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[kitz]

oh dear...  has it all been sorted now?

[mike004]

oh dear...  has it all been sorted now?

No. The broadband line has been active for nearly a week. Still no sign of the router... They are shipping another one out. It will take "3 to 5 working days". No next day delivery, then.

It seems a third party company ships the routers out. And communication between UK Online and the third-party is woeful.
I signed up for broadband on 7 May. My line was active on 14 May. Plenty of time to ship a small package to a mainland UK address, I would have thought.

Mike

[roseway]

That's a pretty dreadful performance. I could order a router today from any one of half a dozen (or more) suppliers, and have it delivered tomorrow.

[mike004]

That's a pretty dreadful performance. I could order a router today from any one of half a dozen (or more) suppliers, and have it delivered tomorrow.

Yes, I agree. After the first router failed to materialise, I expected a next-day delivery.
And UK Online charge 50 quid for the router. Other ISPs include it for free. My bank account was debited on 11 May for the router charge!

Unfortunately, I am past the 12 day "cooling off" period. Otherwise I would have seriously considered cancelling the lot.
Mike

[UncleUB]

I would be never off the phone if I was you.Never mind the 12 day cooling off period,lets be right, if they have charged you £50 for a router which you need to run their service and not received one,then surely you have the right to cancel and get a full refund.

That is abysmal customer care by any standards.

My bank account was debited on 11 May for the router charge!

I would also be considering contacting trading standards as well

[mike004]

I would be never off the phone if I was you.Never mind the 12 day cooling off period,lets be right, if they have charged you £50 for a router which you need to run their service and not received one,then surely you have the right to cancel and get a full refund.

That is abysmal customer care by any standards.

My bank account was debited on 11 May for the router charge!

I would also be considering contacting trading standards as well

Just spent another 10 minutes on the phone. "Its with ParcelForce. We have delivered it to ParcelForce.", they said. "If we give you the tracking number, you can contact ParcelForce to find out when it might arrive". Bl**dy cheek!
I tried to convinve the UK Online call centre that my contract was with *them*, and it was up to *them* to arrange delivery of the router. It was their job to  chase up ParcelForce.
Mike.

[kitz]

Thats not good mike.

Sorry to hear that you have been let down by their suppliers 

[mike004]

Finally got my NetGear router and I'm sending this message via my broadband connection. Only 2 weeks after the line was switched on...

* Its not as fast as I expected. The NetGear router connection page says my downstream connection speed is 1024 kbps. Compared with a phone line checker quote of 2 or 2.5 Mbps.  Are there any other ways or tools to check connection speed?

* Security -- I have turned off the wireless capability of the router. The router firewall doesn't have any settings by default...Is it OK to "unplug" my connection, or turn off the router when not in use, until I get a handle on security issues?

* My old Pentium2 laptop is running hot. The fan is kicking in. I wouldn't expect a normal network connection to cause this. I am using a Xircom 10 Mbps PCMCIA card.

Mike

[HPsauce]

Some more details from the router stats would be useful, e.g. attenuation, noise margin, sync speed (downstream and up).

[mike004]

    Here are some stats from the Netgear router admin page:
System Up Time 00:48:02
Port    Status    TxPkts    RxPkts    Collisions    Tx B/s    Rx B/s    Up Time
WAN    PPPoA    2445    2422       0    309    1604    00:21:44
LAN    10M/100M    6982    7247    0    1681    362    00:48:00
WLAN    11M/54M    0    0    0    0    0    00:00:00

ADSL Link    Downstream    Upstream
Connection Speed    1024 kbps    256 kbps
Line Attenuation    58.0 db    31.5 db
Noise Margin       27.8 db    13.0 db

[HPsauce]

Well, that's blatantly a fixed 1mbps connection - I thought you signed up for 2?

Good noise margin, the line should be OK for around 3mbps (maybe more) on ADSL-Max so a fixed 2 mbps will be safe.

[mike004]

Well, that's blatantly a fixed 1mbps connection - I thought you signed up for 2?

Good noise margin, the line should be OK for around 3mbps (maybe more) on ADSL-Max so a fixed 2 mbps will be safe.

I signed up for the UK Online Lite package. It says on the UKOL web site, up to 2 meg download speeds. And the UK Online phone line checker says my line is OK for 3 meg...

The written contract I have from UK Online makes no mention of speeds at all. Have I have been a bit naive

Mike

[HPsauce]

I'd just give them a ring. It's not unknown for new connections to have a configuration error.
Remember they are probably depending on someone in BT to set it up initially and "there's many a slip twixt cup and lip".

[mike004]

I've turned everything off now, because I have noticed a problem with incoming telephone calls.

Here is my attempt to diagnose the issue:
* Turn off computer, disconnect router,any broadband stuff whatsoever.
* Into main BT box, just plug in a single phone. Dial tone is OK. Calls out are OK.
* Call into the phone, using a mobile for example. Phone "blips" (something like half a ring tone), then caller is greeted with static and is eventually forwarded to 1571 BT voice mail.
* Connect microfilter at main BT box. Plug in phone. Outgoing calls are OK. But same issue with incoming calls, caller is greeted with loads of static, totally unusable.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Mike

[mike004]

Tried calling in again today. From the landline at work, was OK. Also via mobile phone, was OK.
Could using a mobile phone from 5m away cause interference. Or maybe the line was still connected for broadband after I unplugged everything -- does broadband use the equivalent of a DHCP lease on the actual telephone line.