BT Broadband

Anyone in the area around the library got BT Broadband (not fibre)? We currently have Virgin fibre, but the line speeds seem to have been a bit erratic recently - despite paying for 70Mb, I’m clocking as little as 300k during busy periods … and given some recent price hikes, I’m seriously considering looking for alternatives.

A BT rep quoted me as being able to get a guaranteed 17mb, which is more than enough for my needs, but I cant help but take his claim with a large pinch of NA₂. Anyone got any experiances they can share?

FWe had Virgin for a while and the speeds were atrocious. They have problems with over subscription in some areas and if you’re being throttled there’s little chance of improvement any time soon as it requires infrastructure investment. We had to fight to get out of our contract with unusable broadband.

We have now have Sky that comes in through the OpenReach lines, so the same as BT and have steady speeds all day. We had straight BT infinity before that which was also solid, but the Wifi was poor until we ditched their router for an Apple Airport Express. The actual broadband speeds were fine.

We get 17 meg from Sky (not fibre) pretty much all the time. I am Waldenshaw Road.

I’ve moved this topic to Local Services as it’s a bit broader than general geekery and you might get more feedback.

Thanks Rachael - wasn’t too sure so I played it safe on the category.

So it seems that the 17mb claim has some substance then. Looks like Virgin will be getting a call from me later today

I am not in the area you ask about but am close by in Crofton Park and have BT infinity and its really good, The best thing about it is that you can hook up to BT interest almost anywhere when you are out and about by finding a BT FON signal and then signing in with your own password. So you can sort of take your bt service out and about with you which I find really useful. I ditched Virgin for BT and would never go back. I also find the actual BT service - as in actual face to face or on the phone customer service - to be much better than virgin which I did not like at all.

In Honor Oak: would love to get fibre, some neighbours have it, but there are no spare slots in the cabinet, even though the exchange has FTTP enabled (fibre all the way into your home). I feel pretty sure that we are in the 2% of the country that is fast internet enabled, according to recent stats, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can get it!

So have ADSL. One caveat about this - the line may be technically capable of 17Mb but in reality you are unlikely to get that, YMMV. We get 14Mb usually but real world works out somewhat less than this especially when you take into account contention (i.e. other users taking up bandwidth in the local area) at peak times.

I would never use Virgin again and would prefer to avoid BT too. Their customer service is awful in my experience. We use Zen - pricer than most but the support is excellent.

For ADSL2, otherwise known as copper broadband, the closer you are to the exchange, the likelier you are to have 17mb download, but the upload is a pitiful 1mb. The download speed slows down, the further away you are from the exchange

Fibre, otherwise known as VDSL2, is largely sold as a 38mb down/1 up product, for the fastest broadband, is 76mb down/20 up.

Most broadband providers, including Virgin use traffic management to slow down speeds to meet the demand of their customers. Virgin is also massively oversubscribed in the London area in general, so during peak times, the speed will be poor.

TalkTalk and Sky for example don’t have traffic management, so you’re likely to maintain the same speed throughout the day. I’m on TalkTalk’s Faster Fibre package and get the full speed at all times.

It’s worth noting that fibre broadband also slows down the further away from the fibre cabinet (the larger green cabinets, which are next to the traditional telephone cabinets), but the speed doesn’t dramatically slow down unlike copper broadband.

I have been thinking of moving over to fiber - currently on Sky broadband and get decent enough speeds but the dismal upload speed annoys me. Trying to back up to the cloud from here kills my internet connection - I have been trying to upload several hundred gb for weeks now and I can only really run it at night and I keep forgetting to turn it back on.
So my choices are Virgin, who mail me weekly with advertising bumbf, BT, Talk Talk (terrible rep on service) - is that it?
Cranston Road here so there is a cab just up the road and there is a some sort of fiber connection box virtually outside my door

@Foresthillnick: Which Sky package are you on and have you asked them about the dismal upload speeds? They are usually solid whatever is happening to your download speed. We have the 38Mbps Sky package and my upload speed is a solid 9 all day. I’ve had that upload speed forever, with all the providers I’ve had, on ADSL, fibre and cable.

9 mg upload on adsl - I didn’t think that was possible?? Blimey never had a speed like that on any provider - I only get 12-14 download with occasional peaks at 16… . Worth a punt but I suspect the only way is to move to fiber (and I would prefer to move away from Sky…)

My memory may be playing tricks on me re upload on ADSL. I had in the days pre-cloud storage where we didn’t really upload much.

Whoever you go with will be using the same Open Reach infrastructure so it’s more a matter of getting the deal you want. The exception is Virgin. And I can’t emphasise this enough- DO NOT GO TO VIRGIN. If you are unlucky enough to get hitched to one of their oversubscribed cabinets your broadband will be virtually unusable at peak times. Because they are not part of Ofcom they do not have to provide guaranteed minimum speeds so you can’t break your contract on those grounds either.

When we lived off Brockley Rise and had BT fibre to the premises (on their pilot) the upload was usually around 20 megabits per second. Since we moved to the other side of the South Circ, we have had Virgin fibre (not entirely out of choice), which is generally a bit variable up and down (as noted above) but upload is generally around 12 mb/s.

We’re lucky enough to not be on a badly-oversubscribed Virgin cabinet, but I still plan to move back to BT at some stage. I have found the Virgin router to be a lot less temperamental than the various BT Homehubs we had.

Thanks for the advise - I almost took the plunge a while back as a mate out in Croydon gets amazing speeds on his Virgin fibre so I guess it depends on the contention. May have to look at BT then!
IT is my day job but I am really not up to speed on this so I appreciate all the advise I can get. For now I am going to bring my files to work and cloud them from here on my uncontended 100mb fibre!(soon to be 1gb)

Yeah, the thing with a Virgin is that when it works it’s amazing and when it doesn’t it sucks and there’s no way of knowing which way it will go for you!

Traffic management, which is where types of internet traffic are throttled, is not the same as contention which all consumer ISPs have, i.e. the total bandwidth is shared among their users. If you have a fibre connection then you are less likely to notice this but it does mean that throughput is dependent on how busy the network is.

We moved to FTTP after suffering from endless drops in ADSL speed and awful noise on our landline. Three separate visits from Openreach, each time they’d found our connection from cabinet to exchange had been switched over from a decent line onto one of the lower quality lines between cabinet and the exchange, likely swapped with someone else when they reported an issue. They claim they found unused cable to move us back to but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the same again and swapped someone else over onto the poor quality backhaul line.

When we moved over to fibre we found that as we had FTTP at our cabinet there was no option of FTTC (the more normal service) and while many providers said they offered fibre they only offered FTTC, so we were restricted to BT. This may have changed but something to be aware of. BT do offer the lower speeds over FTTP at the same price as their regular FTTC, but you need a new fibre cable run into your house and a sizeable battery backup pack and modem/phone adapter mounted to an internal wall somewhere. Had no issues at all since we moved, speeds are consistently bang on what we paid for, no more random drops in quality on Netflix (plus 4k now works and looks great) and uploads are considerably quicker.

Given you’re technical, https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s_cid=ws_furls_adslchecker is useful, will show you what’s available technology-wise at your cabinet. For us it still shows only FTTP and vanilla ADSL, not FTTC.

Cheers for that.
Typically it fails for my number (maybe as I am with Sky for calls) but Zen’s checker results (and the BT address checker) look promising with FTTP supported for my address. I wonder if the quoted speeds on the BT site are actually delivered - 52mb is quoted for Unlimited Infinity 1…

Yes, we went with Infinity 1 and get bang on 52mbps every time we’ve tested (if we ensure no other WAN activity)
with speedtest.net. Just ran it now and got a tiny amount under but then I do have a Citrix session open with a streaming webcast in it

All the providers bar Virgin have signed up with Ofcom to offer guaranteed minimum speeds. Check what that figure is before signing up.

I do like that ping time!

Speedtest using TalkTalk Faster Fibre.

I guess that would be the same as BT Unlimited Infinity 2…
I hear so many bad things about TT’s customer services but maybe they are not that bad??

Yes, it’s the fastest speeds possible using FTTC on the Openreach network. I need faster upload for work purposes, so went for the top-tier and is stable throughout the day.

CS isn’t perfect, but I’ve always had a decent connection from them.

Sadly my online gaming days are long gone, but it does make remoting into work much more responsive than it uses to be. Now to convince my wife we need to upgrade to the 300mbps package!

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I live close to the library and get pretty abysmal speeds from BT. They have said we should get Infinity by April 2017 but don’t guarantee it. It is sufficient for remote working and surfing but not gaming.

Apparently this is the most reliable internet speedtest website. http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/

Touch wood, we’ve had no problem since getting BT superfast fibre. 200MB download, 20MB upload.

God damn BT. Utterly awful.
So I order 52 Mb on FTTC - I specifically asked for FTTC as I didn’t want another box/cable in the house. I have the chat logs confirming this. So we wait til today when the engineer was supposed to turn up. He didn’t. No call or email just a no show. Online status shows “An issue”
Eventually got through to BT via online chat. Very apologetic but no issues “We will get this resolved today if we can” just wait a moment. 30 mins later - nothing but a constantly ringing tone.
Try online support again. They fail to put me through but third times the charm…
The lady tells me that we cannot have FTTC as we are FTTP only at this address. I tell her I specifically asked for FTTC. She Shrugs - “You can’t get it there”. I asked why we waited in all day, why we waited three weeks for this to happen. she apologises but offers no solution. I ask for a management call back - still waiting for that.
So I try online sales again. I ask three times if I can have FTTC here - absolutely not an issue comes the reply.
So I try online support again. He says of course we can have FTTC and he will put me through. He fails to do so.
So at this point I have wasted a day off work and spent most of it waiting for an engineer who was never going to turn up and the rest of trying to find out what is going on. I suspect the various bits of BT has no idea what the other bits are doing. They are happyto take an order and send you kit even though they can’t deliver the promised service.
Utter omnishambles - if you have a choice, avoid BT like it is a rabid dog with black death…

You should’ve just trusted me when I said you couldn’t get FTTC at our cabinet!

too right I should but the when you ask them three times if FTTC is possible and they confirm - what are you gonna do.
They will still say when you speak to them online that they can supply FTTC.
Now I have to write “I will listen to the locals” 200 times!

By the way what do you get with FTTP - It is all so unclear.

Unfortunately there is a massive chasm between help desk/sales and the tech side. Have had the same with Sky, BT, Virgin. Sales say yes, fitters say ‘well they would say that, they don’t have to fit a dish three stories up’.

Indeed but even one of the fiber team said it would be fine.
Going to try getting an upgrade but may have a nervous breakdown first. Just been disconnected again… about to cry.

This sort of shambles is the reason we have Virgin. When we moved from Whatman Road, where we had FTTP with BT, they couldn’t support us. Rather than moving and keeping the same number, equipment etc, we had to close one account and open another. They managed to get confused with the closure (which their systems needed) and cancelled the new account as well. Cue day off work, engineer who was never going to turn up and no option of rebooking within less than a month.

Virgin, whose speed probably isn’t as good, whose customer service is legendarily poor and whose equipment in your house is a generation or two behind were at least able to send everything out and let me plug it in myself inside 2 days from ordering.

BT - service is great when it works well, but as an organisation they’re infuriating and dogmatic.

Our Virgin over the last ten years has actually been spot on. We get a steady 17 meg down but only 1 meg up. Our router was giving us issues so they gave us a new one free of charge last month.

http://tom.goskar.com/2013/09/20/my-fibre-to-the-premises-fttp-installation-part-1/

Our kit looks pretty identical to that.

Disconnected again - now speaking to an Indian call centre who has zero chance at sorting this as they cant even look up my telephone number and they are telling me that my account is closed. I feel like i am taking funny pills.

Openreach rival only Yodel for incompetence. I had a nightmare in my last place – house split into two flats. Openreach seemed to think there was only one address despite two separate lines with two separate providers, and we managed to cut off our neighbours when getting our broadband installed despite explicitly checking they had the correct flat/phone number, then the neighbours cut us off when trying to get their line reinstated so neither of us had service for a couple of months and both accounts got stuck in some sort of limbo with Sky and BT each blaming each other.

Good luck getting it sorted! Sadly you’re across the alley from us else I’d have suggested running a weatherproof length of cat5e over to you across the roofs!

BT customer service is appalling unjoined up. The Indian call centre people are charming but unable to do more then transfer you to someone else, who invariably can’t help either. It took me three months and I estimated ten hours on the phone to get back money they owed me through their own error. Every time I called I had to start over. I had to escalate it to a complaint to get a dedicated contact via email. She sorted it in under 48 hours.

Kafkaesque is the only word for it.

Well that was fun. Like speaking to someone with no short term memory.
Indai - What is your wife’s name?
Me - Mrs Foresthillnick
India - What is you relation to her?
Me - My wife!
India - and what is her full name??

Kafkaesque indeed

They, wait for it, are going to ring me back!

I am going to go get a beer or some seriously proper drugs…

Oh, I’m getting some serious BT trauma flashbacks here.

BT India: Please give me this information
Me: Here is this information
India: And can I have this information please
Me: That’s the information I just gave you.
India: That is correct
Me: Okay, so…
India: Please give me this information
Me: I JUST DID

Rinse and repeat for ten minutes until:
India: I can’t hep you with this enquiry as we can’t access your account information from here. I will transfer you back to the UK.

You could ask if it comes with chocolate fairies and Sales would say yes. Irrespective of whether you’re subscribing to broadband, buying a car or contemplating the purchase of 500 acres of Florida swampland. Sales would say Yes.

So I have now actually got Broadband and it does what its says on the tin.
But naturally the TV channels don’t work and they seem to have broken my landline.

Now back in the Hell of online chat

Did you go with BT/FTTP in the end? If so have you switched phone to the new box? Which TV channels aren’t working? Are you using BT’s router or your own?

Apparently it takes two days after FTTP to get all the internet channels despite ordering some 6 weeks ago.
No I have not moved the phone to the new box - that hasn’t even been mentioned and they are now saying we have a new telephone number which was also never mentioned and I really don’t want.
Honestly I wish I had stuck with Sky - BT are just awful.

Looks like they processed you as a new line rather than a migration When the guy installed ours he made sure our phone number was transferred from the old copper line to the fibre, plugged our phone into the fibre box and demoed it working for us. Our old copper line actually worked for broadband (but not calls) for the rest of the day. Not sure how long it took the channels to work via the BT youview box, but as I didn’t use the BT router I needed to faff with multicast/IPTV settings to get the box working. I watch BT Sport via app/Chromecast anyway and this worked straight away.

Thanks Stephen - that does explain it…

We are on standard Sky broadband copper overhead wires and average 15Mb/s pretty consistent the odd slow down some early evenings but never below 12Mb

Now on to the forth call centre person trying to get my old number migrated to the fibre line which is what they should have done in the first place.
I have my family coming for my fathers funeral at the weekend and I have no landline for them to contact me on - so pissed off with BT right now - they are absolutely hopeless. They keep sending us random emails saying things like " The kit for your engineer will arrive tomorrow" - even after it has already been installed.

If you are on Twitter, start harassing them there. That’s how I got a dedicated email contact high in customer service who sorted my issues almost instantly. Terribly sorry to hear about your father - if you can bear to, mention that in your tweet.

Sad but true. Seemingly, gone are the days when you can call a customer help centre or whatever and get a problem resolved. Now you have to bitch in public on Twitter, wait 12 minutes for the “Sorry to hear you’re having a problem. Follow us and DM us your details” response, then do all that and maybe it will get resolved.

Terrible that so many companies have to be publicly shamed on Twitter before getting their backsides in gear to resolve complaints.

I think this is true with the big suppliers. Choose a niche supplier and you can still get good customer service. Usually a cost involved too.

Used to use Madasafish but they got taken over by BT and that started the rot. Now use Zen.

Eventually, after crossing 7 circles of hell, I got to speak to someone helpful who explained that they have to wait for Sky to release my number and that this can take two days after which they can redirect it to my fibre box.
I get that but this really should have been made clear. I didn’t even know I needed to connect my phone to the fibre box till @Stephen posted above - I thought I would still use the master socket - and the install engineer never mentioned it

So eventually after ordering all this on the 27th November BT have finally delivered. I had to email the CEO (not his real email address but it does mean that the issues were raised with the executive complaints team) to get anything done.
It took about ten days to get my number back in total and even longer to get my internet TV sorted so I can now continue my TV diet of Cycling and Rugby. They did of course charge me for BT Sport despite me not being able to receive it and despite it being free anyway.

Bt customer support is the worse, by far, of any company I have ever had to deal with - an utter omnishambles and I am now trying to get some compensation for the three days off work we had to take and for the endless hours we spent on the phone and online trying to get it sorted. £30 was the opening offer, I’d rather they bump my connection speed up but I am pretty sure they would mess that up too.