Broadband?
 

Daughter's BT Home Hub Broadband download speed is 'up to 0.13 Mbps'.

It hasn't always been as slow as this, and it seems to be associated with a crackling telephone line.

Ping is 83ms and upload speed - 0.38 Mbps.

Openreach have been installing new lines for a newly-built housing development of 48 houses just along the road. Do you think that there might be a connection?

I've tried connecting the router to the back of the NTE5 master socket, but without conclusive results (ie there was no immediate jump to a reasonable speed such as 2 Mbps and son-in-law wasn't that cooperative as it meant disconnecting the house phones - on extensions - these were installed by an electrician when their house was renovated 2½ years ago).

Any recommendations?

I've heard that BT will charge 'heavily' if they consider the fault to be within the subscriber's wiring.

I've suggested finding a freelance ex BT engineer to check out the house-wiring before formally approaching BT, or tackling the Openreach workers when they are working in the street installing the new cabinets.

::. Kitz - Improve your adsl connection speed .::

Plug your phone straight into the test socket via the ADSL filter.If it isn't 'crackling' any more then you you probably have a poor connection within the house.Poor connections give rise to 'crackling' on the phone line and poor ADSL performance due to the electrical noise on the line.Don't fiddle with the wiring unless you are licensed to do so.

First thing I would sort is the crackling telephone line. Remove the master socket faceplate and plug a telephone directly into the now exposed test socket. If the crackling is still present, then the problem is BT's responsibility, assuming that the telephone itself is not faulty. Try a second phone to be confident.

It's son-in-law's house and problem. Imagine how you'd feel if wife got her dad in to fix something in your house. :uhoh:

Why not get a temporary alternative?
1. Payg dongle
2. Payg mifi
Either can be reassigned later by changing sim.

If it's the housing estate it will be affecting neighbours too.

Speaking from experience, the "trades" should stick to, and only be asked to do what they are best at. An electrician should be just that, they shouldn't be trying to install voice or data cabling because you have to treat the system and its cables with a bit more delicacy than you can drag some multi-mm core electrical cable around.


Simple fact of the matter that if there is crackling on the line, and you have tried a known-good wired phone at the test socket master socket, then its BTs fault and they need to clear it.

- absolutely. On past performance, BT are well-known for screwing up existing connections when connecting new.

spekesoftly -first
TWT - second
BT?? - third

Yes. Indeed.

One office I know was having a simple new copper voice line put in for a specific use (nothing fancy, just a single pair PSTN line like you have at home).

What did BT go and do ? They went and disconnected a live LLU ADSL service that was being delivered to the same site, and re-used the wires to provide the new line.

Despite two way email exchanges with various BT board members, it still took 10 days before they got round to fixing it .... and even that took two attempts since the first engineer they sent out was utterly incompetent. Of course no apology for the inconvenience was ever provided despite it blatantly being a BT problem.

BT have never charged me a penny for my year of complaining. I am currently a happy BT customer, (but this could change) as since they put in adsl2+ in my local exchange, speed has been at 16 megawotnots.

However, prior to that I had endless troubles, and endless visits from BT engineers, over a number of months, as well as new modem/routers, and BT paid for new master socket.
I just decided I was not going to give up with the calls and insistence on Engineer visits.
I suspect you have to go through the umpteen things that they ask you to do on their "help" line first, to prove it is not your pc. (Might be worth checking that the settings are as they should be......all that "auto detect" stuff). Then do all the crackling line tests to prove it is not your internal wiring.

The call center people seemed to me to be given a script which requires them to keep saying it is your problem not theirs.
However, as mine was changing for zero to 4-6 megawotnots for no reason, eventually, after lots of phone calls and me insisting on "Escalation" during each and every call, whatever the issue was, they fixed it after about the sixth or seventh engineer visit.

I was lucky in that my modem router is only about 6 feet away from where the BT line enters the house, and although this house has lots of extensions, none are in use since we got the wireless phones that do not need extensions. .

As mixture points out, their "engineers" are of varying quality.

Someone once told me that they allegedly get paid on results and penalised on escalations. Which is why they are keen to mark the ticket as resolved ASAP, and demonstrate robust resistance to escalations that need to go beyond their line manager in the call centre.

All unverified of course, so might be utter nonsense. :cool:

Yup. If they do not fix it, demand an Escalation.

A couple of times I wished I had recorded the call, as they were clearly being economical with the truth. Try recording the calls?

I tried it their way for some time, but problem was not resolved until I wrote to the CEO with a full log of their incompetence.

Crackly line
 

Another one to try is the BT line test. Plug a phone into your master socket (see previous posts) and dial 17070 (free). One of the options is a quiet line test. It's supposed to be quiet but, if you can hear noise/crackling this will seriously affect your upload/download speed because the S/N ratio is not good.

We had the same problem due to cr@p cable being installed by the housebuilders which then deteriorated over age (25 years). Once it was proved to be a cabinet to house problem (cos the noise was heard at the master socket) BT dug up the drive and replaced the cables.

Not a problem since!

Good luck...

Have the same problem in NZ. Crackly line and 5 days without Broadband, daily talking to a cave in Bangalore ( I think ) and a refusal to 'send a man' - which is what I was demanding - eventually I was connected to a familiar accent located in NZ, who said 'they should have sent a man'. 'Man' advised that it had been their problem all along. Now demanding restitution in the shape of money off my next bill. Negotiations proceeding.

World's Gone Mad.

Does 17070 still work? I thought they'd done away with it.

Oh yes! So it does.

Don't think it was ever done away with, think it was just locked down to keep the phreakers at bay.

The BT line test is intended to find a break in the line. Faults causing noise or crackling are rarely found by that test and the line usually teats OK.

So, firstly do the equipment checks to see if the crackling is caused by the BT line or by anything plugged into the line. The checks have been explained on this site several times previously but...

Unplug everything from the telephone sockets then plug a spare or a borrowed phone into the main socket (or the test socket behind the faceplate of the main socket if the bottom 2/3rds is removable).
If the line is quiet then something connected was causing the noise.
If the crackling is still present ring BT and book an appointment for an engineer.

You will be quoted the potential for a £99.00 visit charge should the fault be found on your own equipment - but you've already done the checks and found it's not that so you will be fine there. All faults on the BT network are fixed free of charge of course. No charge is raised if no fault is found either.

Once the fault is found and fixed it can take 48 hours or so for broadband speeds to return to normal.

Charges have changed.....
 

Things seem to have changed on charges, EGTE. I'm with Eclipse ISP - Exeter based and superb - but have had no sync on my broadband since the 21st. Still no sync with two known working modem routers plugged in separately at the BT test socket and BT are coming out on the 28th. Not that they will find a fault with my equipment but if they did then the charge is £187. That is also the quoted charge if they find no fault with their own equipment. If I fail to be at home when they turn up then the missed appointment charge is £125 in addition!!

I have found that the BT operators are not terribly competent technically. I called to ask about a problem on my line. There was no dial tone, no broadband, no nothing, and I knew the rest of the village was of the phone network too. Gypsies had nicked 8km of telephone lines, this I knew for fact. I phoned BT, and Orange (my service provider) who both told me that there was no problem with the line, and that it must be a problem with the installation or equipment in my house.

I hope that you find someone who can advise you better than the BT operator, but I think if you do the basic fault finding as described I think that you can be pretty sure that you won't get billed by BT for any work done.

When, after a year of angst, I gave a broad hint that I'd put 4,000 volts down their line if it wasn't fixed, I got a bloke round in an hour.


I phrased my threat carefully, something like, 'I'd imagine a high voltage would clean the bad joints - wadda ya think, something like four-thousand?'

So far, I have *never* been charged by BT for a 'false callout' nor have heard of anyone else having been charged either. I think it's more used to keep the idiotic queries at bay than anything else.

p.s. - definitely a line fault from that description from the OP.

I've heard stories. :cool:

I think the policy has slightly changed now that they only charge for work done beyond the NTE if there's no fault found up to the NTE. A good ISP will put a note on the ticket explicitly stating that no work is to be done beyond the NTE.

Basically, you want to do all you can to ensure the job is not classified as SFI ("special faults investigation") by BT.