My speed is an unfunny joke. help?

[paulgeaf]

Hello there.

I thought that our home broadband was seeming a bit slow when I was trying to stream something. You know the usual result, the dreaded buffering circle just kept on spinning and then if it stopped, we'd get about 30 seconds of TV show and then it was back to buvfering. Well, until the app whether it was YouTube or player or whatever, decided ro reduce the quality so that we could now watch it. Pity it looked like watching a TV through a shower  curtain, filmed with a potato.

Apart from that it was fine 😵‍💫.

Ok so you get the idea.

Did a speed test today (does BT really have such a rubbish interface speedtest where it doesn't even have a button to copy the results, or make it easy to do so, due to the font being all sizes and covered in various text for advertising offers? Unbelievable,..) and to my shock but not surprise we have the following speeds:

Download: 3.01Mb/s

Upload: 18.25 Mb/s

But hey at least the ping was good at  9ms!

Now, we currently are on whatever it's called when you pay £20 a month and get this reduced rate because you are disabled. I didn't even know ow what the expected speeds were but I had a feeling it should be higher and it is true.

I found this..

'We estimate your broadband speeds will be:

• Download speed between 51Mbps and 57Mbps
• Upload speed between 16Mbps and 18Mbps'

                          'Your guaranteed Download speed is 47mbps'

It then goes on to say all about the guarantee and how it must be low for 30 days hehehe then they pay you back.

30 days at that speed?

I can't believe the service I'm getting is not even worth that low low price!

So.

I'm just here to ask, is there anything I can or should be doing, apart from waiting 30 days?

Thanks for reading . Any help or advice appreciated. I'm clueless at this point. It used to be faster and nothing has changed at my end.

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

You have not read the speed guarantee correctly. 

You report a fault to BT and they will run tests and try to fix it and if they can not get the speed back to what it should be after 30 days then you would then get your money back.

See link.

https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/what-is-bt-s-stay-fast-guarantee-

You need to call BT now and report a fault.

[paulgeaf]

Aah OK thank you. I'm currently very sick and so yes I didn't read it properly. I had just finished an hour long search and reading so much different stuff that I just got a bit overwhelmed and that's when I decided to come here and ask people who know.
Much appreciate the help.

[Leanne_T]

Hi @paulgeaf 

Thanks for posting on the community. I am sorry you're sick and really hope you feel better soon. 

If you can get in touch, the team will be happy to help you get the speeds looked into and run tests to see what is needed to get this sorted for you. 

Please let us know how you get on. 

Leanne.

[paulgeaf]

Thank you to everyone for the help and advice. I had a visit from an engineer today and he discovered that if he used his own hub he was also getting the slow speed. He changed the faceplate, did some other things on his laptop and rechecked and now the speed from my hub was going at 40mbps instead of what it was when he tested it on arrival, which was the lowest so far at 1.5mbps! He cannot get it to change any further he said, and informed me of the speed guarantee which I'm now fully aware or and will be utilising it seems. At a speed of 40mbps we are under the guarantee speed.

That's basically it. He said to wait 72 hours now for the thing to settle down after the changes he's made and then if the speed doesn't go as high as I expect to call bt again and they should send open request out to actually diagnose and fix the issue, but he has done what he can to get us some speed back and I am happy for now.

It's funny, as we were chatting the guy said that it's highly doubtful that I will get any upgrade out in our village in Sussex as it's not going to be worth while to fix all these old copper house to cabinet cables. He was explaining the problem with the old copper cables and how they have a theoretical maximum speed on them which cant be sped up amd that full fibre is the only way to go to get the speeds i dream about. Interesting stuff, but ultimately depressing to learn we are stuck with it and can't go higher.

But what made it quite amusing is this. As he was just pulling away in his car I picked up the mail from the doormat and what a surprise I got when  I read the first one I opened.

It was from cityfibre, informing us that the upgrade process for our street had now begun. They will be doing a few homes at a time, wnd theyll be moving along the street as they go to every house along the way. So they really are doing it! They're changing out that old copper he talked about!

😁😮😁😁🤣😀😃

Sorry but I'm so excited I'm just...haha, hahaha!

Haaaaaa! 

[WSH]

Unfortunately, BT/EE don't use CF, so you'll need to change provider to take advantage of it.

(For what it's worth, when they did round here three years ago, it was July when they buried the cables, November when it went ready for service.  No idea if that's typical or just here).

[paulgeaf]

Ahaa thanks for the tip.

As our speed is still lower than the guarantee, BT have now been in touch to say they are sending an OpenReach engineer out.
They said he will be here in one, or erm, it might have been two days.
An hour later we got another text message:
OpenReach have discovered a fault. It is an external fault and not within your address therefore they will be fixing it in a day and we expect your internet to be fixed within two days. (Or words to that effect as I don’t have the text message here.)
They are moving fast!
Lets hope their rather optimistic attitude is borne out in the events to follow.
Hehe. I say that with my tongue firmly in my cheek as my previous experiences with BT tech resolution and OpenReach have been erm, lets just say
lacking?

I await the next development!!

[paulgeaf]

Just to give one last update.
Open reach found a wire that had burned out in the box on the wall outside and he repaired it.
Our speeds are now back to 55mbps or thereabouts.

Thank you all.

That was a pretty painless experience!