Awful speeds today - drop from 7.25Mbit to 0.7Mbit!

[ardmhacha]

Thanks for the reply Glenn. I did take the BT test and sent a screenshot of the 2nd part of the test. It wouldn't let me complete the 3rd test. do you think this will suffice?

[Glenn]

It should be fine

[Simon]

It's the profile they will be looking at first, so as long as it shows that, it should be fine. 

[ardmhacha]

Thanks lads I'll see what happens and report back.

[Sebby]

Could you post the results here?

[ardmhacha]

Quick update as I'm using a friends internet. Got a quick reply from support saying that my speed issue is to do with the drops in connection I have been having (4 last week) and tonight, again no connection since 6pm. Apparently BT drop limit the speed when there are connection problems and I was advised that this is the main reason for slow speeds. I checked the connection at 6.50am this morning before I went to work and I was getting 4.7m/s, which was excellent but before the connection failed tonight it was back to 0.4 m/s.

This has been going on now for nearly 2 weeks. I was advised bt support that the call with BT was still open (I was not aware of this as I thought BT had given the all-clear) and they would raise it with them again. To be honest, i'm fed up with the whole situation. Surely Idnet should have been pushing BT on this. After all, they are the ones likely to lose a long-term customer because of BTs failings.

My friend, whose connection i'm using is Tiscali, is having a laugh as I had advised him to stay clear, but he has never had any problems and his broadband is flying. 

[Sebby]

It sounds like you're losing sync, probably due to noise on the line. Your profile then suffers as a result, and so even when your sync returns to normal, the profile limits your throughput.

[ardmhacha]

Sebby, I assume noise on the line is a BT problem? I moved to adsl2+ fairly recently and i reckon there's some connection (pardon the pun)

If they are responsible, its really frustrating that I cannot contact BT direct and ask them get their act together. Surely Idnet should be on their case. I'm at the end of my tether with this.

[Rik]

Have you been in contact with support, if so, what did they say?

[Sebby]

Sebby, I assume noise on the line is a BT problem? I moved to adsl2+ fairly recently and i reckon there's some connection (pardon the pun)

Yep, a BT problem. The problem with ADSL2+ is that is uses twice the number of frequencies compared with the old Max service, so it's more susceptible to noise issues.

[ardmhacha]

Regarding the problems on your circuit, BT have advised that they are unable to find a problem. We will look at booking an engineer out to your property. Please be advised that should the engineer be unable to locate a problem with the BT network, there is a £140 ex VAT charge for the visit.

This is the response I got from support. Idnet can't find a fault, BT can't find a fault, I have replaced everything from the main BT socket to the router, filter, cable, router itself and still I get disconnected and very poor speeds when I am connected. I give up! I'm certainly not going to risk having an engineer called out at that ridiculous price. Maybe this is not the place to ask but would moving to a LLU such as Sky take BT out of the equation? I wish I had known about adsl2+ problems before I foolishly agreed to upgrade.

[Rik]

A move wouldn't help as you're still using the 'last mile' owned and maintained by BT.

[rireed3]

This is the response I got from support. Idnet can't find a fault, BT can't find a fault, I have replaced everything from the main BT socket to the router, filter, cable, router itself and still I get disconnected and very poor speeds when I am connected. I give up! I'm certainly not going to risk having an engineer called out at that ridiculous price. Maybe this is not the place to ask but would moving to a LLU such as Sky take BT out of the equation? I wish I had known about adsl2+ problems before I foolishly agreed to upgrade.

To expand on Rik's statement -- Noise is always on the part of the connection that you _can't_ dodge unless you can get cable broadband, or can get mobile broadband and are willing to take the expense and performance penalty.

As for the risk of the expensive engineer, you weren't told when you signed up for ADSL (_any_ ADSL, including LLU), but we all take that risk from the beginning.  Welcome to Openreach hell.  Openreach policy is that customers are likely to be cheats or destructive dolts and must be threatened before given service.  Never mind that ADSL is a hopeless Heath Robinson lash-up that our 'doltish' public does amazingly well with.

That said, BT may be minding their P's and Q's a bit more these days.  Even silly BBC Watchdog did nearly a whole show on people who have been shafted by Openreach, and the victims who got on the show got all their money back.

If you've truly eliminated everything down to the test socket underneath the Master Socket cover, and you haven't had any work done on the house since you had good service, there should be no way they can make the charge stick.  If the problem isn't in your house, you have to get an engineer, and be overly nice to the engineer, to get it fixed.

Richard

[Rik]

Bacon butties and plenty of tea.

[ardmhacha]

Things seem to have settled down regarding the problems I was having. I am now getting constant connection although speeds haven't improved much although I'm prepared to be patient and see if this improves over the next few days. I was getting 1.2M/s earlier this evening.

I would just like to thank all those who were kind enough to offer advice. I appreciate I was getting a bit frustrated by the whole ordeal but on reflection the support i received from Idnet support and here was excellent. I especially want to thank rireed3 who kindly PM'd me with excellent advice. I think I'll be sticking with Idnet. Thanks again guys.

By the way, can anyone advise, where I might find CRC on a Netgear DG834G v1?

[Simon]

Can't help with the Netgear, sorry, but thanks for the positive note. 

[Sebby]

By the way, can anyone advise, where I might find CRC on a Netgear DG834G v1?

1. Enable debug by browsing to http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?todo=debug

2. Telnet into the router by opening a command prompt and typing telnet 192.168.0.1

3. Type cat /proc/avalanche/avsar_modem_stats

That should give you the error count.

[ardmhacha]

Thanks Sebby, I'll give it a go later.

[netgem21]

...and it's back again - so unreliable!! 

[Glenn]

Take a few BT speedtest readings and send them to support, they can them if necessary get BT to take a look at the problem

[Rik]

...and it's back again - so unreliable!! 

It looks like a hot VP to me, ie exchange congestion.

[netgem21]

It looks like a hot VP to me, ie exchange congestion.

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[Rik]

Same answer. Could be a badly built circuit but that's very rare on Max.