A little Moan and the call for some advice please

[#1]

Guys i have posted on this forum before and was helped to sort out a on going problem which was rectified (and moderated) but only for about 2 weeks, anyway enough rambling, now for the nitty gritty, i live up on top of a mountain on the border of  the broadband threshold (infact to far to be honest), have been with plusnet since 1999, but my problems have started since some lovely person decided to chainsaw the telegraph down for firewood, since then no end of problems, but up until that point we got 448-512kbps of speed and no drop outs. september last year tickets were raised and BT engineers came and gone (how ever not mostly ion the days they were supposed to) a little rant on here and hey presto some butts were nudged in the right direction, but now these problems have come back with a vengeance and have now been told by plusnet that thier suppliers are going to have one more go, but failing that, plusnet or Bt cannot provide me with a stable broadband connection, any ideas on where i go from here?? my neighbour is with sky and get no probs, so why cant plusnet sort this out, on the 10 january this year i had 920kbps for over a week. but now 220-312kbps with drop outs and disconnections whern phone rings... help somebody please.

[#2]

Hi baldmechanic,
I've just been reading through your ticket and I can see what a complicated issue it is. I can also see that one of our experienced faults agents has taken ownership of this and is updating you on an almost daily basis. Bearing that in mind I think you're currently in the best hands possible.
Jojo

[#3]

Quote

my problems have started since some lovely person decided to chainsaw the telegraph down for firewood

I've just had a look over your account and can see that we're making progress on this, however, the above comment concerns me, if you can get us some photographic evidence of this, trust me it should speed things along somewhat Otherwise what ever information about that you can get us should help your case out here.

[#4]

Hello Adam and JoJo,
  thank you both for your input and advice, yes i have got somebody looking into it for me and he seems ok, it's just that i got my hair off (well no hair at all) with the dumb and dumber the BT engineer and coach, who called last week, the engineer commented on how far i was from the exchange and that i should not be receiving any broadband and to be thankful with 200-312kbps, let alone evrytime it rains and the phone rings i get total disconection, and lo and behold the coach butts in and adds " why dont you go back to dial up?". that came from a man who is just about to retire from our beloved BT, my reply to him was why dont BT engineers go back to using pushbikes? he soon turned his volume down.
Adam, regardig the pole being cut down it was in early 2010, BT have repaired it and have given it the thumbs up, and plusnet do know of this problem, when we first moved up here we had no end of problem with our phone and one great BT engineer (very helpful indeed) came up and renewed the line from our house all the way to the junction box with one span of wire, and hey presto 512kbps steady and no phone problems. but of course one ot the poles got cut dowm, so back to problems again. and now dumb and dumber decides to cut the span into 3 peices and has now added connections. so i would imagine that will cause more problems soon. i just cant get my head around that i even got 920kbps for a week and now cant even get 350kbps, and BT tell me thats the best they can do
over and out Victor Meldrew

[#5]

Hi there,
Thanks for getting back to us, the back story on this makes for interesting reading It also paints a much clearer picture of where I believe we can take things for you.
A disconnect-when ring issue like this 9/10 is an exchange problem. I can see that engineers have been looking at this on more than one connection but I would like to gain some clarification of what has been done so far so we can clearly see where to go next. In my opinion I think the cabling needs to be rechecked and checks done to ensure that the spans put in place can support a functional connection and that you are connected to the best available line pairs.

[#6]

thank you Adam, your help in this matter is much appreciated, i really do hope they can get to the bottom of this problem, working from home is not as enjoyable as it used to be and especially with two teens who ar both studying and using the net, shouting at me for the not stop disconnections and low speed issues.

[#7]

hi adam, not good news i'm afraid bt openreach has given up on this, even though i do agree with you on the exchange fault, this is the letter openreach sent to plusnet.
The following comment was added to the Question Dear Mr Williams, As per our conversation, here is a copy of the final e-mail from the Hogh level escalation team within our suppliers; "Have now had feedback from Openreach Field Manager via their HLC; Visits yesterday confirmed that the network is fit for purpose and no errors could be found.  They have identified speeds where the last stretch of overhead cable begins as 0.5meg.  At the customer premises speed is at 0.3meg.  Openreach can find no faults on this stretch of overhead cable that would cause the speed reduction, other than the normal reduction due to decibel loss with distance.
It is possible that they could bypass the stretch of overhead cable with a new underground cable.  Costs to do this being in the region of £5k (Estimated), however, there is no guarantee that this would improve broadband speeds.  It would not reduce the line length significantly and with the overhead cable already of a good standard, it is unlikely the db loss would reduce enough to result in a speed improvement.
In conclusion, Openreach have double checked the route and cannot find anything untoward that would cause slow speeds.  It is down to the distance from the exchange that causes the slow speeds. They simply cannot guarantee that by renewing the overhead stretch with underground would improve speeds, therefore they would not look to carry out this cable replacement.
The line loss is 77db so I would concur with Openreach decision and would appreciate your agreement that this High Level Escalation may now be closed"

so i have to take legal advice on this me thinks.

[#8]

@Baldmechanic,
Is your connection still dropping when your phone rings?
With the length of your line (77dB is *very* long), I'm not at all surprised at the speed, but if your connection is dropping when the connection drops, this might towards a problem elsewhere.

[#9]

yes james, it is still dropping when phone rings, last year we had exacly same problems, low line speeds and phone causing Internet to dc, bt fixed the fault in the exchange, and it worked a treat, but now they cannot fix this one. or they dont want to?

[#10]

They might be looking at the wrong type of fault.  I'll give someone in faults a poke.

[#11]

Hiya,
I've spoken to the guy that you've been talking to in our faults team.
BT have done a lift and shift & tie pair modify (which rules out the line card being at fault), they've also replaced the D+E side at your cabinet, identifying that there was not a problem between firstly, your house and the cabinent and second the cabinet and your exchange.  I believe that they have also done all the usual internal wiring checks to ensure that the issue isn't local to your house.
There's really nothing else that they can do short of rewiring your telephone line, which they're not prepared to do as it would cost them £5,000.
I'm not sure what use there would be in going legal, although I appreciate the frustration.

[#12]

http://www.broadband-notspot.org.uk/

[#13]

Ok i have to admit my broadband is not going to get above 280-300kbps if i stay with Plusnet, i am really not happy with the situation as up unti llast september, we had reasonable speed and connection. So i have contacted a Sattelite Broadband company Avonline, Has anybody ever had Satt Broadband or any issues?? or even advice??  Avonline engineer calling week tomorrow to give me estimate.