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Author Topic: Are BT throttling connections?  (Read 36835 times)

HPsauce

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #75 on: December 18, 2014, 11:30:54 AM »

I really don't know if my issues are relevant or not.
But I'm beginning to think they are, assuming PlusNet are using a significant amount of resource shared with BT.
I'm sticking with Google DNS for now, but occasionally testing the default PN ones, which still consistently give problems.

Today I had another performance problem (suspect router firmware memory leak) that caused me to power cycle the (standard PN-supplied) router, which cleared it.
Just in case it was a factor I immediately checked and yes, the issues were still there with the PN DNS, but not Google's.
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kitz

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #76 on: December 19, 2014, 08:50:05 AM »

For example, I was reading ronski's thread on avforums.com last night, where he's documenting his impressive build of a cinema room; the thread is heavy with photographs. The page had to be reloaded many times just to get all or most of the photos downloaded.  This is what it looks like otherwise.  Missing images all over the show.  The whole thread isn't shown, but pretty much every other image in Ronski's thread was missing.

Now I'm confused.   

I thought you said in earlier posts that you didnt have DSL with BTinternet but with other ISP(s).   Even so if you do have BTbroadband, why arent you posting your findings in that thread, I would be if it were my ISP.   

Also its pretty clear that you have had so many issues with BT over the past 15-20yrs and you obviously think they are spawn of the devil.. So why on earth would you still be with them?
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burakkucat

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #77 on: December 19, 2014, 04:18:22 PM »

Also its pretty clear that you have had so many issues with BT over the past 15-20yrs and you obviously think they are spawn of the devil.. So why on earth would you still be with them?

I will offer up two possible reasons --
  • Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.
  • It is easier to fix from within rather than from without.
But perhaps I am just caterwauling from the pole-top of DP1032 via which my pair descends to the bowels of the earth . . .  ;)
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Black Sheep

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #78 on: December 19, 2014, 04:25:16 PM »

Ha ha ..... I think you need some water chucking at ya, B*Cat  ;) ;D ;D.

If you've had such intensely poor service from whatever business you care to mention, you simply do NOT stay with them for 15-20yrs (I think that's what was quoted ?). You'd have .... M ... U ... G tattooed on yer napper if you did.  ;) ;D
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pedro492

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #79 on: December 19, 2014, 06:06:32 PM »

???  For the record -- *sigh!*  -- we are hooked to a Market 2 exchange - with only two other licensed operators (OLOs) - Sky and TalkTalk - providing broadband services (in addition to The Beast itself):

It's all very simple:  we have one line from TalkTalk (ADSL2+) and one from BT Retail (Infinity 1 - VDSL2).   The TalkTalk service has been fine; I can't even remember the last outage with it; it's unlimited, syncs at 20Mbps, has no obvious throttling, and costs us peanuts: £8.50 a month.

That problematic second line, however, was until recently with the BT cut-out company - PlusNet (crafty accounting there, dressing up BT PlusNet as if it were an entirely separate business; just like Tesco does with its convenience store chains).  Any way, since the subsidised "honeymoon" period for that PlusNet contract came to an end, and since PlusNet had its own connectivity problems - at PPP level, which they couldn't explain but reimbursed us for - and since we were getting very sub-standard VDSL2 from them - no better (despite the price) than ADSL -- an unstable 25Mbps VDSL2 service compared to 20Mbps with TalkTalk's rock-solid ADSL2+ -- we ditched PlusNet for "BT Proper" -- who at the time were offering their own sprat-to-catch-a-mackerel offering.  A subsidised £10 a month, iirc. Oh, and some Sainsbury's vouchers.

To be clear, that second line had previously been with TalkTalk (Business) as well, who were first class (and very cheap). However, when FTTC was eventually rolled out here - very much a damp squib locally with patchy coverage and service - another story in itself - TalkTalk couldn't give any indication for when they, as a company, would be offering FTTC from our exchange.

Recall that BT swindles the OLOs like TalkTalk who want to provide FTTC from an exchange. BT Wholesale (or is it Openreach? The distinction gets ever more blurry and irrelevant) - any way - BT (with the connivance of Ofcom) charges the OLOs a disgraceful £3,000 for every single GEA fibre patch cable needed to link the OLO's co-lo kit in the exchange to BT's own rack.

That cable costs just 50p to buy, and about 20 seconds to install. But BT pockets £3,000 for every one of them!  And since those cables are limited (conveniently) to 1Gbps capacity, the OLO is going to need many of them, to offer FTTC from every cabinet on an exchange.      Consequently the OLOs are very reluctant to fork-out £3,000 time and again, for those poxy little cables, where there's a risk they won't recoup the "investment" in a reasonable time-span.  And with BT slamming the OLOs with another (unlawful?) margin-squeeze on FTTC as well, it's likely the OLOs may never see a return at all from offering FTTC on Market 2 exchanges.

And that's why we didn't go with TalkTalk for VDSL2, because we couldn't.

Yet again for BT though;  with the likes of TalkTalk and Sky frozen out of FTTC altogether, it's a big, fat, juicy Kerr-ching! -- the loot just keeps on flooding in for BT! Generating enough spare cash, in fact, to buy an entire cellular network, with no debt leverage whatsoever!

Just to recap. We have one ADSL2+ TalkTalk line which I'm using now to post this;  and in a minute, I'll hook-up via our (pants) VDSL2 service -- provided by BT Infinity -- to post again; just as soon as the HomeHub 5a has finished rebooting itself! :'(

So, in answer to your charge ---  not guilty, your honours --  we (thankfully) have *not* been BT customers for the last 10-15 years.  Mostly, over that period, we've been with TalkTalk for fixed-wire telephony and xDSL, and with Three for mobile services.    Does that satisfactorily answer all your questions?!    Now what's your excuse for defending the indefensible?!  Why are you guys in bed with The Beast?!
« Last Edit: December 19, 2014, 06:52:51 PM by pedro492 »
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burakkucat

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #80 on: December 19, 2014, 07:46:17 PM »

Thank you for taking the time to explain your current situation.

I, too, take a service from TalkTalk which is ADSL2+ but due to the length of the metallic pathway, is best used by setting the ATU-R (CPE) to ADSL2. I have considered taking a GEA service (supplied over VDSL2) but, currently, cannot see any benefit in me doing so.

Thinking about your problems with the VDSL2 service, have you given any thought to migrating it to A&A (on a monthly basis) and then taking up their offer to fix the circuit? (I presume they, A&A, still relish poking the Evil Empire of Newgate Street until the requisite result is obtained.)
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HighBeta

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #81 on: December 19, 2014, 08:08:16 PM »

Echo burakkucat suggestion with aaisp. Their bt (& talk-talk) accounts managers are in a different league.

The home1 option (100gb) makes unit use easy although downside is its  a six month contract.
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Chrysalis

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #82 on: December 19, 2014, 08:32:09 PM »

wow how this topic has drifted off course.
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kitz

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #83 on: December 19, 2014, 08:46:34 PM »

Quote
Not really sure what you're asking, nor why you're asking it?

Because in post after post you've done nothing but slate BT since you came here and people have started to wonder what your agenda is, because its over and beyond that of an aggrieved customer.
   
You also implied in another post that you had 2 lines, and because its pretty obvious from your IP which ISPs you use, none of which are BT.  You'd also previously said 'Once bitten, twice shy' implying you'd never use BT again.  Then suddenly in this thread you make out you are with BT and something starts to not add up when I can quite clearly see which 3 telcos you are posting from.

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-- we ditched PlusNet for "BT Proper" -
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we (thankfully) have *not* been BT customers for the last 10-15 years.

Make up your mind.

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Is someone deep in the sweaty drawers of The Beast, doubting my integrity?!

There you go again with the conspiracy that anyone whom doesn't agree with you 100% must be in the pocket of BT.
You seem to think that anyone who can see both sides is a shill, yet it is not rather strange someone comes on here full of venom against 'The Beast' who doesnt even connect by them.    When something starts to not add up, I have every right to say I was confused over your claims.

Quote
any way - BT charges the OLOs a disgraceful £3,000 for every single GEA fibre patch cable needed to link the OLO's kit in the exchange to BT's own rack.

Lets be clear that the cable gives them access to the OLT and numerous FTTC DSLAMS. Its £2000 for the ISP to hook their equipment up to BT's OLT that terminates the fibre from numerous DSLAMs.  There's usually one OLT per exchange, although quite a lot of exchanges are now terminated in a neighbouring exchange, so the LLU provider doesnt even need to have a presence in many of the smaller exchanges.   What bandwidth and backhaul they use is up to them.

If BT has invested shed loads of money - a damn site more than £2000 - installing cabs, DSLAMS and laying the fibre etc are they supposed to let a competing ISP hook up to their equipment for free?    I hardly think a one-off cost of £2000 per OLT is an extortionate cost if they want access & use the BT equipment.

Quote
Consequently the OLOs are reluctant to fork-out £3,000 for a poxy little cable where there's a risk they won't recoup the "investment" in a reasonable time-span.
and its also going to cost BT quite a long time to recoup their investment too.


Quote
Why are you guys in bed with The Beast?!

No-one here is in bed with The Beast.  You know who BS works for, but other than that you really need to get your facts straight before you start spouting off garbage and throwing out false accusations.   You got a chip on your shoulder just because someone questioned when what you were saying didnt make sense.

Your BT doom and gloom glasses are preventing you from facing facts and you dont appear to like it when someone questions or corrects what you say. 

You're talking rubbish about the MST..  Thats OFCOM.  BT dont want it..  go take it up with OFCOM.. or actually European legislation.  Last time they ordered the MST then it ended up with broadband being more expensive for the ISPs.   The ISPs profits were at a minimum and they had no alternative but to cram more users on the centrals..   welcome to the world of caps and congested pipes. What a mess that was. 

Ive already told you we discuss facts here... not conspiracies. If someone does not agree with what you are saying it does not make them a shill nor in bed with BT.
Not every one thinks the same as pedro.  You've had your say.  Let others have theirs without calling names and throwing false accusations.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2014, 12:54:10 AM by kitz »
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pedro492

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #84 on: December 19, 2014, 10:20:39 PM »

You also implied in another post that you had 2 lines, and because its pretty obvious from your IP which ISPs you use, none of which are BT.*  You'd also previously said 'Once bitten, twice shy' implying you'd never use BT again.

Ahh, I see how your confusion has come about. However, you're completely wrong.  We are with BT for FTTC Infinity 1, and TalkTalk for ADSL2+.

It would seem that in your zeal to defend the indefensible, you've got your wires completely crossed (no pun intended).

I was talking about *never* again using BT for *mobile* services - hence the purpose in posting to a thread about BT's proposed merger/takeover of *mobile* phone operators, EE / O2.

Recall, this was recounting our experiences with BT Cellnet reneging on their "Unlimited Best Friend" tariff, some 10 or 15 years ago, which was explained at length. That was the reason for saying I'd never go with BT for (mobile) services again; from bitter experience, they can't be trusted. False advertising. Phony promises. Please do go and read again what I actually said.

Here's a bit of nostalgia, these were the *actual* phones that BT Cellnet provided to us in the late 1990s/early 2000s for their "Unlimited Best Friend" tariff, offering those (not-at-all) "Unlimited" Free Calls to one landline number.


----

As for VDSL2 services today, if we are all frank, we don't have really have any choices over the (ultimate) provider.   That's the nature of BT's monopolistic "Vulcan death grip" on the FTTC market (as telecoms commentator, Martyn Warwick puts it).

We can either go directly with BT, or with PlusNet, another of BT's cut-out companies; which only exists to give that illusion of choice, or we can go with one of many BT resellers for FTTC.  Isn't that what they call a Hobson's Choice?  No real choice at all.

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Then suddenly in this thread you make out you are with BT and something starts to not add up when I can quite clearly see which 3 telcos you are posting from.

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-- we ditched PlusNet for "BT Proper" -

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we (thankfully) have *not* been BT customers for the last 10-15 years.

Yup, see above. We have a BT line for VDSL2 and a TalkTalk line for ADSL2+.  End of!   If you're seeing something else, you're not even reading your own server logs properly.

Kitz, this is what happens when you take comments out of context; intentionally or not, it makes people look dishonest. You should be in journalism, or propaganda!  Make a living out of it!

We *are* (that's present tense) deeply unimpressed BT FTTC customers, currently supplied with an Infinity 1 service, by British Telecom.

It's unstable - heavily interleaved and still lots of errors every hour; it syncs at only slightly more than our rock-solid ADSL2+ service does from TalkTalk.  That's why I call it a poor service.  A fair call isn't it?

Quote
Make up your mind.

I think I know which telcos we are with!   I do after all pay the bills!  Sounds like the "conspiracy theories" are yours rather than mine!  :-X

So how can I prove it's me being honest here, and not you?  Should I have to?!

What about a screenshot of our BT account page?
Or BT's IP address allocation from the modem's web page?
Or a screenshot from whatismyip.com ?

Better still, here's a screenshot of all of the above..

I fancy I'm the only honest one in all of this!     It's that other lot - the covert BT cheerleaders - with their dodgy hidden agendas that are doing all the fibbing!  We can only wonder why! ;)



EDIT: oops shrink tha' image!
« Last Edit: December 19, 2014, 11:13:11 PM by pedro492 »
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kitz

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #85 on: December 20, 2014, 12:38:17 AM »

Quote
It would seem that in your zeal to defend the indefensible, you've got your wires completely crossed (no pun intended).

I'm not defending the indefensible.  You came on here making post after post about BT, not any other subject, just how bad BT are.  You're posts became troll like when you started calling other members shills and paid BT operatives if they said anything that didn't agree with your opinion. 

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If you're seeing something else, you're not even reading your own server logs properly.

SMF software provides a list of the IP addresses from which you post from.  This information is available is listed when I click on your profile.  I dont read logs, SMF puts the information there for admin & mods as a security feature.  As you've already disclosed ISPs, Im not giving anything away and every single IP up until your latest post was either Plusnet, TT (Tiscali) or Three (Hutchinson).
 
I can only go off the information provided by the software which showed that you most definitely were posting from Plusnet and TT.  The post you made about not being able to see the images from Ronski's thread came from a TT IP.   

Tonight at 10:20.39 PM is the very first time any posts from a BT IP are recorded by you. So I guess it must be SMF pulling up the wrong info.   ::)

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It's unstable - heavily interleaved and still lots of errors every hour; it syncs at only slightly more than our rock-solid ADSL2+ service does from TalkTalk.

..  and that is the first valid reason weve heard about your BT line.   Most people come here saying I have a problem blah blah, not going all out into conspiracy mode and claiming that anyone who posts anything positive about BT is in their pockets.
I can only conclude that those 2 lines must be at separate premises/line lengths or there is a genuine line fault.    If you had a line fault then moving from PN to BT isnt perhaps the best idea at least PN have more of a clue than most BT staff.  AAISP would have been a better option.  You need to work with people not against them.


Quote
Sounds like the "conspiracy theories" are yours rather than mine!

Good grief...   you have the audacity to come here making all the accusations about shills and people being in the pockets of BT.  Your comments are just plain ridiculous & troll-like written in the style & wordings suitable for the best conspiracy forums.   

It was in amongst your earliest post that you started the accusations about corporate shills & paid stooges and now you got upset because I happened to say I was confused about posts you were making from TT & Plusnet IP complaining about BTs service.

Whilst you may be clever in some area's you really do need to understand that just because someone doesn't agree with you, it does not mean that they are shills.   People are entitled to have differing opinions and if you post on public forums then be prepared that someone may disagree with you for reasons other than the fact they are shills or stooges. 

Im happy for anyone to post facts or complain about BT or any other ISP come to that if they have a valid reason, but when someone starts going overboard only seeing one side and start finger pointing at members Im not going to idly sit by and watch someone spouting out rubbish.
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pedro492

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #86 on: December 20, 2014, 01:11:55 AM »


Nope, it's you - not poring over your own server logs properly (which in itself is more than a bit obsessive*).  If you knew how to interpret those logs properly you'd soon recognise that I quite often visit this forum from other connections, and have done for months.  Tonight I was in the local Wetherspoons which provides free wi-fi through "The Cloud".   So there's another IP address you missed in those logs, in your zeal to portray me as a liar - someone who you said wasn't a BT customer.  Is it standard operating procedure to baselessly abuse contributors, calling them all dishonest?  Or are those insults reserved only for those that undermine what seems like your raison d'etre for running this forum, and perhaps more importantly your professional connections outside of it?   Don't bother answering.  I've already drawn a conclusion to that.

*  just thinking aloud here, but what else do you do with your subscriber database?  It's just that you're obviously harvesting data that links every forum contributor to his IP address, email address, his online timestamps, and so on.   With the assistance of associates at ISPs who have access to RADIUS logs, that data could, for example, be correlated to a specific subscriber line, and therefore the exact identity and supply address for every one here.   Now thinking conspiratorially here, that data, with your help, would also allow an ISP to identify a complainant, even if they posted anonymously here. That would be very useful inside information to an ISP, wouldn't it?   


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Dray

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #87 on: December 20, 2014, 01:14:00 AM »

I suggest you're being overly paranoid and that is drawing attention to yourself - a sudden arrival who has lots to say about BT.

I think you're the one with a hidden agenda TBH.
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pedro492

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #88 on: December 20, 2014, 01:56:13 AM »

Let's get back to the thread topic, huh?    Are BT throttling connections? 

Well not officially, no, and nor were they ever. That's official, so it must be true!

But for the last two or more weeks, BT Infinity subscribers - including me - have had a pathetic experience.  But not, of course, for the important opinion-formers on this and other forums, who are renowned for defending the indefensible when it comes to BT!    Kitz herself even weighed in, to downplay this one. It was just a brief hiccup with BT's DNS.  Remember?  But switching to Google's DNS or OpenDNS, as suggested, didn't solve it either.   So that theory flopped.

Kitz then ran with that alternative conspiracy theory that it was caused by BT apparently intercepting udp/53 traffic.  Redirecting all DNS queries to their own nameservers, and re-writing or forging those DNS response datagrams as if they were coming from OpenDNS or Google DNS, or whoever.    Except that wasn't true either - or at least BT probably *is* covertly intercepting our DNS traffic for marketing/tracking purposes - because that's the sort of weird and sinister thing it does; for a similar example from earlier, see BT & the Phorm scandal.    But, importantly, that wasn't the cause of *this* outage.

Then Kitz kept plugging that barefruit.com theory.  Which wasn't actually the same thing at all. Returning a web page full of adverts in an HTTP response when a DNS lookup for a website fails -- that's the barefruit.com "service" - is not the same thing as re-directing all udp/53 traffic and forging DNS response datagrams.   Big difference.

*sigh*

So then we moved on to the much more likely possibility that BT has or has had a fairly drastic failure with its core routing. A major failure that was affecting lots of BT punters, across the UK from Portsmouth to Glasgow and beyond.   That piece of detective work - which importantly discredited the DNS theory - came courtesy of one insightful poster to BT's own forum (of all places!)    He spotted that *some* page pre-requisites - even those pre-requisites hosted on the same server - were taking ages to load. Only *some* of them.  That, in a nutshell, ruled out the DNS theory; because of the use of local DNS caching - the IP address of a web server is only looked up once during a session.

Even at this stage, though, BT was still denying the problem. It was Officially Solved.  Kitz meanwhile was still going with barefruit.com being to blame, and unhelpfully claiming that TalkTalk and Sky did it too (not true) so we shouldn't according to her, be pointing any finger of blame at beloved BT. Because other ISPs intercept DNS traffic, too, apparently.     In fact, TalkTalk (can't comment about Sky) do not redirect and re-write udp/53 traffic to and from external nameservers. And never have done; they do redirect HTTP on DNS look-up failure of a website made to their own nameserver. But even that "service" is helpfully an opt-out.

Either way, that major BT outage was first publicly documented on or around Dec 2nd, so far as I can see; although some contributors said later that they had problems even earlier. That huge thread of complaints on the BT forum kind of dried up after page 53 (around 18 December) so that bounds the problem with some dates.   Pretty bad.   Is it reasonable to grumble about that?   Well, judging by the 53 pages of complaints - and the repeated Official Denials of there being any problem whatsoever - and the length of time it took to actually resolve the "non-existent" problem - well, yes it would see it was entirely reasonable to complain!

And just to wind this goddamn thing up - in so far as I'm not at all interested in it since the outage does at last seem fixed  - BT is still sending HTTP responses from its own webservers when there is DNS lookup failure for some other website.  Dreadful..







« Last Edit: December 20, 2014, 02:22:03 AM by pedro492 »
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Dray

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Re: Are BT throttling connections?
« Reply #89 on: December 20, 2014, 09:25:15 AM »

I have obtained enough evidence to satisfy myself that BT were indeed intercepting DNS requests on Port 53, no matter which DNS servers were specified in the network settings of my PC.

I could see this easily when trying to access a certain banned website. Sometimes it would work fine, and other times I would be redirected to a statement telling me it was blocked.

However for the last few days, it has not been blocked at all and complaints on the BT Community forums have reduced to almost zero. I have taken this to indicate BT tried to introduce a faulty implementation but have abandoned it for now while they try and fix it.

I'm sure it will be back soon as certain websites should be blocked due to a court order, but right now at least one isn't.
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