Months of intermittent broadband

[Kat68]

Hello

We have had months of intermittent broadband , often going off several times in half an hour and sometimes going off for 25 minutes. We are now  reluctantly on Digital voice so it affects our internet and telephone. Little mobile signal where we live,just texts if we are lucky when we put the phone in the window. Also slow connection less than half of what is promised. Several engineers,all say it is a network issue ( I have a screenshot from one engineer visit showing 75 cutouts)   but none have resolved the problem, but the fault cases just keep being closed by BT with a letter saying we have closed your complaint. We have a current fault registered with them with an estimated fix time of sometime next week but...... We would really welcome any suggestions on how to get the service we are paying for!

Thanks in advance

[Colin_London]

Intermittent disconnections are the worst - I suffered them for over 10 years until I gave up knowing fibre was on the way. 

You are at the mercy of the skill of the engineer that is sent. My problem was they kept on sending telephone engineers rather than broadband engineers and if they didn’t hear the crackles on the line (it only happened in certain conditions when the temperature was fluctuating greatly through the day) they would just close the fault down.

Another problem was that in my case it wasn’t the speed that was the problem. The system seems all geared around slow speed falling below a threshold. My speed almost always got back above the handback threshold on resynch. It was sometimes frustrating that the engineers would say ‘you have got good speed’ when the problem was actually that it was cutting out 3 times a day during Teams calls.

In the end, ironically, the copper fault was fixed when they installed a new pole for the replacement fibre - the fault all along was in the old pole cabling and they never found it.

The copper infrastructure is life expired. Either you need to keep making a fuss trying to get a special faults engineer to properly track down the problem or, like me, start lobbying to get FTTP in your area.

[Kat68]

Thanks for your advice Colin re the broadband engineer. Sadly none of them come equipped for checking physical lines.

Your reply does not fill me with hope. There is fibre in the village but they won't bring it down  the old lanes to a few houses, as they won't spend the money.

Like you we have had problems for years but the BT service is now so much worse  with telephone calls being cut off when you are making an appointment with the Dr,  internet banking a nightmare. am I beginning to wonder if I should see if there is a satellite service here in East Sussex and give up with this telecoms route.  

[PaddyB]

Hi @Kat68,

Thank you for posting. I understand how frustrating an unstable connection can be and I'm sorry that we haven't been able to repair your service as of yet.

If you send me your details, I can take a look at your connection and run few checks on your line. 

I have sent you a private message with instructions on how to contact the team.  You can access your messages via the envelope icon at the top right of the screen, or click on this link, Private messages

Thanks,

Paddy

[Colin_London]

You now have a mod on your case so there is a good chance you will get the right person to look into your problem if you contact them. If the problem is with your individual drop wire it can be replaced.

The problem may be however if the larger multi-pair cable down the lane is just so past it that they cannot make an easy fix (e.g. there are no more ‘good pairs’ left in it to transfer you to). This is the problem I had although it was never admitted.

If there is fibre in the village at that point I would be lobbying (maybe including councillors or your MP) for it to be installed as a replacement, although it would help if all your neighbours on the same lane also agreed they would take fibre services at the same time. If Openreach just don’t want to invest then you can group together with your neighbours to pay for a ‘FTTP on demand’ custom installation or, as you say, if there is an Altnet in the area speak to them. If you cannot get your neighbours to agree you can go it alone with a satellite service but it is not cheap.

[Kat68]

Hello Colin

Thanks for your reply re our supply.You may be right regarding the wire as I do know that on one past occasion we were told by an engineer that we had been changed to a 'new pair of wires'.

Sadly as of today the interruptions are still ongoing and the download speed has now dropped to 12.13 download/1.06 upload.

I am exploring other options but have taken on board your suggestions.I have been in touch with OFCOM who state that everyone must have access to contact the emergency services. Now we are DigitalVoice and with this broadband supply we do not. Also the Communications Ombudsman told us to request a formal complaint number from BT so that they can intervene after 8 weeks. I have had no reply from BT but the CO said that this did not matter as long as we kept the original email . There is a special email for complaints.

I hope our communications may of help to other members of the community.

PS I have checked out one satellite company so far. It is £75 per month, currently I am paying circa £50 for the up to 55 download ( in actuality circa 50 in past which was fine) on the Halo account, just broadband now as they have removed the landline telephone .