IDNet Home Plus Fibre - 72 Hours Later...

[Bill]

Nothing that would get past your swear filter

[Rik]

 

[Bill]

That thing needs a sanity check...

Download speed achieved during the test was - 31584 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 12000-4000 Kbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is -4000 Kbps

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 7666 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 10000 Kbps

[Rik]

I think they need to sit down and re-write the tester, it's full of mayhem.

[Technical Ben]

Is the fault in the line that it has "BT" stickers on it? Or that it's copper? Or that the exchange and hardware just cannot cope with the upgrades. 

[Rik]

All of the above. 

[Steve]

We could do with a few more of those easy questions

[.Griff.]

Guys what's the length of the cooling off period with IDNet?

[Simon]

Not sure there is one, but it's only a 1 month contract.

[.Griff.]

Not sure there is one, but it's only a 1 month contract.

There's no cooling off period??!? Erm isn't that breaking the law?

As for the 1 month contract -

Fibre services have a minimum 12 month contract

[Glenn]

Fibre is a 12 month contract, Simon http://www.idnet.net/solutions/home/broadband/default-fibre.jsp

Griff, give support a call and ask.

[.Griff.]

This is getting ugly.

As support closes at 6.30pm in the evenings I sent an email last night outlining my concerns and asking someone to call me today to discuss the issue. Instead of this I received a generic/default email this morning pointing to to BT's speedtest. That was it.. No elaboration, no comments, nothing.

I've just called support and they couldn't be less interested. "That's how it is.." and "What do you want us to do about it" are two direct quotes. I was also told IDNet do not have a cooling off period which is odd as I'm pretty sure it's UK law for all contracts (with a few specific exceptions) to have a cooling off period.

Apparently a director is going to call me back.

[Rik]

Cooling off periods only apply to certain types of sales, mainly distance selling, eg insurance and goods. Services are not generally covered by a cooling off period because costs are incurred at the start of the contract.

[sof2er]

Keep us updated!

I'm thinking it might be congestion affecting the DL speeds, strangely enough the upload speeds remain solid as a rock at any time of the day.

I'm not entirely sure about how DL Speeds are calculated, is it shared with all users on the exchange/cabinet or is it shared with the users of the same ISP on that exchange ?

[.Griff.]

Cooling off periods only apply to certain types of sales, mainly distance selling, eg insurance and goods. Services are not generally covered by a cooling off period because costs are incurred at the start of the contract.

Rik you're preaching to someone who's family are all solicitors. That aside every ISP I've worked with or had professional dealings with (Remember I worked for a prominent ISP before) have cooling off periods.

[Rik]

I'll leave you to talk to Simon.

[.Griff.]

Rik would you know Simons surname at all? I forgot to ask when he called.

[Rik]

Davies.

[.Griff.]

Thank you.

[Bill]

I'm not as hacked off as Griff, but something isn't right somewhere... the BT tester is (more or less) on speaking terms with me again, so I've been running tests during the day on that and, as close to it as possible, the tbb one.

Some very odd results... the tbb tester gives me anything from 15 to 30+Mbps download but a rock solid 8Mbps upload. BT gives more consistent download speeds (>25Mbps) but upload varies from 3-7Mbps. Huh?

Always well over the fault level of 12Mbps.

I'll keep it up for a few more days before tabulating the results, but something doesn't look right to me

[Rik]

I suspect it will come down to BT backhaul not being adequate, just as it wasn't when ADSL2+ was launched, Bill.

[Bill]

It could well be, I'm not necessarily blaming IDNet, but why does the BT tester show possible congestion on uploading whereas the tbb one never does?

I've NEVER had congested uploading before...

[.Griff.]

Bill I think it's clear the BT Speedtest is a waste of time. It's obviously in BT's interest for people to get good results from it so it's hardly independent and given the ridiculous tolerances (12mbps to 37mbps is acceptable for a 40mbps connection) there's not much to be gained from it. BT will obviously just turn round and say our connections fall within the set allowances so go away and stop bothering us.

I am however making a record of tests as requested.

[Rik]

You've never had the ability to upload so fast, Bill. FTTC is too new for there to be much 'body of experience' in the forum, so we can only guess at what is going on. The one fact that we do have is that BT didn't upgrade their network before launching ADSL2+ and, for several months, there were speed problems as they appeared to juggle with the available bandwidth. Knowing their ability to plan, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the same hasn't happened again.

[Rik]

given the ridiculous tolerances (12mbps to 37mbps is acceptable for a 40mbps connection)

I couldn't agree more about the acceptable range on all BT BB services. Unfortunately, they make the rules, and there's little or nothing any ISP who is re-selling BT services can do about it. I've even argued the point with BT's CEO but got nowhere.