Oh BW what a bl00&y pain for you. I did a count up this week and out of 10 services I needed to access by phone 9 were in India and could not understand me or I them. The only one that wasn't was Sky. Mind the guy was Scottish and nearly as bad(joking)
Don't know what to suggest on the netbook sorry but wanted to send a little virtual support.
Don't start me on the rest Debster... most (but not all) of it is connected to lack of access to the internet to sort things out... I'm sure that having no usable connection for the best part of a week is fine if you don't work from home (so have access to the internet from work), or live somewhere where you can just pop round to your neighbours, or use their wifi connection through the adjoining wall, but we are geographically challenged in that respect here, particularly when it's a fault affecting everyone in the hamlet.
The only up side is that Mr BW has been helping me sort out the 4 years of accumulated paper and junk in The Inner Coven so that the BT engineer can get to the main socket on this line, to take readings on his gadgets, if he needs to (see, I know the drill, I've had so many problems in the past). Previously I nearly couldn't get in the door, and now I can see the carpet again.
What you have described is utterly insane. I remember you writing about that two hour BT engineering time limit the last time you had a problem with your connection. What a crock. The money that company would save if it just let their technicians work on a a problem until it was fixed.
Oh, online storage- the first time I heard about it I thought, "That doesn't sound good if the power goes out or your internet connection goes down." People never think things through.
I take it this is Talk Talk? I've had similar experiences. Try getting a fixed ISP out of them, or moving house while using them for Broadband.
Actually, don't.
Good luck.
Posted by Earthenwitch on 25 July, 2010 at 3:46 PM
It *is* TalkTalk, but the experience certainly isn't unique to them.
I've had similar problems in the past with ntl, Tiscali, Pipex (with the latter two in the days before they were owned by TT). I also know people who've had similar experiences with almost every other ISP, even those who charge four times the monthly price.
The OpenReach engineer who eventually got my line on last year told me that BT broadband customers actually come bottom of the pile for fault-fixing as OpenReach (BT's engineering arm) have a 3 day Service Level Agreement with other ISPs for problem resolution, and, when they are busy, these calls get priority, so they aren't fined for being outside the SLA. He told me then that although he could get discounted BB from BT as he worked for them, he used Orange at home. But, I've heard other horror stories about Orange too.
The problem is, the ISPs don't own the infrastructure beyond the telephone exchanges, BT do, and only BT can investigate/work on/fix it. TT (and some other large ISPs) own much of their own equipment in the exchanges so can fix all but beyond-exchange faults (ie most faults). If any ISP calls in BT and there isn't a fault on the beyond-exchange equipment, they pay for the BT engineering time (£120 an hour apparently). So, ISPs are very loath to do so, hoping that problems will resolve by themselves (or be picked up by BT being called in by another ISP in the meantime), so they don't run the risk of having to pay for engineering time for a problem that isn't beyond the exchange.
The problem with beyond-exchange faults is that there is no means of communication between the ISP engineers and the BT engineers, so the latter rely on the customer knowing what has been tried, and what the problem is. And, as the customer often doesn't ask, isn't interested, isn't told (or is given incorrect information), or doesn't understand the technicalities well-enough to pass the information on accurately.
The system just doesn't work. And it needs to be made to as more and more in today's world relies on having constant internet access.
Hard to know what to say really, other than I like technology but am not immune from 'broken internet connection' sinking feeling.
Commercially, I suspect the answer increasingly is two levels of 'consumer' internet connections, with a more expensive option closer to business standards in terms of speed and uptime, but which could cost quite a bit more. In the end, you usually get what you pay for...
I have an 'emergency' PAYG 3G dongle, which I've not yet had to activate, might be worth it as a backup?
Interestingly, our techie (1/4 of a mile away) neighbour on TT (the one who has to wait for and try a new modem because they won't do anything until she has...) pays for their 'Business' level package, but the TT Team Leader I spoke to on Friday night said that, despite what they say, when they are flogging it to you, about better speed and priority service, the latter is fallacy, and the chances of getting more than the 1.68MB I usually do down this line, 6km from the exchange, are zero, with the current infrastructure. So, paying more won't solve the problem!
'Business' packages usually offer 2 differences - a lower contention ratio (consumer ADSL usually has a ratio of 50:1, i.e. there is a single 'modem' in the exchange shared between 50 potential users), business packages offer 20:1 or less so reliability *should* be improved. Also they should offer better support in terms of downtime, but as you said, implementation can vary massively and in your case you are simply at the far end of the distance ADSL can cope with. Don't forget that the twisted copper wires it uses were never intended to carry data in this way, ADSL is actually quite clever...
As a country our Internet infrastructure is creaking, mostly due to the popularity of data-hungry video streaming such as BBC iPlayer. Fibre-to-the-cabinet and in cities fibre-to-the-home is the solution but installing it is costing BT billions and will take time - I live very close to a large exchange but no sign of when BT Infinity will be available to me.
You can get PAYG dongles from most if not all the mobile networks (I just bought a boxed product from your fave supermarket on offer for £20). I tend to favour T-Mobile as they seem to be the most 'data-minded' for packages, but none seem to offer the ability to just buy a chunk of bandwidth and save it, you buy a chunk but must use it within a month, so I have not yet used it.
Thanks Ron - but, erm... if (http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-broadband/daily-mobilebroadband-plus/usb-stick-610-payg/) that's £15 a month for unlimited surfing at speeds of up to 7.2MB, why would I want to pay TT £18.48 a month for their standard BB package (with a currently unenforced, I believe, but, nevertheless given, limit of 2GB of downloading per month), when I can only get 1.68MB on a very good day, and I have another line I use for normal voice calls?
Does it work reliably and consistently? I can hack plugging a dongle into different PCs/netbooks, when I want to use the internet, if it does...
:D I wasn't proposing it as an alternative to your usual connection BW, although I know people who do use it that way, rather as an emergency backup, for the next time your internet connection goes down. Cheaper than a smartphone!
I should also add, 3G connection speeds are poor and never hit the headline speeds given (just like ADSL!), they should be considered 'better than nothing', and are adequate for surfing, email etc In your case you may actually get a faster 3G connection than your landline speed.
With the PAYG one it's £20 for the hardware then you pay so much per day of access or one of the other options. You can buy kit to 'share' the 3G connection via wifi but that would be overkill for an emergency option.
But if it's reliable, faster, and cheaper than TT, and usable anywhere I happen to be, why not? Can I try it without obligation (other than the first £20 for the hardware)? I don't understand how these things work.
Yes, for the PAYG option your only obligation is the £20 plus the costs of the amount of access you buy, AFAIK beyond that you can choose to use it or not, no contract etc
1) Check your coverage http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/broadband-check/), other networks offer the service too (I don't work for T-mobile!) In particular check 3G coverage, without it speeds will not be worth the effort.
I suppose you could buy one and see how it goes, if it meets your needs you could adopt it as your primary connection. As for sharing it, T-Mobile have a device called the Share Dock (http://www.mobile-broadband.org.uk/guides/t-mobile-share-dock-100/), but something else to look at might be Three's Mifi (http://www.three.co.uk/Mobile_Broadband/MiFi). As I said, most networks offer something like it now...
I've not done much homework on this BW as it's only a fall-back for me, but I'll have a further look into it!
Yes, for the PAYG option your only obligation is the £20 plus the costs of the amount of access you buy, AFAIK beyond that you can choose to use it or not, no contract etc
1) Check your coverage http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/broadband-check/), other networks offer the service too (I don't work for T-mobile!) In particular check 3G coverage, without it speeds will not be worth the effort.
I suppose you could buy one and see how it goes, if it meets your needs you could adopt it as your primary connection. As for sharing it, T-Mobile have a device called the Share Dock (http://www.mobile-broadband.org.uk/guides/t-mobile-share-dock-100/), but something else to look at might be Three's Mifi (http://www.three.co.uk/Mobile_Broadband/MiFi). As I said, most networks offer something like it now...
I've not done much homework on this BW as it's only a fall-back for me, but I'll have a further look into it!
If its pay as you go, if you are not happy then simply do not top up after the first payment.
Using a smartphone you tend to get dial up speeds rather than broadband speeds, if that is any help. You load the page eventually but you can get a cup of tea in the meantime.
Gosh - this sounds exactly like our experience last November when we (who also work from home) lost BB and phone for days - and we live in a city. The Indian experience prompted us to change from BT to TT which at the time seemed fine.
I got so cross talking to India, and refusing to accept their "unplug everything and start again", that I got "escalated" up four times. Not at all good for my blood pressure.
But recently there have been so many bad stories about TT that it's hard to know where to turn.
As you say, at the end of the day it's BT Openreach who usually fix the problem, but their inability to talk to each other is just so frustrating.
Huge sympathies.
Posted by allotmentqueen on 26 July, 2010 at 9:33 AM
Erk.
I was hoping that kind of nonsense was limited to the US. That sounds /entirely/ too much like our experience with Cle@r ... albeit that was a little different, and not just because we're in the US.
Never - NEVER get wireless without having someone come out and verify that you actually will have a connection, because the guys trying to sell it to you? Clueless. 'Oh, there's a tower Right There, your address has no flags - you'll be fiiiine!' only to find that, on getting the equipment, hooking it together, disconnecting the old router/VOIP... we have ... one bar. No useful connection. No internet, no phone. We do the techsupport dance - or, I should say, my computer-savvy IT-employed, network/computer-security specialist DH does the techsupport dance - and they don't know what's wrong. 'oh, we'll send a tech out' ... yah, thanks. That's all kinds of useful. DH growled a bit, but that was the best they could do (so they claimed). A week later (roughly), the tech comes out. He's not hardly walked in the door before he informs us that he's been to our area five times before, there's /no service/ here... 'return your equipment to the store, tell them to give you your money back'. What? But ... that's not what we were told! Why isn't this address flagged?! Argh! *headdesk*
That resulted in a run around that had my DH, who is usually a very sweet-tempered man, snarling in public (by the way, if you work tech support, and the person you are talking to tells you that their internet/VOIP service isn't working? Don't tell them to call back the next day. They will probably snarl at you. Especially if they happen to be male, and you have been calling them 'Ma'am' for the past five minutes).
It took Cle@r two or three weeks to get the number transferred back, and about that long, and my DH talking to our bank to get it through their heads that we wanted ALL our money back, not just the money they figured we should have.
Posted by Thorne on 26 July, 2010 at 5:56 PM
It's the whole world that needs to sort out its BB then... except, of course, the developing world, where they already get a zillion times the speeds we do, reliably. They don't have running water, democracy, or enough food to go round, but they do have usable broadband.
Problem currently unresolvable, apparently. BT men going out piecemeal to each customer and not solving the problem, becuase they won't look at it as a whole area problem (ie they make more ££££ from the ISPs that way).
My man (I kept him here 5.5 hours!) used to do the 'RAIN' work in this area (so thinks it's electrical noise way back down the line interfering as we have overhead telephone and electricity wires on the same poles, and the signal is already weak due to the distance we are from the exchange), but was demoted due (he said) to telling the boss how to run the company better (we shared the pain!), and there is apparently only one specialist RAIN engineer in the whole of East Anglia who can 'officially' find the source of the 'noise' that has knocked all BB except mine (intermittent and only 0.11MB speed after the TT 3rd line Team Manager spent half an hour fiddling on Friday night, sensational) out for over a mile (that's only 20 or so houses, but). And the specialist is now on leave for 3 weeks.
Oh BW what a bl00&y pain for you. I did a count up this week and out of 10 services I needed to access by phone 9 were in India and could not understand me or I them. The only one that wasn't was Sky. Mind the guy was Scottish and nearly as bad(joking)
Posted by ambermoggie on 25 July, 2010 at 2:24 PMDon't know what to suggest on the netbook sorry but wanted to send a little virtual support.
Apart from that, everything else ok?
Posted by Debster on 25 July, 2010 at 2:43 PMThanks Amber.
Don't start me on the rest Debster... most (but not all) of it is connected to lack of access to the internet to sort things out... I'm sure that having no usable connection for the best part of a week is fine if you don't work from home (so have access to the internet from work), or live somewhere where you can just pop round to your neighbours, or use their wifi connection through the adjoining wall, but we are geographically challenged in that respect here, particularly when it's a fault affecting everyone in the hamlet.
The only up side is that Mr BW has been helping me sort out the 4 years of accumulated paper and junk in The Inner Coven so that the BT engineer can get to the main socket on this line, to take readings on his gadgets, if he needs to (see, I know the drill, I've had so many problems in the past). Previously I nearly couldn't get in the door, and now I can see the carpet again.
Posted by Blue Witch on 25 July, 2010 at 3:02 PMWhat you have described is utterly insane. I remember you writing about that two hour BT engineering time limit the last time you had a problem with your connection. What a crock. The money that company would save if it just let their technicians work on a a problem until it was fixed.
Oh, online storage- the first time I heard about it I thought, "That doesn't sound good if the power goes out or your internet connection goes down." People never think things through.
Posted by peregrina on 25 July, 2010 at 3:35 PMI take it this is Talk Talk? I've had similar experiences. Try getting a fixed ISP out of them, or moving house while using them for Broadband.
Actually, don't.
Good luck.
Posted by Earthenwitch on 25 July, 2010 at 3:46 PMIt *is* TalkTalk, but the experience certainly isn't unique to them.
I've had similar problems in the past with ntl, Tiscali, Pipex (with the latter two in the days before they were owned by TT). I also know people who've had similar experiences with almost every other ISP, even those who charge four times the monthly price.
The OpenReach engineer who eventually got my line on last year told me that BT broadband customers actually come bottom of the pile for fault-fixing as OpenReach (BT's engineering arm) have a 3 day Service Level Agreement with other ISPs for problem resolution, and, when they are busy, these calls get priority, so they aren't fined for being outside the SLA. He told me then that although he could get discounted BB from BT as he worked for them, he used Orange at home. But, I've heard other horror stories about Orange too.
The problem is, the ISPs don't own the infrastructure beyond the telephone exchanges, BT do, and only BT can investigate/work on/fix it. TT (and some other large ISPs) own much of their own equipment in the exchanges so can fix all but beyond-exchange faults (ie most faults). If any ISP calls in BT and there isn't a fault on the beyond-exchange equipment, they pay for the BT engineering time (£120 an hour apparently). So, ISPs are very loath to do so, hoping that problems will resolve by themselves (or be picked up by BT being called in by another ISP in the meantime), so they don't run the risk of having to pay for engineering time for a problem that isn't beyond the exchange.
The problem with beyond-exchange faults is that there is no means of communication between the ISP engineers and the BT engineers, so the latter rely on the customer knowing what has been tried, and what the problem is. And, as the customer often doesn't ask, isn't interested, isn't told (or is given incorrect information), or doesn't understand the technicalities well-enough to pass the information on accurately.
The system just doesn't work. And it needs to be made to as more and more in today's world relies on having constant internet access.
Posted by Blue Witch on 25 July, 2010 at 4:21 PMHard to know what to say really, other than I like technology but am not immune from 'broken internet connection' sinking feeling.
Commercially, I suspect the answer increasingly is two levels of 'consumer' internet connections, with a more expensive option closer to business standards in terms of speed and uptime, but which could cost quite a bit more. In the end, you usually get what you pay for...
I have an 'emergency' PAYG 3G dongle, which I've not yet had to activate, might be worth it as a backup?
Posted by Ron on 25 July, 2010 at 6:05 PMWhere do I get one Ron, and how does it work?
Interestingly, our techie (1/4 of a mile away) neighbour on TT (the one who has to wait for and try a new modem because they won't do anything until she has...) pays for their 'Business' level package, but the TT Team Leader I spoke to on Friday night said that, despite what they say, when they are flogging it to you, about better speed and priority service, the latter is fallacy, and the chances of getting more than the 1.68MB I usually do down this line, 6km from the exchange, are zero, with the current infrastructure. So, paying more won't solve the problem!
Posted by Blue Witch on 25 July, 2010 at 6:43 PMMost phone shops do pay as you go internet. For a contract you get a 'free' laptop included in the price.
Posted by Debster on 25 July, 2010 at 6:54 PM'Business' packages usually offer 2 differences - a lower contention ratio (consumer ADSL usually has a ratio of 50:1, i.e. there is a single 'modem' in the exchange shared between 50 potential users), business packages offer 20:1 or less so reliability *should* be improved. Also they should offer better support in terms of downtime, but as you said, implementation can vary massively and in your case you are simply at the far end of the distance ADSL can cope with. Don't forget that the twisted copper wires it uses were never intended to carry data in this way, ADSL is actually quite clever...
As a country our Internet infrastructure is creaking, mostly due to the popularity of data-hungry video streaming such as BBC iPlayer. Fibre-to-the-cabinet and in cities fibre-to-the-home is the solution but installing it is costing BT billions and will take time - I live very close to a large exchange but no sign of when BT Infinity will be available to me.
You can get PAYG dongles from most if not all the mobile networks (I just bought a boxed product from your fave supermarket on offer for £20). I tend to favour T-Mobile as they seem to be the most 'data-minded' for packages, but none seem to offer the ability to just buy a chunk of bandwidth and save it, you buy a chunk but must use it within a month, so I have not yet used it.
Posted by Ron on 25 July, 2010 at 7:25 PMe.g. http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-broadband/pay-per-day/
Posted by Ron on 25 July, 2010 at 7:30 PMThanks Ron - but, erm... if (http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-broadband/daily-mobilebroadband-plus/usb-stick-610-payg/) that's £15 a month for unlimited surfing at speeds of up to 7.2MB, why would I want to pay TT £18.48 a month for their standard BB package (with a currently unenforced, I believe, but, nevertheless given, limit of 2GB of downloading per month), when I can only get 1.68MB on a very good day, and I have another line I use for normal voice calls?
Does it work reliably and consistently? I can hack plugging a dongle into different PCs/netbooks, when I want to use the internet, if it does...
Posted by Blue Witch on 25 July, 2010 at 7:50 PM:D I wasn't proposing it as an alternative to your usual connection BW, although I know people who do use it that way, rather as an emergency backup, for the next time your internet connection goes down. Cheaper than a smartphone!
I should also add, 3G connection speeds are poor and never hit the headline speeds given (just like ADSL!), they should be considered 'better than nothing', and are adequate for surfing, email etc In your case you may actually get a faster 3G connection than your landline speed.
With the PAYG one it's £20 for the hardware then you pay so much per day of access or one of the other options. You can buy kit to 'share' the 3G connection via wifi but that would be overkill for an emergency option.
Posted by Ron on 25 July, 2010 at 8:03 PMBut if it's reliable, faster, and cheaper than TT, and usable anywhere I happen to be, why not? Can I try it without obligation (other than the first £20 for the hardware)? I don't understand how these things work.
What kit can enable the connection to be shared?
Posted by Blue Witch on 25 July, 2010 at 8:13 PMOh crikey...:D
Yes, for the PAYG option your only obligation is the £20 plus the costs of the amount of access you buy, AFAIK beyond that you can choose to use it or not, no contract etc
1) Check your coverage http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/broadband-check/), other networks offer the service too (I don't work for T-mobile!) In particular check 3G coverage, without it speeds will not be worth the effort.
I suppose you could buy one and see how it goes, if it meets your needs you could adopt it as your primary connection. As for sharing it, T-Mobile have a device called the Share Dock (http://www.mobile-broadband.org.uk/guides/t-mobile-share-dock-100/), but something else to look at might be Three's Mifi (http://www.three.co.uk/Mobile_Broadband/MiFi). As I said, most networks offer something like it now...
I've not done much homework on this BW as it's only a fall-back for me, but I'll have a further look into it!
Posted by Ron on 25 July, 2010 at 8:39 PMOh crikey...:D
Yes, for the PAYG option your only obligation is the £20 plus the costs of the amount of access you buy, AFAIK beyond that you can choose to use it or not, no contract etc
1) Check your coverage http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/broadband-check/), other networks offer the service too (I don't work for T-mobile!) In particular check 3G coverage, without it speeds will not be worth the effort.
I suppose you could buy one and see how it goes, if it meets your needs you could adopt it as your primary connection. As for sharing it, T-Mobile have a device called the Share Dock (http://www.mobile-broadband.org.uk/guides/t-mobile-share-dock-100/), but something else to look at might be Three's Mifi (http://www.three.co.uk/Mobile_Broadband/MiFi). As I said, most networks offer something like it now...
I've not done much homework on this BW as it's only a fall-back for me, but I'll have a further look into it!
Posted by Ron on 25 July, 2010 at 8:40 PMIf its pay as you go, if you are not happy then simply do not top up after the first payment.
Using a smartphone you tend to get dial up speeds rather than broadband speeds, if that is any help. You load the page eventually but you can get a cup of tea in the meantime.
Posted by Debster on 25 July, 2010 at 8:48 PMGosh - this sounds exactly like our experience last November when we (who also work from home) lost BB and phone for days - and we live in a city. The Indian experience prompted us to change from BT to TT which at the time seemed fine.
I got so cross talking to India, and refusing to accept their "unplug everything and start again", that I got "escalated" up four times. Not at all good for my blood pressure.
But recently there have been so many bad stories about TT that it's hard to know where to turn.
As you say, at the end of the day it's BT Openreach who usually fix the problem, but their inability to talk to each other is just so frustrating.
Huge sympathies.
Posted by allotmentqueen on 26 July, 2010 at 9:33 AMErk.
Posted by Thorne on 26 July, 2010 at 5:56 PMI was hoping that kind of nonsense was limited to the US. That sounds /entirely/ too much like our experience with Cle@r ... albeit that was a little different, and not just because we're in the US.
Never - NEVER get wireless without having someone come out and verify that you actually will have a connection, because the guys trying to sell it to you? Clueless. 'Oh, there's a tower Right There, your address has no flags - you'll be fiiiine!' only to find that, on getting the equipment, hooking it together, disconnecting the old router/VOIP... we have ... one bar. No useful connection. No internet, no phone. We do the techsupport dance - or, I should say, my computer-savvy IT-employed, network/computer-security specialist DH does the techsupport dance - and they don't know what's wrong. 'oh, we'll send a tech out' ... yah, thanks. That's all kinds of useful. DH growled a bit, but that was the best they could do (so they claimed). A week later (roughly), the tech comes out. He's not hardly walked in the door before he informs us that he's been to our area five times before, there's /no service/ here... 'return your equipment to the store, tell them to give you your money back'. What? But ... that's not what we were told! Why isn't this address flagged?! Argh! *headdesk*
That resulted in a run around that had my DH, who is usually a very sweet-tempered man, snarling in public (by the way, if you work tech support, and the person you are talking to tells you that their internet/VOIP service isn't working? Don't tell them to call back the next day. They will probably snarl at you. Especially if they happen to be male, and you have been calling them 'Ma'am' for the past five minutes).
It took Cle@r two or three weeks to get the number transferred back, and about that long, and my DH talking to our bank to get it through their heads that we wanted ALL our money back, not just the money they figured we should have.
It's the whole world that needs to sort out its BB then... except, of course, the developing world, where they already get a zillion times the speeds we do, reliably. They don't have running water, democracy, or enough food to go round, but they do have usable broadband.
Problem currently unresolvable, apparently. BT men going out piecemeal to each customer and not solving the problem, becuase they won't look at it as a whole area problem (ie they make more ££££ from the ISPs that way).
My man (I kept him here 5.5 hours!) used to do the 'RAIN' work in this area (so thinks it's electrical noise way back down the line interfering as we have overhead telephone and electricity wires on the same poles, and the signal is already weak due to the distance we are from the exchange), but was demoted due (he said) to telling the boss how to run the company better (we shared the pain!), and there is apparently only one specialist RAIN engineer in the whole of East Anglia who can 'officially' find the source of the 'noise' that has knocked all BB except mine (intermittent and only 0.11MB speed after the TT 3rd line Team Manager spent half an hour fiddling on Friday night, sensational) out for over a mile (that's only 20 or so houses, but). And the specialist is now on leave for 3 weeks.
I can feel a dongle purchase coming on...
Posted by Blue Witch on 27 July, 2010 at 9:19 AM