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[Burrows]

k i have now received this email off BT

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Dear Mr. Burrows,

I understand from your e-mail that you are experiencing slow speed broadband connection as the IP profile has been stuck to 2000kbps. You were advised by a professional to contact us in order to resolve the issue with the BRAS. You have also run a line test on your line and provided us the details. I am sorry for the inconvenience caused and am here to assist you.

Please note that I have run a line test from the exchange to your premises and found that there appears to be a fault in your line. In order to escalate this issue to our Line Faults department and to proceed further, please provide us with your convenient date and time (between 9:00 hours and 21:00 hours BST) to arrange for a call-back. One of our technicians will contact you and provide further assistance. Please include the following details when replying:

1. Which modem/router do you use to access the BT Total Broadband service (Example, BT Voyager 205)?
2. What is the light status on the modem/router?
3. What operating system are you using (e.g. Windows 98SE, Windows XP, MacOS X 10.2)?
4. Do you use anti-virus, firewall, privacy or parental control software?

Please visit http://www.bt.com/broadband/help for solutions to most technical questions and to contact us in the future.

Thank you for using BT Total Broadband.

Srikamatchi
BT Total Broadband Support Team.

[roseway]

It must seem like wading through treacle, but I guess this is progress.

[soms]

That response was kind of hopeful until it got to

Please include the following details when replying:

1. Which modem/router do you use to access the BT Total Broadband service (Example, BT Voyager 205)?
2. What is the light status on the modem/router?
3. What operating system are you using (e.g. Windows 98SE, Windows XP, MacOS X 10.2)?
4. Do you use anti-virus, firewall, privacy or parental control software?

It is quite interesting how there are required to ask for this information when they have accepted it is a stuck IP profile.

Please note that I have run a line test from the exchange to your premises and found that there appears to be a fault in your line.

When I first contacted them about what I initially thought was a stuck IP profile, which it actually wasn't, I was told the same thing - that a line fault had been discovered and that it would be escalated. A day or two later I had another e-mail saying that whilst I had reported a fault, no fault could be identified!

It must seem like wading through treacle, but I guess this is progress.

I agree it looks to be progress - someone has acknowledged the IP profile is stuck. When anyone will actually sort it out is a different matter.

[Chris P Duck]

I really feel for you I too am a battle scarred BT Broadband customer. I can only hope that as you seem to have a pretty good synch rate, your line should be fairly hassle free once your IP profile is sorted. if you do have any problems you will need a lot of good luck as their customer service and communication between their own departments is absolutly dire. I for one cant wait to get out of contract with them. Check out the dedicated BT area of the forum over at ADSLguide or "thinkbroadband"  as it is now known.
My prediction for this situation is one of two things-

1- You will get messed around by BTTTB and eventually they will book an openreach visit. The engineer will most likely find no fault on your line but advise you to keep it connected to your test/master socket. The problem will get bounced back and forth and eventually BTTB will requst that BTW sort out your stuck BRAS. In the meantime BTTB will make several random calls from various departments from the Indian call centre. Some will want to close the issue some will be calling tosay it has been esculated. Eventually your line works.

2- You get VERY lucky and your exchange sorts your line out all by itself over the next few days

Either way, my advice would be connect your hub to the master socket, leave your router turned on all the time once its sorted and employ the "dont fix what aint broke" theory. Oh, and pray you dont get any further probs

Sorry if all this sounds a bit cynical but I (as have many others) have come to hate BTTB!

[kitz]

lol The first paragraph looks personalised..
From para 2 onwards that looks like standard script and it goees downhill.

I agree with soms that soms that the info requested isnt at all relevant in the case of a stuck bRAS profile.
The line test fault, Ive seen that report similar in several other cases too, where at a later date nothing shows up as to what the fault is.

If I were you provide them with the info they requested..  but once again stress that you have a stuck bRAS and that the requested information is irrevant, since the bRAS profile is set by BT Wholesale in their systems.

Over the past year or so, several users have had the same problem as you...  the hard part is sometimes trying to convince the ISP what a stuck bRAS is, since their first line support dont really have much of an idea of how the DLM system works.   A few people have actually linked to their ISP support my page on how maxdsl works pointing out the relevant stuck bRAS section before it sinks in with the ISP.

[Pwiggler]

my god, i feel so sorry for anyone who has a technical problem with their bt broadband.

i am as battlescared as anyone with the probs i've had trying to get bt to admit that they are throttling my torrents.  i've had 2 engineers out who confirmed my line was ok, the last being last wed.  then i had a text message from bt saying that the prob had been sorted and to ring if the prob still exists.  i rang them to report that the prob isnt fixed (for the umpteenth time) but the indian guy had never heard of the term torrent, and his supervisor hadnt either, then he passed me onto another 'helpline'.  i rang them - same result.  so i rang disconnections who convinced me to talk to bt's network dept.  the first thing i asked him was what he knew about traffic shaping, he replied nothing, so i asked to speak with someone who did .... then he cut me off 

i then checked my email and i had one from bt, you arent gonna believe it but heres some quotes from their new 'fair use policy' which was published an hour after the engineer left my house:

"BT will monitor network performance and may restrict the amount of bandwidth available to very heavy users during peak time to ensure that the majority of the customer base has a good customer experience. There will be no restriction imposed outside of these peak times."

" A minority of users (around 2%) far exceed all others in terms of bandwidth demand, some using 600 GB per month. We have taken the decision to limit bandwidth available to these users at peak times."

"We will apply speed restrictions that limit the available downstream capacity for certain applications during the period when we experience peak network bandwidth demand.

In particular, our data shows us that P2P activity for certain heavy users consumes a disproportionate amount of available bandwidth and this will be the focus of some of our controls."

I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS!!

i've spend 5 months on the phone almost daily accusing them of the above to which they've denied it to the hilt !!!

hell are they gonna get a letter of complaint from me !

the worst thing is that now theres absolutly nothing i can do about my slow torrents until my 12 month contract runs out.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!!!

[Chris P Duck]

I get shaped and last month my useage was 30 gig and in june it was about 15. Im on the alegedly unlimited option 3. I intend to take them to task that the sales blurb says they will always provide the "fastest connection possible". Ok yes, they synch you at the highest possible speed (or rather BTW do) then throttle you down to speeds less than you had on the old fixed speed connections FFS! I bet the CEO's line doesnt get bottle necked...
Saying that i bet he goes with a decent ISP

[Pwiggler]

  yeah i bet !

[Burrows]

yeh an u think this problem should be able to be fixed.... without an engineer? cause i agree with alot of ur posts about them not understanding, i might do that and send them another email saying the contact is irrelevant as i have no fault in my line and.... that i have a stuck BRAS profile..... with this linking it to this page explaining on what it means.

i might try that later. 

thanks for all the feedback ppl, helping me alot 

[kitz]

Hi Burrows.

>> yeh an u think this problem should be able to be fixed.... without an engineer?

A stuck bRAS is a reasonably common event - like I say Ive suffered twice from in in the past. 
When MAX first went live a very large portion of users - particulary those on on good lines - suffered from this problem.
Those ISPs that mass migrated their users to MAX during the early days soon became very aware that a stuck bRAS could happen.  These days it isnt as common as it used to be - but it still occurs on occassions.
 
It doesnt need an engineers visit to fix and is something that your ISP should be able to raise direct to BT Wholesale for them to reset your bRAS profile.
BTw do this remotely and once you actually get your ISP to understand what the problem is, then it should be pretty easy for them to get resolved for you.
You may well have to wait the full 10 days though just to see if it does right itself, but in my experience if it hasnt sorted itself in the first 5 days, then it is stuck.

>> with this linking it to this page explaining on what it means.


By all means link to either this thread - or the Stuck bRAS article on my MaxDSL page - like I say others have done so in the past to help the ISP twig what the fault actually is.
Your line is syncing at the higher speeds, but the results of the BTw speedtest confirm that your IP profile would indeed appear to be stuck.

Good Luck

[Burrows]

ok i write paragraphs an paragraphs to them about the problem an this is what i get back... tbh BT dont have a clue, oh well i shall give it all ago worth a try 

the first paragraph looked hopefull but yeh.... again disappointed

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Burrows,

I understand from your e-mail that you experience slow connection speed. You also wish to reset your BRAS profile. You want this issue to be resolved and am here to assist you.

On behalf of BT, I apologise for all the inconvenience caused. This does not reflect the high standards of service we strive to deliver to our customers. The problems such as those experienced by you are being constantly monitored for continuous and swift improvement. Your valuable feedback will be used to identify problem areas in order to provide customers with the excellent service they expect from BT. This issue might be due to the following reasons:

1. Loose connection of the cables.
2. Old temporary files and cookies.
3. High usage of system resources.
4. Firewall software on your computer.

Please follow the steps to check the connection cables:

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Switch off the modem / router.
3. Unplug all cables from modem / router.
4. Wait for ten seconds.
5. Plug all cables back in.
6. Turn on the router.
7. Switch on the computer.

Please follow the steps below to delete the old temporary files and cookies on your browser:

1. Click on ‘Start’ menu.
2. Choose ‘Control Panel’.
3. Select ‘Internet Options’.
4. Under the ‘General’ tab, go to the section ‘Temporary Internet files’.
5. Choose ‘Delete Files’.
6. Click on ‘OK’.
7. Select ‘Delete Cookies’.
8. Click on ‘OK’.
9. Select ‘Settings’.
10. Check the option ‘Every visit to the page’.
11. Click on ‘View Files’.
12. Select all the files and delete them.
13. Click on ‘View Objects’.
14. Select all the files and delete them.
15. Click on ‘OK’.
16. Select ‘Apply’ and then on ‘OK’.

Please check the system resource by performing the steps given below:

If you are using Windows XP/2000 Operating System, please follow the steps mentioned below.

1. Press ‘Control, Alt and Delete’ at the same time.
2. Choose ‘task manager’ and click on ‘performance’.

If the ‘CPU usage’ is less than 6% it is normal. If not, please delete the unwanted software that you are not using or contact your system vendor to increase the memory space.

If you are using Windows 98/ME, please follow the steps mentioned below.

1. Right click on ‘My computer’.
2. Click on ‘Properties’.
3. Select ‘Performance’ tab.
4. System resources should be greater than 70%.

If the ‘System resources’ is greater than 70%, it is normal. If not, please delete the unwanted software that you are not using or contact the system vendor to increase the memory space.

Disable the firewall and anti-virus software and try to access the Internet. If you are able to access without any issues then please enable them and contact your firewall and anti-virus vendor to change the settings in it.

If this does not resolve your issue, please send a reply to this e-mail with the following information:

1. A convenient time and date to arrange for a call-back.
2. Make and model of the modem / router. (Example: BT Home Hub, BT Voyager 2091)
3. The light status of your modem / router. (Example: green, blinking green)
4. The error number or message you get when you try to connect to Internet (if any).
5. The browser you are using in your computer. (Example: BT Yahoo! Browser or Internet Explorer)
6. Name of the security software like anti-virus or firewall (if any).
7. The operating system of your computer. (Example: Windows XP, Windows 2000)
8. Visit the following website and run the speed test three times at different intervals and let us know the results:

http://speedtester.bt.com

Please visit http://www.bt.com/broadband/help for solutions to most technical questions and to contact us in future.

Thank you for using BT Total Broadband.

Saranya
BT Total Broadband Support Team.

[soms]

understand from your e-mail that you experience slow connection speed. You also wish to reset your BRAS profile. You want this issue to be resolved and am here to assist you.

On behalf of BT, I apologise for all the inconvenience caused. This does not reflect the high standards of service we strive to deliver to our customers. The problems such as those experienced by you are being constantly monitored for continuous and swift improvement. Your valuable feedback will be used to identify problem areas in order to provide customers with the excellent service they expect from BT. This issue might be due to the following reasons:
...

It just makes you cringe 

I admire your strength, I think I would have given up after that reply, it shows a complete lack of knowledge or competence when the problem/issue is so very clear.

You could reply "i tired all that, and smacked the home hub against the wall a few times and I still get the same IP profile"

Really you have to wonder how this can be called technical support or even any form of customer service.

[kitz]

OFFS

Jeeze thank gawd its not me writting a reply or I would have lost it.

Its just totally shown that

1. They havent even read your email
2. They havent got a frigging clue.


How the hell a stuck bras profile can be fixed by doing any of those things is beyond me.
Deleting your cookies aint going to make the slightest scrap of difference and is a total insult.


Want me to do a reply for you?

lmaooo it would be full of expletives.  hahahaha

Seriously at this stage I would reply back to them saying something along the lines that the last reply was a total insult on your own intelligence.  They havent even bothered to read  your mail properly

I would also be tempted to say that in view of the fact that they are not willing to look at a problem which you know the solution to... therefore the help desk is totally useless. 

As such if they cannot fix this by kindly raising the fault to BTw as a stuck bRAS fault then you will look at migrating to an ISP who will be able to.

For christs sake they even asked you to do a BT speedtest.  If they looked at the friggin test then theyd see that it was you IP profile restricting you.

Ask them to do a xdsl check on WOOSH where they can check your IP profile (Thats if they bleedin know what a WOOSH test is!) Christ do you have to do their job for them.

Pillocks!

[Burrows]

sure my friend, if u can come up with something that will convince them on what is going wrong =]

ive tried everything, posted links.... quoted what u have said.

suppose another attempt, with it written in ur way... i wud try that

if that doesnt work, it will be a complaint email then 

maybe they take more seriously to them...

[Chris P Duck]

LOL I had months of this and racked up over 40 logged hours of calls on my itemised bill to BT. They are useless *****!


What you need to do is
 
Ring 150 or BB sales and ask to be transfered to:
Broadband service - explain briefly what has happened
INSIST on getting through to the UK helpdesk, this may take a few trys.
UK transfers as they are called are pretty good and will sort you out. Good luck