUI version:1.71 05_06_2020

DSL uptime:0 days,04 Hours37 Mins33 Secs

Data rate:800 Kbps / 4.2 Mbps

Maximum data rate:1.160 Mbps / 9.847 Mbps

Noise margin:15.3 / 17.2

Line attenuation:15.2 / 36.3

Signal attenuation:15.2 / 39.6

VLAN id:101

Upstream error control:Off

Downstream error control:Off

Data sent / received:194.8 MB Uploaded  / 560.2 MB Downloaded

BT Wi-fi:Activated

2.4 GHz wireless network name:BT-Z5AKJK

2.4 GHz wireless channel:Smart (Channel1)

5 GHz wireless network name:BT-Z5AKJK

5 GHz wireless channel:Smart (Channel36)

Wireless security:WPA2 (Recommended)

Wireless mode:Mode 1

Firewall:On

MAC address:E4:75:DC:19:CF:14

Software variant:-

Boot loader:0.1.7-BT (Thu Nov 30 09:45:22 2017)

Called the number and no noise.

Thank you. 

[Keith_Beddoe]

Then you are still on a VDSL (fibre) connection, and not an ADSL, that is confirmed by the VLAN id:101 in the log. Its possible that ADSL is no longer available as an option, as its being removed from many exchanges.

You are only showing a DSL uptime:0 days,04 Hours37 Mins33 Secs  Why is that?

Did you disconnect or restart the home hub, or did it disconnect on its own?

What does your master phone socket look like?

[eme172]

Hi there,

So we never got switched to normal broadband, thank you for confirming. I told the guy on the phone my suspicions due to the ongoing order cancellations but no, he 100% guaranteed we got switched from fibre to normal. So much for that. Appreciate you drawing my attention to this. 

Our internet only came on this morning, we did not have internet for 2+ days prior to this morning. We did not restart the hub today at all. Or yesterday for that matter. It never benefitted us to restart it or reset it because it didn't make a difference to our connection sadly. 

Our master socket is number 7. 

Thanks again.

[iniltous]

AFAIK, BT will not sell ADSL where VDSL is available , and it’s been that way for a little while , and athough there is a policy to offer ADSL to VDSL upgrades practically for ‘free’ , it needs the customer consent, so someone on ADSL can,  if they want, remain on it for the time being, but once someone leaves ADSL , getting back to it ( with BT ) is going to ‘difficult’. In your case , where it’s been suggested by an Openreach engineer , moving back to ADSL may improve stability, albeit at a slower speed , may run into these problems as the ordering process may well just see you requesting a product that BT don’t sell anymore in your area, hence the order being cancelled.

 If VDSL/FTTC cannot be made to perform adequately by OR , and BT ADSL is unavailable, you may have to consider a company that still does offer ADSL, but accepting that if it’s a problem on the D side cable , that may well affect ADSL as well as VDSL, so similar problems and slower speed 

[Keith_Beddoe]

---

@eme172 wrote:

Our internet only came on this morning, we did not have internet for 2+ days prior to this morning. We did not restart the hub today at all. Or yesterday for that matter. It never benefitted us to restart it or reset it because it didn't make a difference to our connection sadly. 

Our master socket is number 7. 

Thanks again.

---

That master socket is known to give problems, and is most likely the cause of the problem

As mentioned https://community.bt.com/t5/Landline/2019-Master-Socket-kit-loose/m-p/1985566#M6775

You need to connect things up as shown below, and see if you still get disconnections. Leave it like that for a few days.

NTE 5C Test socket check

[eme172]

Thank you for your input.

We live in the Highlands and Islands, so it's fairly standard but I will admit the times I spoke to BT about switching from fibre, the reaction I got on the phone was as if I had asked them for a miracle. I will definitely look into other companies if this continues because thus far, it's been a total mess, not to mention a waste of my time and money, minus my income. Much appreciated, thanks.