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[Chris P Duck]

Hi troops
Im just drafting a mail to my ISP about their crappy service and have included a paragraph on my suspiciously high line attentuation. I would value your opinions on whether I have a fair point or if I am just talking out of my ducks ar*e!
Here ya go-
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Since I have been connected to BT total broadband I have nothing but poor service in three areas- the quality of the of the technical support from the overseas call centre, the quality of my throughput on the line when it is working and  the quality of my physical line to the exchange.

Firstly the call centre is appalling for anything other than a basic enquiry. I would consider myself to be a patient person but the level of service from your support is nothing short of abysmal. I have given up with BTTB technical support and prefer to resolve any issues by doing my own internet research and seeking support via forum websites**yeyyy kitz** . I have found this to be a more efficient way of dealing with problems and I will continue to do this.

Secondly, when I signed up to the service, I was assured that I would receive the fastest service possible for my line (the sales person suggested 6.5-7mbps), all of the time. During busy periods I would expect a reasonable level of exchange congestion, but various speed tests I have conducted clearly show that my HTTP download speed is clearly traffic managed to speeds of less than 1mbps at times as early as 1pm to as late as midnight. This is NOT what was described by the sales person and not what I agreed to.

Thirdly, (and the issue I would specifically like to be investigated thoroughly!) while I appreciate that line quality is under the remit of “Openreach”, I have to report concerns/issues via my ISP. Trying to explain to the call centre that you have issues with line attenuation and SNR etc is an absolute waste of time as the outcome is that they will eventually do a basic line test and insist that the line is within the fault threshold, so please do not just refer this issue to them!
Essentially, my problem is that given the relatively short distance I am from my exchange, I have been advised that it is entirely possible that some poor quality cabling/connections/fittings on my line to the exchange could be causing my high line attenuation of 50db (and other properties in my area for that matter)
I appreciate that the physical connection to the exchange does not follow a straight line and that is quite likely to be very indirect. Bearing this in mind, there is a  formula for calculating line length with a given attenuation. The estimated line length for a 50db line is 3.7km. As the crow flies I am 1.2km from the exchange. Following the roads to my exchange is 2.4km. So even allowing for another ˝ km of indirect line routing to junction boxes etc, let’s assume for a moment that my line length was 3km. This would give my line an attenuation of 40db. Is it not fair to wonder there may be some issues with the lines to my area from the exchange?
The very fact that my attenuation went UP recently may show that some work has affected it or there is line deterioration. I would appreciate it very much if my concerns were looked into, and i look forward to hearing your response.
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Cheers for any opinions 

[roseway]

In reality you can't make any assumptions about the actual line length compared to the geographical distance. I've seen examples where the line length was about 4 times the geographical distance because the cable route from the exchange went down to the far end of the road first, so the houses nearest to the exchange had the longest line lengths.

That being said, I don't think your point is unreasonable, and the last point (about the attenuation recently going up) is a very fair point.

[Chris P Duck]

Thanks for that, I was aware of cases like you mentioned when I wrote this, but I am generalising (dangerous, I know lol). Im not ecpecting to get anywhere with BT retail, and even if it does get passed to wholsale, I will be amazed if I get anything other than a standard response. What would be nice is that they outlined an approximate route of connection to either disprove or prove my concerns

[kitz]

Just a point on this

During busy periods I would expect a reasonable level of exchange congestion, but various speed tests I have conducted clearly show that my HTTP download speed is clearly traffic managed to speeds of less than 1mbps at times as early as 1pm to as late as midnight.

Out of interest what happens if you perform a BTw Performance test.

The reason I ask is because I have a trial login to RIN which is more or less the same platform used by BTBroadband.  A couple of weeks ago I reported that there would appear to be some throttling going on some where by BT on all protocols. 

One of the things I noticed during my testing (switching between RIN and my ISP platforms), was that RIN was very slow on everything 1-2Mbps compared to around 6.5 - 7Mbps that I could get with PN. 
Yet when I did a BTw performance test my speed came out at more or less the same as what I got on the PN platform.

I suspect I know where the throttling takes place.
and I'm also aware that one of the BTw speedtest servers resides on the same RAS as the one Im on.. 
But it would be interesting to see what speeds others get on the BTw performance tests and how the BTr throttling is affecting it.

[Chris P Duck]

hi Kitz

The bt spedtester reports a throughput of about 3700kbps (4 meg prfile btw) while if I do the max/speedtest.net/ etc or download a big file from a good site like nvidia by data dribbles in at about 1/2meg. I have done speed tests over at adslguide, and the test reports a normal 3.6 meg but if you switch ports i get 1/2 meg speeds.
*edit* not sure if its relevant, but my exchange is colwyn bay cental

[Chris P Duck]

with regards to the throttling, I have pasted in two ADSL guide speed tests taken within 2 minutes of each other, one using the port 80 option.

                           down                 up
28/06/07 19:31  940.13 Kbps      376.26 Kbps        
28/06/07 19:29    3171.31 Kbps    374.44 Kbps    

[Pwiggler]

after BTs admission that they throttle their customers (as per their FUP) i wrote the snottyest letter ever to them a weeks ago dedmanding compensation.

i couldnt believe my ears when i had a call from an indian woman this lunch time saying 'regarding your letter of complaint, i am just ringing to say sorry'.  that was it !!!!  i asked ' and what else?, she replied 'well ... i'm just ring to say sorry.'

my god i went ballistic at her saying that i wanted compensation for the fact i was lied to for 5 months where BT said they didnt throttle ANY accounts, then they admitted it.  she would not compensate me for days off work to greet useless bt engineers which i told them wouldnt fix my prob, hours on the phone to india and dozens of emails.

she said if i had a connection at all then i would get nothing.

my rant went on for maybe 15 minutes and told her to escallate my letter to someone who could help, demanded an apology, then hung up.

i wonder if any more will come of it ??

anyway ... my newsgroups download speed is now between 5 and 7 meg so something has changed lately.

[Chris P Duck]

LOL brothers in arms i think^^^^

Ive had compo twice, once from UK billing and once from uk high level complaints. Not the point as I just want my connection to work as it should. The real satisfaction is how many potential customers they must lose from reading threads like this. I am counting the seconds until I can leave and go to a proper ISP.

[soms]

You have to wonder why ISPs or any business thinks these overseas call centres are at all effective.

They may be cheap but how much money must they cost in customer disatisfaction and lost custom?

As Chris P D says, they must loose quite a few potential users over these issues which are posted into the public domain. Mind you, no doubt the other major ISPs are just as bad when it comes to customer service.

The best bit is how a BT Retail UK call centre will handle your BB order and then after that it all seems to go downhill.

Really BT TB could be a decent product, but a mix of poor marketing and abismal customer support is a real turn off. Especially when just a UK call centre with some competent people would make such a difference.

In many ways this forum seems to be users 2nd line of support!

[kitz]

Thanks for doing the tests chris.

That would confirm that you also see what I was doing - ie the BTw speedtesters arent subject to any throttling like the other protocols coming from eleswhere.

At first I wondered if the throttling occured after the RAS but before the PoP going on to the Collosus network.. But thinking about it logically and from what we have been seeing then BT internal traffic isnt throttled.  Assuming you arent on the Manchester RAs where one of the speedtesters appears to be located.

This would seem to imply that BT have a load of hellycoyas sat on the edge of the BT Network at each PoP throughout the UK which downstream traffic enters before going on to the Collosus network.
Who ever is doing the ellacoya tweaking hasnt yet got the hang of things properly for http traffic to be being throttled.

[Chris P Duck]

Thanks Kitz, thats exacly what I was just about to say... ahem



looking at the details of this test, it reports an average speed for my ISP (Cheshire) as about 1 meg slower than the overall average.
When i took this test a few days when I was on a different IP address, it was saying a similar lower speed for my ISP but "Bolton"
Not sure if that is relevant, just thinking about what you said about the BT connection in manchester. I was using the speedtest.net Maidenhead server for all these tests.

[kitz]

>> for my ISP (Cheshire) as about 1 meg slower than the overall average.
When i took this test a few days when I was on a different IP address, it was saying a similar lower speed for my ISP but "Bolton"


Something Ive also noticed when on RIN - that speedtest net picks up my location as being in the Manchester surroundings - ie Bolton/Blackburn.
I think the IP addresses are allocated from several locations around there. 

A traceroute should be able to identify which RAS youre connected via.

[Chris P Duck]

one tracer route!

#     Host     Sent     Recvd     Best     Avg     Worst
1    adslguide-gw2.core-rs2.thdo.ncuk.net   5   5   0ms   1ms   2ms
2    gi0-2-10-star1.bdr-rt2.thdo.ncuk.net   5   5   0ms   37ms   182ms
3    gi0-2-20-star2.bdr-rt1.thdo.ncuk.net   5   5   1ms   1ms   1ms
4    gi4-15.telehouse-east2.core.enta.net   5   5   1ms   9ms   41ms
5    te4-1.telehouse-north.core.enta.net   5   5   1ms   19ms   91ms
6    195.99.125.85   5   5   1ms   2ms   3ms
7    core2-pos0-6-0-0.ealing.ukcore.bt.net   5   5   2ms   3ms   3ms
8    core2-pos9-1.manchester.ukcore.bt.net   4   4   7ms   8ms   8ms
9    bar9-pos6-0.manchester5.broadband.bt.net   4   4   7ms   7ms   7ms
10    217.47.67.41   4   4   7ms   7ms   8ms
11    212.140.206.33   4   4   7ms   9ms   11ms
12    217.41.173.145   4   4   8ms   8ms   9ms
13    212.140.206.2   4   4   6ms   7ms   7ms
14    217.47.67.8   4   4   7ms   7ms   9ms

[kitz]

Thanks for doing that.

Unfortunately it doesnt prove my theory though - cause by the looks of it, youre on the same RAS as me (manchester5).