Comments on: More BT Broadband connection woes

by: David

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:07:54 +0000

Well he is ex-bt so I guess he is doing what some engineers cannot because of red-tape. Either way I was very impressed. He plugged his equipment in and found the fault straight away. From our point of view we just wanted a working connection and were fed up of going back and forth with ISP and BT about who should be responsible. We can highly recommend him in terms of efficency and price. Ok so we had a £200 bill, but the time trying to resolve and stress prior to The BT mans visit made it well worth paying him. Also when you ring him its a FREEPHONE number and with no press option 1, then option 2 etc etc, you just get straight through, which made the whole experience much better.

David

by: Paul

Thu, 29 May 2008 15:54:27 +0000

Is the BT man actually a BT man moonlighting and charging for the service BT won’t provide direcftly? - call me an old cynic.
How do you add 20 years to your life? Find a way of stopping time while you hold for BT technical support.
Seriously though it is galling to have to pay for external support but, if there is no other choice…

by: David

Mon, 26 May 2008 21:23:43 +0000

I dont know where you are but I’m in Monmouthshire. We had immense problems. BT blamed it on us, we blamed it on them. I spent hours on the phone to BT complaining about an internet service that went on and off and slow speeds when it did work.

In the end I went with an independent engineer who just calls himself “the BT man” (www.thebtman.com) and he attended and tested the line, found the fault, fixed it that same day and now we have roughly double the speed and a router light that isnt constantly bloody flashing!

David, Penault.

by: NEIL

Fri, 09 May 2008 18:43:21 +0000

CAN ANYONE PLEASE ADVICE ME ON ANY PROBLEM CONNECTING BT HUB VIA EXTENTION LEAD FOR MAIN BT SOKETS.AS MY CONNECTION KEEPS GOING DOWN.

by: Sharon

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 17:50:30 +0000

I read with interest as I reported a really slow Broadband connection to BT, which seemed to go but the following day the intermittent line dropping started. Apparently microfilters are to blame and oh yes the third party router I am using instead of their Voyager. It’s reassuring to read that it’s not just me that get’s frustrated with BT circles and useless diagnostic processes which don’t lead to any constructive fault finding. However, the last comment I try this occasionally and I have yet to see it work, it always says it’s busy!! If anyone does have any useful help on resolving the intermittent broadband dropping I’d be grateful. Thank you.

by: DaveH

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 23:57:25 +0000

Anyone tried >> http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

by: nert

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 15:55:28 +0000

Been having exactly the same problem for two months now, line drops after around 2 minutes (we made a whole 5 minutes last week). BT less than helpful, line apparently fine, used their own diagnostic software (which at 36mb had to be downloaded from someone with a proper ISP) and it said everything was absolutely fine. Engineer came round and was confused. Went back to exchange and said they’d plugged us into the wrong port, and changed it. Now it’s even worse. And, if you like a laugh, in the T&Cs on BT’s site you’re not allowed compensation for broadband outage, just voice calls. On a better note, OFCOM have actually done something useful and said MAC codes if you wish to switch must be issued within 7 days, not like the usual 7 bloody months with BT. (This is also a fresh install of XP Pro, so it ain’t the PC.)

by: Gareth J M Saunders

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:45:36 +0000

Thank you for that less than constructive and badly punctuated offering “youn prat!!!”.

If I may offer two points in reply.

The first thing is that I don’t pretend to understand how the telephone system or how BT works, and have nowhere suggested that I do.

As it is, I shouldn’t have to understand the telephone network system or business in order to ensure that a service I am paying for is working properly. That’s why I pay for this service: I buy into their expertise so that I can get the level of service that they are offering. And quite frankly I wasn’t getting that, so I complained and sought their help, following their instructions on how to troubleshoot the problem.

Which leads me to my second point, which is that I was simply following the instructions that I got from BT themselves. Instructions that I found quite frustrating, because within the course of one telephone call, for example — that lasted nearly two hours — all I found myself doing was answering the same handful of questions three or four times, and then being passed onto someone else, who asked the same questions.

I didn’t feel that I was being taken seriously and whenever then whenever they said that they had found the problem they’d pass me on to someone else who’d tell me that that was not the fault after all. And lastly when they told me that the problem had been fixed, it wasn’t. And you wonder why I was frustrated.

So I contacted Broadband Technical Support AGAIN and then followed the instructions that they gave me AGAIN. Which took me round in a circle AGAIN, at least six or seven times within a few days: passed from Tech Support to Line Faults to PSTN and back to Tech Support, again and again and again. Somewhat frustrating when the problem was after all at their end!

I’m well aware of the reason why BT will only guarantee the master socket signal, and quite agree. But, if you’d read the other posts about the problems I was having, my point was that I was disputing the fact that the problem had anything to do with any of my telephone sockets and was actually to do with something at the local exchange. Which it turned to be.

So “youn prat!!!” I’m sorry to have to conclude that your comment really added nothing constructive to the discussion.

by: youn prat!!!

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:04:08 +0000

can i just add something to your above comment the BT Technical depts both pstn and adsl depts are open 24 hours so before you start complaining check this and the fact that any adsl service can only be guaranteed to the main socket due to the fact that some idiots belive that they are able to do there own internal wiring thats why you required to test into the main test socket!!!! and nobody checks the extensions unless bt supplied them in the last 12mths. so read up on the facts before you start thinking that you know the bt or even telephone system you prat!!!!

by: Gareth J M Saunders

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:24:45 +0000

Hi Ali, I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. I suspect that it’s just standard ADSL. That is a great site to which you linked, thanks.

Hi Martin, after your previous suggestion of this I ordered more microfilters, which are currently happily hanging flacidly from unused phone points.

The problem, it appears, had something to do with the phone line, but I’m unsure about the exact cause.