First part of morning spent in eager anticipation of BT engineer call 
BT Broadband's India call centre had made the appointment, at the weekend, giving me a slot of 8.00 to 10.30 on Wednesday (yesterday), but I asked them to make it Thursday (today) as I thought I'd be out yesterday.
- AT 10.40 today no engineer had arrived. I tried calling BT on 0800 800 151 to see if I could be put through to despatch, however that number only deals with PSTN (public voice network), so no option but to call BT Broadband's offshore call centre. At least I now have an 0800 number to call - 0800 7318578.
- Nice gentleman in call centre then keeps me on the line whilst he makes a call back to the UK - to figure out with UK despatch why my engineer is a no-show. He stayed with me for 35 minutes whilst he himself was held in a queue. He kept me informed all the time and apologised for the delay. Well, at least it was on an 0800 number and I got on with some work.
- After 35 minutes he informs me that the service time slot was correctly booked on BT's system, but that despatch had failed to inform the engineer in the field about my appointment!
- Within an hour an apologetic engineer turns up from BT Openreach. He explains that his sole responsibility is to test the service at the master socket - using his own ADSL equipment and laptop. Apparently all the engineers were in a meeting this morning and no call slots should have been available on the system.
What sound does a "passing buck" make...?
OK, now we're in business:I sit the engineer down and show him my ADSL connection log. He asks what type of router I have - "is it the white one?", "Yes", I say, "Oh", he says. There's a pause whilst he looks at some of the service calls in his notebook. He points out one where the same BT Home Hub is involved. Mutters.
Now, for a few days I've at least been syncing at about 3000 to 3500kb/s, but my IP profile has stuck resolutely at 500 - except for one short period within the last 24 hours when the IP profile went up in 2 stages - once to 2000kbps and then briefly to 2500 kbps - with attendant rises in d/l throughput speeds to match.
However in honour of the BT engineer's visit my line has started to sync at 786kb/s, and my IP profile has returned to 500kbps. "Oh", says the BT engineer, that's because it's capped, because there's a fault on the line. Also the S/N Margin is now floating around 16dB.
Er.... What? What's this cap he's talking about? I try to ask him to elucidate, but he changes the subject. As for the S/N Margin he informs me (I assume correctly) that with fixed rate services, the higher the S/N margin the better, but with adslMax, the lower the S/N margin the better - he's looking for around 6dB to be happy.
I show him the log, and explain that my sync speeds (and, even my IP profile speeds) have been much higher, briefly, and "Doesn't that prove that the fault is external to my house?" No, he doesn’t think that the problem is external.
He connects his equipment, and hey presto, it syncs at over 3000kb/s
He connects my BT Home Hub and, conveniently, it is still syncing at 786.
I asked him if my attenuation of 33dB was a bit high for my very close proximity to the BT Exchange. Although My house is 85m to the exchange - as the crow flies, the cables don't take the shortest route - it turns out that, with the detour, there is about 600m of copper and/or aluminium between my master socket and the exchange. He tells me that he's seen much higher attenuation.
He's apparently not permitted to tell me that my service provider's equipment is the guilty link in the chain (i.e. crap) - but, nevertheless, that is my clear inference. Engineer mentions in passing about 5 or 6 BT Home Hubs that he's attended to which 'might' have similar issues - only he's not allowed to say 'officially'. Yes, this is something that I must take up with my service provider - BT Broadband.
As far as BT Openreach's engineer is concerned, my ADSL line has tested out OK at the master socket. This is despite me having a detailed log showing various sync speeds over the last week.
So is the variation in sync speed the fault of my router, after all??Before he leaves the house, and I telephone BT Broadband customer service I do a soft re-start of my BT Home Hub from my browser. It now decides to sync at 2848kbps. Only I'm again left with an IP profile of 500kbps (which is what I think the BT Openreach engineer means when he says my line is capped because I have a fault - i.e. in his opinion, a fault with my router.)
So my throughput d/l speed is now in the 400's again. Message from engineer - not his fault, and it will take time for the BT exchange to respond to my better sync speed.
"How was it for me?"He leaves - a happy man; I'm left perplexed. I have that uneasy feeling that you get when you're wondering if you've just been 'had', but you don't know enough to be sure one way or the other.
I suppose that, having made a complaint to BT Broadband about my service, I was not really expecting someone to come round to say his half of the circuit was OK, but my service provider's part probably wasn't, and there was nothing he could do about it.
£27.99 per month and I'm not getting what I'm paying for and no-one is taking the blame yet!!
You have to laugh
- and then you cry
any recommendations as to where we go next?
Thanks, Steve
