BT Slowband - 01489/Droxford

I know willingly signing up to BT services is asking for it, but
having an ISDN contract I had no choice.

For a week or so after my exchange was converted and the speeds on my
BT Broadband system were very good but the past week or so has been
unbearable at "peak times" which are the *only* times I really want to
use the connection. At weekends it is normally ok, but 6pm until
midnight I am getting speeds worse than my old 56k modem!

I am downloading a 1.2Mb file at 10 to 1in the morning and getting
12Kb/s - the best all evening (edit: it stalled and now is giving
short bursts every few seconds, looks like it'll be going another 20
minutes at this rate).

I then send a message to BT - they don't have an online contact form
specifically for BT Broadband so I have to use the generic bt.com
enquiry form. I get a reply over two days later with a cut+paste job
with an 0870 technical support number which has had an engaged message
the ten times I have called it in the past hour!

Is it likely that the exchange was woefully underprovisioned at the
beginning and it is in a queue for extra work? How common is this? The
exchange probably has a few thousand lines and probably a few hundred
ADSL subscribers now (the trigger level was 150). The area code is
01489 (Droxford)

Gareth

Gareth A. wrote:

> I know willingly signing up to BT services is asking for it, but
> having an ISDN contract I had no choice.
>
> For a week or so after my exchange was converted and the speeds on my
> BT Broadband system were very good but the past week or so has been
> unbearable at "peak times" which are the *only* times I really want to
> use the connection. At weekends it is normally ok, but 6pm until
> midnight I am getting speeds worse than my old 56k modem!
>
> I am downloading a 1.2Mb file at 10 to 1in the morning and getting
> 12Kb/s - the best all evening (edit: it stalled and now is giving
> short bursts every few seconds, looks like it'll be going another 20
> minutes at this rate).
>
> I then send a message to BT - they don't have an online contact form
> specifically for BT Broadband so I have to use the generic bt.com
> enquiry form. I get a reply over two days later with a cut+paste job
> with an 0870 technical support number which has had an engaged message
> the ten times I have called it in the past hour!
>
> Is it likely that the exchange was woefully underprovisioned at the
> beginning and it is in a queue for extra work? How common is this? The
> exchange probably has a few thousand lines and probably a few hundred
> ADSL subscribers now (the trigger level was 150). The area code is
> 01489 (Droxford)
>

You /could/ have ordered a managed ISDN-ADSL conversion with any ISP -
too late now though
I've heard reports of this happening before. It seems to be part of BT
matching their capacity in the new exchanges with demand. You may find
you're back up to speed in a few days. I guess you've checked your MTU,
flushed your DNS cache, stuff like that.

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 01:08:32 +0000, Bat Guano <bat.guano@talk21dotcom>
wrote:

>Gareth A. wrote:
>
>> I know willingly signing up to BT services is asking for it, but
>> having an ISDN contract I had no choice.
>>
[snip]

>You /could/ have ordered a managed ISDN-ADSL conversion with any ISP -
>too late now though

You missed my first sentence - I have 6 months left on a 12-month term
and it is much cheaper to

>I've heard reports of this happening before. It seems to be part of BT
>matching their capacity in the new exchanges with demand. You may find
>you're back up to speed in a few days. I guess you've checked your MTU,
>flushed your DNS cache, stuff like that.

I set the MTU right after installation! Everything else is fine - I'm
using a DSL-504 with two machines connected and the second one has
exactly the same speed troubles. I have just emailed somebody using BT
on the same exchange to see if they are having problems too.

The speed has come up now - the ADSLguide test reported 70kbps 1/2hr
ago and 150k just now.

Gareth

Gareth A. wrote:

>
> You missed my first sentence - I have 6 months left on a 12-month term
> and it is much cheaper to
>

Ah, I chose the cheap option and went with BTO initially. However, I was
going to go with Demon!

>
> I set the MTU right after installation! Everything else is fine - I'm
> using a DSL-504 with two machines connected and the second one has
> exactly the same speed troubles. I have just emailed somebody using BT
> on the same exchange to see if they are having problems too.
>

What about you email everyone on the exchange and tell them to log off?


> The speed has come up now - the ADSLguide test reported 70kbps 1/2hr
> ago and 150k just now.
>

Good - must be bedtime then.

"Gareth A." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> The speed has come up now - the ADSLguide test reported 70kbps 1/2hr
> ago and 150k just now.

Try BT Broadband's own speed checker
(http://makeashorterlink.com/?P65C23796) - I presume it will be based in
their network somewhere so will be a better reflection of the speeds you are
able to get, rather than the ADSL Guide one - which will be affected by how
the external internet and how busy their own servers are

You can also try and contact BT Broadband on 0800 800060.

New exchanges sometimes feel the affect of contention because BT Wholesale
(not your ISP) are not using a big enough Virtual Circuit for the ISPs to
connect to its core network - it happens sometimes and if/when they notice
this they can increase it pretty quickly.. what probably happening is that
as ADSL is pretty new at your exchange everyone is downloading a lot more
than they do on other exchanges...

However, report it to your ISP and they can hopefully pass on the
information to BT Wholesale..

Regards
Sunil

"Sunil Sood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:bpi2t1$1nq4p1$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Gareth A." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> >
> > The speed has come up now - the ADSLguide test reported 70kbps 1/2hr
> > ago and 150k just now.
>
> Try BT Broadband's own speed checker
> (http://makeashorterlink.com/?P65C23796) ->>
> Regards
> Sunil
>
>
Your computer downloaded the graphic at 14 kilobits/ 1.7 kilobytes per
second .

This is noticeably slower than expected. This could be due to a problem with
your computer or your BT Broadband line.

GO 56k GO :-)

Gaz

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 09:52:29 -0000, "Sunil Sood"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>"Gareth A." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>>
>> The speed has come up now - the ADSLguide test reported 70kbps 1/2hr
>> ago and 150k just now.
>
>Try BT Broadband's own speed checker
>(http://makeashorterlink.com/?P65C23796) - I presume it will be based in
>their network somewhere so will be a better reflection of the speeds you are
>able to get, rather than the ADSL Guide one - which will be affected by how
>the external internet and how busy their own servers are

Tried that several times over the past week - it gets to about 1/10th
the way and then stalls, and possible continues in bursts but despite
using modems for the past seven years my patience *does* have a limit!
At least the ADSLguide completes quite quickly.

>You can also try and contact BT Broadband on 0800 800060.

I managed to get thorough to the Technical line today and they told me
to report it to that number. I called them but they insisted I had to
go through some tests before they could do anything, so I need to call
them this evening while I am near the computer. He talked about the BT
speed tester and I fear that they will insist on me doing that -
perhaps I should sugest putting them on hold for 20 minutes while I
get something to eat :-)

Gareth

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 12:16:04 -0000, "Gareth not NLL or anybody else."
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>"Sunil Sood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:bpi2t1$1nq4p1$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>
>> "Gareth A." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> >
>> > The speed has come up now - the ADSLguide test reported 70kbps 1/2hr
>> > ago and 150k just now.
>>
>> Try BT Broadband's own speed checker
>> (http://makeashorterlink.com/?P65C23796) ->>
>> Regards
>> Sunil
>>
>>
>Your computer downloaded the graphic at 14 kilobits/ 1.7 kilobytes per
>second .
>
>This is noticeably slower than expected. This could be due to a problem with
>your computer or your BT Broadband line.
>
>GO 56k GO :-)
>
>Gaz
>
Sounds like a line fault to me, Its just on the limit and the sync is
failing.

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 21:06:16 +0000 (UTC), Rambo <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 12:16:04 -0000, "Gareth not NLL or anybody else."
><(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Sunil Sood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>>news:bpi2t1$1nq4p1$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>
>>> "Gareth A." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> >
>>> > The speed has come up now - the ADSLguide test reported 70kbps 1/2hr
>>> > ago and 150k just now.
>>>
>>> Try BT Broadband's own speed checker
>>> (http://makeashorterlink.com/?P65C23796) ->>
>>> Regards
>>> Sunil
>>>
>>>
>>Your computer downloaded the graphic at 14 kilobits/ 1.7 kilobytes per
>>second .
>>
>>This is noticeably slower than expected. This could be due to a problem with
>>your computer or your BT Broadband line.
>>
>>GO 56k GO :-)
>>
>>Gaz
>>
>Sounds like a line fault to me, Its just on the limit and the sync is
>failing.

I have been getting slow speeds like that - I have DSL-50X for the
D-Link modems and that gives a neat reading of all the signals and
they were fine - attenuation was 14db or something silly like that.
Amazingly, upload speeds were at *full* speed.

I was just looking at the status page for an unrelated problem at work
and saw this:

--
21 November 2003 - 10:47 AM
Problem in Droxford area.
We are aware of a problem in the Droxford area which may prevent
customers from accessing the internet. Our engineers are working to
resolve the problem. We apologise for any inconvenience this may
cause.
--

At fscking last! Why can't they tell that it's been happening for
several days?!

Gareth