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Author Topic: BT "Deadlock"  (Read 9509 times)

Chrysalis

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #15 on: July 19, 2019, 05:25:11 AM »

Cheers.  I'm trialing 4G with Three at the moment.  Best speed is from O2, followed by EE with Three as slowest and cheapest.   I was hoping not to ditch the landline primarily because there's really no accountability for mobile data, for example no speed estimate or assurance of any sort, and probably no way they would attend a mast fault purely based on one end user report in any case.  So I wanted to have something like a year on 4G before burning my bridges.

FTTPoD is theoretically available, but came back as no bid unless I paid £250 for a survey.  I was only asking for a laugh really, it was highly unlikely to affordable.  I wanted to see if it came out higher than the £26,000 that someone on Think Broadband was quoted.

Moving the cable is an interesting idea, but not trivial.  It's around 200 metres of 50 pair armoured cable directly buried in the verge alongside the public road.  There's a pole at one end effectively at the corner of the field that the electric fence surrounds.   I guess the option is worth following up the idea.  The contradiction we face is that it's only us complaining, but BT is saying the fault "will" or "would" effect everyone.  They're not actually saying it "is" affecting anyone else.  So it may end up with one part of BT saying "we're not moving that cable just for one customer" at the same time as they're also saying there's nothing wrong with our service because this an issue affecting everyone.

Yeah but as you have discovered how much does this limited accountability on VDSL give you, you have ended up with a deadlock.  The handoff speed is openreach saying we will look into it, but there is no guarantee that anything would be fixed.  Ultimately consumer xDSL is a "best efforts" service and the cost pressures put on openreach by the regulator is leading to situations that you have found yourself in.

From what you have described 200m in a verge (not even a duct), I dont consider an overly hard task for a large telco company, depending on how much effort is required to get the machinery and people in place to do the work (roadworks approval needed on busy road?). The issue is tho is openreach are on such tight cost controls with an emphasis on low quality low cost, then they will very aggressively reject doing any of this type of work.

Also they cannot prove its only affecting you, a silent customer doesnt necessarily not have a problem, different customers have different tolerance levels, and of course even if someone else has complained it may have been misdiagnosed or not gone far enough up the support chain to be registered as the same problem, so I think the response from BT is nonsense.

e.g. in my ADSL days BT would often respond I was the only complaining customer until one day they decided to admit it was a problem known on the E side for over 3 years but because of the road it went under there was zero chance of remedial work been carried out, so they knew about the problem for 3 years yet were initially claiming I was the only complainant.  It was AAISP that dragged this information out of them.

I agree it will be a very tough ask to get openreach to reroute the cable, I think they should do it, but they probably wont.  Hence me suggesting taking your hard earned money away from them and moving to alternative tech.  Also with the mobile companies they cannot brush you off as easily as VDSL isp's in my view, as you dont have this silly middle man forced ofcom style arrangement removing accountability e.g. openreach has no accountability whatsoever with you as a consumer, they also still make revenue from you if you switch xDSL suppliers.  As they the sole monopoly supplier at the top of the chain.  With the mobile companies its not quite like that (resellers excluded).

I have used the following types of broadband.

In order from worst to best reliability for downtime.

ADSL
VDSL
Cable
3G
4G

I have yet to have a noticeable outage on 4G at my home address although the service isnt used 24/7 like my fixed broadband tho.

However when it comes to performance consistency its perhaps more like this worse to best.

Cable
3G
4G
ADSL/VDSL tied.

There is variability on my 4G but the slowest I have seen it is still multiple 10s of mbits/sec.  But I am using EE.  However I do also have a giffgaff sim (O2), so may do some testing on that for curiosity.  Three seem the only mobile telco at the moment interested in competing with fixed line broadband on 4G, I think if you not in the middle of a big city they worth a shot.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2019, 05:37:17 AM by Chrysalis »
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Chrysalis

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #16 on: July 19, 2019, 05:41:19 AM »



I've NOT tested it anywhere rural where its likely to be under even more load due to everyone getting the same idea of ditching ADSL.

Fortunately if you have a device you can use it with you CAN order a Data Reward SIM, which gives you a free 200MB/month to try out for yourself.

Feedback from consumers including myself puts Three performance in rural areas considerably better than inner city areas.  Population density in city areas vs rural can be huge.  Also the increased likelyhood of poorer residents (poorer people tend to use more bandwidth on all you can eat services) and students aggravates this further.

As an example on Three 3g at home in my city I averaged about 300-400kB/sec off peak and about 10-20kB/sec on peak.  In most rural areas it was several mbits/sec 24/7.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2019, 05:43:23 AM by Chrysalis »
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aesmith

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #17 on: July 19, 2019, 08:35:31 AM »

I get around 20 meg down and 10 meg up with Three at the moment with the current antenna positioning.  That's on Band 20 (800Mhz) where Three only have a small chunk in any case, so I suspect I'm actually the only one using this mast.  Some quick tests with the Hauwai router didn't pick up any other bands outside, but I haven't repeated these with the Miktrotik.
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Chrysalis

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #18 on: July 19, 2019, 08:45:36 AM »

how fast is the adsl sync?
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aesmith

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #19 on: July 19, 2019, 08:52:12 AM »

ADSL normally connects between 4 and 4.5 meg.
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8062282

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #20 on: July 19, 2019, 05:09:53 PM »

In my experience it depends entirely on your local mast, time of day (ie number of active users) and which way the wind is blowing. ;)

I definitely wouldn't want to use it without a backup for when its struggling. (I had one day where under load I got a 2000ms ping)

As I have it as a second data-only SIM in my phone I've tried it in Sheffield City Centre, Sheffield Norton/S14, Nottingham City Centre, Nottingham NG7, Leeds LS5 and Manchester City Centre.  The only place I consistently get double-digits is outdoors in Sheffield City Centre.  Although compared to ADSL its probably still an improvement, but its most often in single-digits.  This seems disturbing considering these are some pretty major cities where you'd expect them to have more capacity.

I've NOT tested it anywhere rural where its likely to be under even more load due to everyone getting the same idea of ditching ADSL.

Fortunately if you have a device you can use it with you CAN order a Data Reward SIM, which gives you a free 200MB/month to try out for yourself.


Thanks for that. I'm having issues with interference on ADSL & I'm hoping I don't carry them over to VDSL. 4G was an option I was looking at..
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AdamH

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #21 on: July 20, 2019, 03:31:23 PM »

Out of interest, Vodafone have now also joined Three in competing with fixed line broadband in offering unlimited data SIMs:

https://www.vodafone.co.uk/unlimited-data-plans/

The "Unlimited Max" plan (£30 per month) is the only one worth looking at as an ADSL alternative, the cheaper ones are all speed-capped (to 2Mbps or 10Mbps).

Certainly worth a try if you don't get good or fast 4G coverage with Three. I may try out myself using some credit on a PAYG (Pay-As-You-Go) Vodafone SIM first (in my Huawei B525 4G router), to do some signal + speed tests, as I can only get LTE Band 20 (800MHz) via Three in my area, which somewhat limits my speeds (although they are still far better than my sub-2Mbps ADSL, which is the only fixed line broadband option here).

I hope EE starts offering unlimited data via 4G/5G soon too, would give even more options!

I have no interest at all in fixed-line broadband any more, as we will never get upgraded to FTTC or FTTP in my area, I've given up all hope of that.
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dee.jay

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #22 on: July 25, 2019, 08:40:57 AM »

Slightly OT but kinda not as it's related to mobile broadband, but, I own a static caravan which is in rural West Wales. I use it regularly and have found the speeds can get up to 70Mbit. I was really surprised. I think I test a speedtest in another part of the site where we thought we could end up and it was actually 90Mbit.
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AdamH

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #23 on: July 26, 2019, 10:11:56 PM »

Rural West Wales is where I live (south Ceredigion).

Which mobile provider do you get those speeds with?

I currently have a Three unlimited data SIM in my Huawei B525 router, but unfortunately currently can only connect to LTE Band 20 (800MHz), which gives me slower speeds (anything from 3Mbps to 20Mbps downstream, and 1Mbps to 12Mbps upstream, in my location - I'd say that 60% of the time my downstream is between 10 & 20Mbps, the other 40% it's between 4 & 10Mbps, still far better than my 1.5 to 2Mbps ADSL [with 0.7Mbps upstream]!).

Experimenting with an external antenna (currently have an omni-directional Poynting XPOL-A0001, but plan to get a directional antenna [Poynting or Yagi or similar] in due course too) may yield better results, especially if I can connect to LTE Band 3 (1800MHz) on Three.

Alternatively, the new unlimited data Vodafone SIM plans sound interesting - and may have better coverage & speeds in my area, so I'll try that out (with a PAYG SIM first).

EE have quite good coverage here, but unfortunately no unlimited data plans (yet - competition from Three and now Vodafone *may* change that in future, especially as 5G starts to roll out [although EE are far more expensive for 4G as a fixed line replacement than the other 2] - although I suspect it won't get to my area for many years...). Interesting times ahead for 4G / 5G mobile links as an alternative to slow copper-based fixed lined broadband, especially for those of us still waiting with sub 10Mbps (& in my case, sub-2Mbps) lines...!
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hacktrix2006

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #24 on: July 26, 2019, 10:54:59 PM »

Virgin uses EE's network and does have unlimited 4G. I know someone using it for a home network connection.

Might be worth a look.
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aesmith

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #25 on: July 28, 2019, 06:29:06 PM »

Virgin's unlimited 4G is only listed as available to Virgin broadband or TV customers.   
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j0hn

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #26 on: July 28, 2019, 06:45:19 PM »

Virgin uses EE's network and does have unlimited 4G. I know someone using it for a home network connection.

Might be worth a look.

Packages are limited to 50GB unless a current broadband/tv customer.
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hacktrix2006

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #27 on: July 28, 2019, 06:49:36 PM »

Dam, it was an idea but by looks of it a bad one. Sorry
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j0hn

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #28 on: July 29, 2019, 12:28:53 AM »

Dam, it was an idea but by looks of it a bad one. Sorry

A real shame actually as it's 1 of the cheapest unlimited data deals I've seen over the EE network, which in my experience is by far the fastest.

I'm in the process of switching my Giffgaff (O2) number over to Plusnet mobile (EE) as the 4G speeds are miles apart between the 2.

At peak times I'm lucky to get 10Mb/s on Giffgaff and it's often as low as 3-4Mb/s.
The upstream is over 25Mb/s at all times of day.

My neighbour who is O2 gets over 80Mb/s throughout the day.

I just ran a speed test on my Giffgaff and got over 80Mb/s.

That leaves me to conclude that O2 apply some kind of throttling to Giffgaff customers during peak times, though the Giffgaff reps have rubbished this suggestion.
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Chrysalis

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Re: BT "Deadlock"
« Reply #29 on: July 29, 2019, 08:20:43 AM »

I remember a discussion years back about giffgaff been throttled vs O2 on the giffgaff forums.  But I cannot remember what the conclusion was.
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