Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello. My Internet connection is fine at night, but lately has been slowing down to 300-500Kbps in the evenings. I have attached a couple of images.

I've phoned my ISP Sky who said it's not their problem and it must be BT doing stuff at the exchange.

I've phoned BT and they say the exchange is fine and it must be Sky's problem.

I don't really know what to do next.

Any advice, chums? Anywhere else on the net where people might be able to help that you know of?

Reavers.

My connection speed on the same line halved when going from Plusnet to Sky.

I'd be interest to hear what happens.

Ofcom? I presume they can't be allowed to just blame each other and do nothing.

Congestion - Sky's backhaul is getting saturated when everyone checks their facebooks while tea's on. Try samknows, they used to know about congestion levels and planned upgrades; I've a feeling they never really did know about LLU providers but it'll be able to tell you if you're on Sky's LLU network or going through BT.

I'm assuming the pictures mean the router sync speed is remaining constant (those are pretty damn fine stats in the first picture), but the actual speeds you get are collapsing? There's nothing you can do about it but switch to a different provider, like Be/O2 who have a better/underused network.

If the router's resynching to a much lower speed, it's a line or exchange problem instead and a different issue which you should be able to get something done about.

The router connection speeds seem to be constant - I took that screen shot when I was getting about 500kbps last night.

I've checked the exchange online and it says there aren't any capacity problems.

That depends on whose network you're on - if Sky have LLU equipment in there then it doesn't matter if BT's got no capacity issues. Also the data could be out of date. What's the exchange (code)?

It's definitely a congestion issue if the sync stays good; any line issues would cause a drop and resync.

I'm not on Sky's "proper" broadband package, I'm on their "out of our area but we'll give you broadband anyway" package.

I've noticed that one of the speed test sites I use flags me up as being on Easynet, but I don't know if that means anything or if they're just getting confused.

Do a tracert to somewhere and see what routers you go through at your end. IP data isn't infallible by any means, but I suppose Sky could pick the cheapest provider that'll resell to them at any given exchange.

Oh, hang on, Sky bought Easynet 3 years ago. That explains the IP lookup, but if you're on the out-of-range package you're on BT's network - which suggests BT are telling porkies (intentionally or not - it's possible some leechers or botnet victims moved into the area recently).

Also - if either of them is being at all competent, your asking 'wtff?' should cause a little flag to pop up on the exchange and a quick automated investigation to occur. However, it's BT and Sky/Easynet.

Sky suggested it might be someone hogging the bandwidth and that BT would be able to check, but all BT said was that there were no problems, go away. Grr.

Some more info I found on Sam Knows, though I have no idea what they mean:

I am 172m from the exchange.

"19/10/2006 BT have set a target date of Q3 2009 for the switch to 21CN for the Marden exchange"

I wonder what that means and if it happened - it's still showing as a big red cross on their info page.

Oops. Forgot to actually tell you the exchange code. It's NDMAR.

It means you're lucky, and getting the new fibre-to-the-cabinet stuff early. It should mean 20mbps available much further from the exchange, but has no relevance to this, especially as at 172m from the exchange you could get 20mbps now anyway.

"1,382 residential premises
149 non-residential premises"

The problem here is that it's a tiny exchange if it serves <2k premises and doesn't have LLU. BT will have been spending the absolute minimum on it, including the very smallest of backhauls, so it's quite possible that if a few bosters have moved in it's getting overwhelmed. Weird that it's only in the evenings in that case though.

You may find it gets better with the 21CN switchover, but don't hold your breath. I think you'll just have to complain to Sky every few weeks if it doesn't improve, BT will be able to identify problem users in no time flat.

21CN doesn't mean fibre to the cabinet in the current roll-out, does it? I thought they were just replacing exchanges, still using the existing local loop. But you might get ADSL2+.

It might just be that, yeah, too many people are getting home from work and using Facebook. When BT measure their capacity at the exchange do they just take into account the number of phone lines connected or the amount people use the thing? That's the question.

@kalmar: Some very large new cabinets have appeared in the vicinity of my house, and we're not even listed for switchover yet listed for Q4 2011. I did think this rollout was to the cabinets, which is why it's going to take so much time and money. It's just not to the home yet, apart from new builds on converted exchanges. Was my understanding.

@Rev: They guess. If the last work done was ADSLMax in 2006, it's likely there just hasn't been any need for or attention paid to it since. Or they've noticed it approaching critical point, but decided that it'll cost too much to blow a new cable over the distance for so few customers.

Fair enough, BikNorton - I'm adjusting my opinion immediately.

Thanks for the help. I guess the conclusion is that I'm stuffed and just need to complain every now and again on the off chance someone might actually decide to check something at some point.

Woah, hold up there - you're damn near always right, I'm often wrong. Don't believe me.

Ah, but even if they are on the BT network it's still down to Sky not buying enough bandwidth, BT Wholesale only sell the ISPs the connections in the exchange & the central pipes.

You'll get no information from BT as you're not a BT BB customer.

See? I'd forgotten how reselling works. Someone needs to pay Openreach for a new backhaul though.

Any scope to move ISPs, Owen? Are you within your 12 month contract lock-in? Even threatening to move might make Sky shake a leg.

Ask Nickachu. He has awesome internets.

I'm out of contract, but equivalent packages (40GB without any off-peak download nonsense) from, you know, decent ISPs seem a fair bit more expensive and I can't afford to pay more.

(And if any other ISPs want to do a credit check before signing me up then I think I'm probably out of luck.)

Total shot in the dark and you have probably already tried it..

When O2 asked BT to update my line they did, right on schedule. I went from connecting to Maidenhead then to Birmingham. Hundreds of miles away.

And there I stayed, suffering the most awful slow speeds and timeouts for about two weeks. I phoned O2, who said everything was fine. I phoned BT who said they had done their work weeks ago.

In the end I unplugged everything and set it all up again. When I ran another speedtest I was connected to Maidenhead (well, that was my nearest speed test option and not Birmingham).

So hey, as silly as it sounds if you haven't tried it yet have a go. It might be that work was carried out, you got booted from somwhere, modem dialed and connected to somewhere else and then stayed there.

I've tried disconnecting everything and reconnecting a few times and it doesn't seem to make a blind bit of difference.

There's also a Sky Test button on my router's home page, but that just says it can't connect to the server, so I expect you can only use it when they're expecting you to.

JC, you're aware that with ADSL, you're *always* physically connected to your local exchange, and it can't "connect" to anywhere else, right?

OK, but threatening to move ISPs might get them moving. O2 are my other recommended ISP (http://broadband.o2.co.uk/). They are a little more than Sky, but you get a discount as a cell customer and and there's three free months to soften that a little too.

I had persistent line trouble since I moved into the house and O2 were excellent about it; they ran their tests, listened to my problems with my internal (but BT owned) wiring, and paid for an Openreach visit without hesitation.

Hmm - it always works for me.

O2 does look nice - unlimited downloads, really? - but unfortunately I'm not actually an O2 customer myself, so I'd be stuck paying £22, unless I could somehow convince them that I'm a customer because I'm using their mobile service, despite my phone being registered to a different name at a different address.

Oh right. Hmmm. Well, order the O2 broadband through whoever owns your iPhone contract then? I think you can specify a different address to the billing address for installation.

Do PAYG customers count? You could always acquire a free SIM.

Hmm, actually, I just tested it out and they just sent a discount code to my mobile as a text message, so it looks like I could go with O2. Maybe I'll phone Sky and ask for my MAC key.

They don't care - Charl's parents' is linked to her mobile.

Also, it bears pointing out that O2 have started shaping P2P traffic during peak hours for non-LLU customers; I don't know if that's tied to exchange congestion or anything, but the speeds you're getting it might not matter.

It also might not make any difference, if they and Sky are renting space on the same backhaul(s). O2 will probably give more of a shit, though.

No I wasn't. There isn't such thing as ADSL in the USA so I always had cable.

God knows what was happening with mine.

O2 is awesome. I don't have much of a pick here sadly but O2 works really well.

It just feels different over all to Tiscali which felt like something was going on with. Hard to explain, and my upspeeds are not as good but it's definitely far better on the downspeeds and not that much faster on paper?

Just a better quality service I guess.

Not true. It's mostly fucked by only being resold horrible Baby Bells though.

Yes but there are T&Cs. IIRC you had to put a tenner on every two months? something like that. If you don't? they revert you to the higher charge.

Some other thingers..

If you get a mate to lend you his contract number (like me) then that mate will get bombarded with text messages. This includes your passwords user names and so on. I don't know if you can ever stop this either because thankfully it died down before he lost his rag and has now stopped.

But just wanted to say it, incase it wasn't a really close friend (an internets pal for example) that let you use their number for the discount

Hmm. Well Verizon do DSL but not ADSL.

As I said, I know nothing about DSL or ADSL. I used ISDN? or whatever it was called many moons ago for 512k when 56 was the best on offer.

One other bit of advice on O2. DON'T, DON'T phone in to sign up.

I phoned for some info and they're like rabid pitbulls ready to tear out your throat. Very aggressive reps who refuse to stop hounding you. That was one thing I did not like tbh. I said I would phone back in a couple of hours once I had my friend's mobile number and he started the rebuttals, which got really fucking annoying.

"you can add the discount at a later date.. I said that if something happened and I could not get the discount I could not afford it. Then he went on and on and on about signing up there and then and not worrying about a fiver a month. I said I wanted to ask a few questions, he did his best to avoid them (fuck only knows why) and it took me AGES before I finally got the T&C over the PAYG thing. In the end I started to lose my temper and said I was going to go now. I would call back later. Then I got the I can call you etc routine and in the end I just hung up.

It wasn't just him either. When I phoned back later to ask another couple of Qs I got the same routine. They are obviously stressed and under the gun and thus fucking ruthless. I don't like hard sales. To me a product/service should sell itself without a single word uttered, not require some Red Bulled twonk who wants to force it down your throat. Really ruins the experience.

You phoned a sales team & were upset when they started selling?!?

No I was upset that they loved the sound of their own voices and were trying to force it down my throat. Even though I said I would be calling back within a couple of hours to sign up.

I explained very carefully that I had worked in sales. For a long bloody time. Thus, I had already made the decision based on the product and service that I was going to get it. Just not right now that very second.

Then he tried the "well you sound like a very intelligent person to me, but.....".

Fuck sake, save it, now you're embarassing yourself.

BTW. There is a big difference between "please can you answer a couple of questions" to "ooo baby, give it to me, ram it in deep and hard and ignore what I just fucking said".

Infact, another minute of that bollocks and I would have likely not got O2. That kind of selling, to me, fucks up any reason you had to want it. Too hard, too far.

Apologies for multiple edits. One last thing to say.

O2's customer service tech reps are experts. And I mean, fully trained experts. There's no script and if you ask a techy in depth question you dont hear the scroll wheel on the mouse go down to look for FAQ. They immediately tell you the deal. I heard they get paid £28k+ because a pal of mine up in scotchland worked for them. That comes as no suprise whatsoever tbh.

The CS line is 0800. The only one I found in any provider. However, one bummer is the wait to get through. About 40 mins. Once you're through though? Well you don't get the bombay express what you do get is a laid back clever network tech who can actually try to help you, without making you pull out the wires, plug them back in, etc.

A final example. The setup CD expects you to be wired. I had never used a WPA before as I always used WEP, and I always assigned the WEP keys (well, generated them) myself. With O2 I could not get wireless to work or connect. I phoned CS, said "Hi there, I want to go wireless but don't know my WEP".

No "Can you give me your phone number, addy, cock size password blah blah blah" just "Hi there. WEP is on the bottom of your modem and you don't need the CD, just power cycle the modem one more time. Orange light means wireless, green is cable". Ten seconds later I was done, said my thanks and put the phone down. Not a single script in sight. Awesome.

I think ADSL/DSL appeared quite late in the US, and will obviously be patchy and not offered everywhere. Bear in mind that "everyone" in the US has cable, so that dominated. Everyone else had to make do with dialup, which is still all many people can access.

John: ADSL is non-voice frequency signalling which can physically only go as far as the copper wires carry it - i.e. to the exchange.
Then it's on to the real internet. Don't ask me where the "location" comes from on the ADSL speedtest thing though!

ADSL is a form of DSL. The A is Asymmetric, or "upload different from download" - they're the same thing.

They call the "exchange" something else in the US, fucked if I can remember what - it was a few years ago when a friend moved over there and had enormous troubles getting and keeping a reasonable package.

Maybe I've been lucky, but the few times I've had to ring O2 up I've not even heard a ringtone, never mind had to wait.

Sounds like he pitched it about right then. Enough that he would have got further cross-sales off people less determined than you, not so far that you backed out.

A good salesperson doesn't leave the customer happy, he leaves the customer having spent as much as possible, often a little confused about what just happened.

Well bugger me. I thought the A stood for advanced

Presumably Sky on one of those 'broadband providers you should avoid' lists compiled by those in the know?

For £5pcm I'm not too bothered, to be fair.

I looked on Samknows and it said:

"15,233 residential premises
853 non-residential premises."

Someone I know was on Sky's Properly Unlimited package (in Sheffield) and found it fine so, you know.

And that's what I have, it's great. But then I'm on a huge exchange and not far from it.