NEVER go with BT broadband!

[badger906]

want to have a mini rant to vent my anger...

i tend to get 2-3weeks of faultless internet followed by 2-3 weeks of hell

my internet is never that speedy and around 1700kbps

it is currently 200kbps

i ring BT and they ask me if im using a wired or wireless connection blah blah blah

I interrupt the operator and in form him its the connection speed TO my router.. not out of it.

after 2 hours of call centers i get told theres an issue with my line.. today a guy came out to my house to fix a line problem.

Internet went quick again woo... hour later.. back to 200kbps..

i changed from orange to bt about 5 months ago.. i had 8 years of faultless internet with orange.. bt.. well ive had about 5 days lol

rant over.. stuck in a 12 month contract more rant gahhh! online games are a no no

 

[boohbah]

my speed has never been that good as we are situated a little away from the exchange, however in a few more weeks we are due to be switched over to fibre optics and have a 40meg speed, cant wait ,thats with bt also.i cant help feel there will be some extra charge for that,

 

[badger906]

oh rub it in why dont you! lol, my exchange wasnt in the list of the infinity role out
I only live like 5-6 miles form the exchange but still poop speeds! rural life has many downfalls and internet speed is one of them!

 

[boohbah]

...

 

[Sub Styler]

BT are usually reliable but expensive, I am using a home hub myself (nice piece of hardware) but my ISP is sky. I used to live in the welsh mountains about 2 miles from the exchange and averaged 7600kbps regardless of ISP. I currently get 11200Kbps in a town, about a mile from the exchange.

For the past few years BT have allowed ISP's to use thei own equipment within the telephone exchange where as previously it was all BT's equipment and the ISP's basically bought bulk bandwidth from them. So the ISP has lot more influence over the speed than they used to.

EDIT:
You may be able to get results by threatening to break the contract on the grounds that they are not keeping up their half of the contract by providing you with a less than acceptable service.

EDIT2:

What speed did they estimate you would receive when you switched? You can check this by putting your postcode into their website.

They may try and say that it's "UPTO 8mb" or whatever the maximum advertised speed is and this is not available in all areas. However 200Kbps is not just a bit less, it's significantly less and as far as i'm concerned does not constitute a "broadband" connection as yo can achieve these speeds with an ISDN phone line.

 

[z3r010]

BT are probably one of the most useless companies on the planet, I've had many dealings with them in my old job as an IT manager and the level of incompetence every time had had to deal with them was completely unparalleled.

For me Virgin cable wins for me every time, at every house I had it was rock solid and I got full speed. Unfortunatly I'm now not on a cabled street so I have "BE" which gives me a nice 34meg on my bonded line with great customer service.

 

[Joan Archer]

Fingers crossed but so far going back to BT has worked out quite well for me. OK I'll never get brilliant speeds because I live in a rural coastal area and there's not chance of cable or fibre optic lines around here. I'm about 1.37 km away from the exchange and get just under 4 mb speed sometimes it's just over 4. I think there have only been a couple of times that the service has dropped and each time it has been fixed fairly quickly, they were faults on BT's side.
Just renewed my broadband and got the price down so all in all I'm happy at present, although I know this can all change at any time. :devil:

 

[Richardc269]

You lucky pissants! :O I only get 125kb/s! It really effing stinks! I can't really play games online that much, due to my internet speed sucking on round objects!

 

[pincushion]

I think Plusnet uses the BT structure but I've been fairly happy with them. Was an average of about 5 Mbps to start with (not bad for £6). I upgraded to Extra since I was exceeding the 10 Gb per month allowance and since they upgraded (no cost) to ADSL2+ it has been about 10 Mbps which is fine for me since I don't do any gaming or torrenting. Only a few miles from exchange.

 

[badger906]

well my connection is now 2200kbps.. but come this evening i bet it will drop back down.. so its basically throttling.

yet they are still adiment there is a fault.

i just wish i could speak to somebody that actually has a concept of the issue and not just a handbook they read from!

 

[kado897]

BT are probably one of the most useless companies on the planet, I've had many dealings with them in my old job as an IT manager and the level of incompetence every time had had to deal with them was completely unparalleled.

For me Virgin cable wins for me every time, at every house I had it was rock solid and I got full speed. Unfortunatly I'm now not on a cabled street so I have "BE" which gives me a nice 34meg on my bonded line with great customer service.

I second your comments on Virgin Media. I have had the 10Mb service for just over a year now and it just always works and gives the speed you pay for. I think I have had only one 5 minute outage in the year.

 

[seavixen32]

I live in a 8,000-house neighbourhood and BT says it's not cost effective to roll out fibre-optic broadband so I'm stuck with a speed of 2MB download, although I do believe a start has been made to upgrade us to high-speed broadband.

I switched from BT to Sky over a year ago and because I have the full HDTV package as well, I get unlimited broadband with no cap and unlimited phone calls and line rental for £23.75 per month as opposed to BT's £42 per month.

My main reasons for switching from BT was their high charges, poor speed and impenetrable call centre regime along with no concept of customer service whatsoever.

I mean, what was the point of them bombarding me with spam about broadband BT Vision when there were times I struggled to download a bloody e-mail!

 

[badger906]

i live in a field in the middle of now where just outside huntingdon.. ive no hope of getting fibre optic...

 

[boogieboy]

Well i'm on 2MB and my transfer rate is 240Kbps to 250KBps so mmmmmm i never complained....

 

[badger906]

and my internets back to 200kbps. yay..

 

[Joan Archer]

Just this minute done a speed test and was nicely surprised at this time of night to get this result.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1607152246.png

 

[badger906]

well finally some good news, had a BT phone and internet specialist come to my house today, and found some problems and as a result im having my house rewired hopefully be sorted permanently! he kindly bodged it for me today so i have 1.5Mbps! thats lightning for me lol

 

[strollin]

I probably have the highest cost, lowest performance ratio for an internet connection of anybody on this forum. We live out in the country with no cable or DSL available. It costs $160/month for the connection shown below. Fortunately for me, my employer pays for it otherwise I couldn't justify the cost and would have to settle for an even slower connection.

 

[pebbly]

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1617821156.png

 

[badger906]

alright stop teasing me!