Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: pscocoa on 24 March 2017, 23:30:38
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I ended up in the middle of an arse kicking contest today - Broadband speed at office has dropped over last couple of days. Called BT who remotely did some tests and said we needed an engineer round who arrived at 1pm and was there 2 hours doing tests. He confirms we are getting max speed at the socket and the service provider will have to deal with this. Hang on - you are BT!! No I am Open Reach he says. He is then on phone to BT who tell him he has no authority to ask for adjustment between the BRAS (which I looked up as Broadband Remote Access Server) and the throughput. So an argument basically developed with BT and Openreach engineer on my mobile trying to get it sorted.
I have looked up all this stuff as basically BT want to send another engineer and the one who has been says they can send as many as they like but it is BT not syncing the BRAS with the throughput.
I can just about follow the technical argument but who the hell is going to do anything about it.
Looks like another bureaucratic nightmare being passed from pillar to post.
Anyone out there got any contacts or tech knowledge as to how similar issues have played out. Another engineer is coming Monday.
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wish to God I did!
Since end of Jan I have been battling Bt Retail (Fibre to the Premesis team), with BT Wholesale and Openreach.
A failed FTTH install that noone can seem to get back on track, every fault raised or new order falls into a big black hole!
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Openreach is NOT part of BT (Consumer/Business - the bit we all deal with), although both are part of the BT Group of companies. Blame Ofcom, they are the ones making life difficult for every service provider dealing with Openreach, BT included.
I would be really surprised if the Openreach chap actually spoke to anyone at BT (or vice versa), as that would be in breach of both of their licence agreements, and Ofcom would be very interested in that - I would imagine both would be instantly dismissed, and both companies take a hefty fine. Everything has to go through that wonderful electronic system, ECO-BB, that anyone who has ever worked at an ISP will know and love :-X. That includes BT.
There are a small number of people in the wider "BT" who are allowed to talk to both Openreach and the "BT" that consumers know - in a previous role, I was one of them, but he rules (and tedious training and constant refreshers) were very stringent.
As said, pissing off end users is Ofcom's mission, but making life hard for your ISP, and ensuring prices are high.
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And the BRAS is automatic. An ISP can set it back to (re)train, but sounds to me much more like a line fault if speed has dropped suddenly.
So you're getting great speed at the master socket, but not at the router? What does that tell you?
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And the BRAS is automatic. An ISP can set it back to (re)train, but sounds to me much more like a line fault if speed has dropped suddenly.
So you're getting great speed at the master socket, but not at the router? What does that tell you?
Ummm.....my guess....fault with the cable between the master socket and router or router fault.... ::)
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And the BRAS is automatic. An ISP can set it back to (re)train, but sounds to me much more like a line fault if speed has dropped suddenly.
So you're getting great speed at the master socket, but not at the router? What does that tell you?
Ummm.....my guess....fault with the cable between the master socket and router or router fault.... ::)
Or the router is duff.
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Changed filter and router and no difference
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Not sure if it's a similar issue but I keep getting TIME OUTS, Plusnet (aka BT) say there is no fault - nothings changed on any of the devices connected so I don't know what's going on - supposedly on unlimited fibre but at this rate I had better access with my old dialup via Compuserve ???
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And the BRAS is automatic. An ISP can set it back to (re)train, but sounds to me much more like a line fault if speed has dropped suddenly.
So you're getting great speed at the master socket, but not at the router? What does that tell you?
Is the BRAS tied to line or to ISP? If it's tied to the ISP then when the OR fella tests it with his test kit, is he going to hit a different BRAS profile and get 'line speed' as opposed to 'trained maximum speed' of the customer BRAS?
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I am sat in pub next door to my office taking on supplies for another Open Reach visit in the 1 to 6 slot. The OR guy last week said our line was perfect and it was up to BT to sync the BRAS to the throughput. Not sure if that answers your questions.
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Everything our end is fine. Engineer is recommending a "lift and shift" meaning an equipment upgrade in the exchange. BT have to ok it and then ask Open Reach to do the work. I Googled BT Lift and Shift but a bit of a specialist area
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The line will go to a DSLAM (probably in the street side cab if its FTTC), some of the later ones have integrated BRAS capability others simply back haul it to a remote access router so its difficult to see there being anything more than a line fault (or an issue between the master socket and router or another phone extension)
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Thanks Marks - the Open Reach engineer has confirmed all our kit is fine. Just going to find out where we stand now.
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So BT have now had the notes from Open Reach. They have interpreted Lift and Shift to mean that we moved our equipment in our building and tried to refer me to sales !! Er no - the OR engineer has given me the LLU reference Pair 62 to be moved in the exchange...(BT) oh well we have it recorded on this system and the job will have to be opened on another system. We will ring you back....
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So BT have now had the notes from Open Reach. They have interpreted Lift and Shift to mean that we moved our equipment in our building and tried to refer me to sales !! Er no - the OR engineer has given me the LLU reference Pair 62 to be moved in the exchange...(BT) oh well we have it recorded on this system and the job will have to be opened on another system. We will ring you back....
You couldn't make it up. This is what happens when telephonists customer service representatives work from an on screen script.
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And BT have just phoned back to say they are requesting action by BT Wholesale!!
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So BT have now had the notes from Open Reach. They have interpreted Lift and Shift to mean that we moved our equipment in our building and tried to refer me to sales !! Er no - the OR engineer has given me the LLU reference Pair 62 to be moved in the exchange...(BT) oh well we have it recorded on this system and the job will have to be opened on another system. We will ring you back....
You couldn't make it up. This is what happens when telephonists customer service representatives work from an on screen script.
Not helped by the fact Openreach cannot (Ofcom, bless them) share their IT systems with Service Providers, BT included.
So there will always be multiple, separate systems involved.
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And BT have just phoned back to say they are requesting action by BT Wholesale!!
To do the exchange work then. Great, isn't it?
Another reason why all civil servants need lining up and shooting.
>:(
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So BT have now had the notes from Open Reach. They have interpreted Lift and Shift to mean that we moved our equipment in our building and tried to refer me to sales !! Er no - the OR engineer has given me the LLU reference Pair 62 to be moved in the exchange...(BT) oh well we have it recorded on this system and the job will have to be opened on another system. We will ring you back....
That's exactly what a Lift and Shift is in BTOR terms, relocation of the NTE on the customer premise.
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So BT have now had the notes from Open Reach. They have interpreted Lift and Shift to mean that we moved our equipment in our building and tried to refer me to sales !! Er no - the OR engineer has given me the LLU reference Pair 62 to be moved in the exchange...(BT) oh well we have it recorded on this system and the job will have to be opened on another system. We will ring you back....
If they were real engineers they would have sorted it but, there not, there techs at best and more than likely fitters.....
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BT phoned me first thing to say engineers had been booked to do a lift and shift "at the exchange" tomorrow morning and that they will contact me in the afternoon to report. Fingers crossed.
Thanks for all your comments on this but you can imagine all the customers being fobbed off with reasons for low speed. They may of course come back and say it is now as fast as it can be at 5meg!!
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They may of course come back and say it is now as fast as it can be at 5meg!!
I suspect the man from Readingham would be utterly delighted with such a dizzy speed :P ;D
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They may of course come back and say it is now as fast as it can be at 5meg!!
I suspect the man from Readingham would be utterly delighted with such a dizzy speed :P ;D
Yes but it would be too fast for him to handle.
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I may be over-simplifying things, however I've never seen the relevance of Open Reach to the end user.
I have a contract with BT, to supply me with phone, broadband etc etc. I don't give a stuff who BT engage to do the physical connectivity stuff as I have no contractual relationship with them. Other than giving them access to our property I have nothing to do with them.
So, if BT isn't providing the paid for service they should be compensating the end user and then going after Open Reach themselves if they are to blame. Trying to drag the customer into the middle of it is just another way to transfer responsibility and make the end user do their leg work. I mean, let's face it, if its not their lines, or their tech, and they're passing the leg work on to the customer, what are they actually for?
I took this approach when we moved into our house and our installation went tits up. I just started totting up the cost for lost time, inconvenience etc etc and funnily enough, I got through to someone on the phone with whom I shared a common language (English) and things were sorted pretty quickly.
Putting the customer in the middle is just smoke and mirrors on BT's part. >:(
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Thanks for all your comments on this but you can imagine all the customers being fobbed off with reasons for low speed. They may of course come back and say it is now as fast as it can be at 5meg that, if you attached a morse key to it and started tapping away you'd have communication, so it's fine.!!
FTFY :y
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jimmy944 - that's exactly the way it should be. And in fact the way it is. My Internet doesn't work, I shout at Zen Internet, not their supplier (Openreach). Zen then do some (decent) sanity checks and diagnostics, and if believed to be a line fault, send it to Openreach (or BT Wholesale is it needs exchange work).
I pay Zen a lot more money than most people pay BT for an FTTC connection, partly due to some specific needs, partly due to the better support:
I have 2 lines in here, both now FTTC. One is via Zen (the one OOF runs on), on is BT Business (not really the same as "BT" that most of us use). A few years back, they were both 512k RA-ADSL, and both suffered an appalling error rate (thousands of CRC errors a minute). I knew what the problem was, and how to fix it, but needed BT (pre Openreach) to do it. Call Zen, explain, did the usual sanity checks with master socket and filters, they could see the errors being reported on the line, and got it raised with BT in less than 15 mins. Then call BT about the BT Business line, took about 2hrs of jumping through their hoops, it was clear their call centre staff weren't that technical. Once the BT engineers turned up (on seperate days, grrr), I told them what they needed to do (change e side to one that wasn't via a link cable to another cabinet, cutting the line length from 7km to 3km :o), and job jobbed :)
Another occasion I have trouble with a Zen line (at bro's business), we'd done a lot of network kit swapouts and reconfiguration, but weren't getting internet connectivity for long enough to do anything useful. Call up Zen, usual sanity checks, then they start to diagnose it, and come back (within 10-15mins) saying that our router is responding oddly to the radius authentication packets - turns out a router that we'd previous used purely for LAN routing had a hardware fault on its ADSL interface, and we'd muddled up the routers when we'd reapplied the configs following the changes. Can't see many other ISPs being able to help diagnose that one, beyond "must be your equipment sir". OK, maybe Andrews and Arnold.
The OPs issue is he's got between OR and BT, and had become stuck in the middle, failing to realise they are NOT the same company, and the enforced seperations between them. He should be grumbling at BT, not OR or BTW. His only contact, other than providing access, should be with BT.
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Thanks for all your comments on this but you can imagine all the customers being fobbed off with reasons for low speed. They may of course come back and say it is now as fast as it can be at 5meg that, if you attached a morse key to it and started tapping away you'd have communication, so it's fine.!!
FTFY :y
I'm far to rusty now to even pick up slow morse, but when I used to sit in a van all day with a collegue who was learning it via cassettes that were in the vans, I got reasonably good at it, at the speeds needed to pass the exam for the amateur radio licence. Wish I'd done the exam now, not that I'd realistically use it, but with morse being the hardest bit IMHO....
Even now, occasionally I'll hear something rattling somewhere, and subconsciously decode letters, even though the whole thing is gibberish. Sad bastid, I know :-[
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........Once the BT engineers turned up (on seperate days, grrr), I told them what they needed to do (change e side to one that wasn't via a link cable to another cabinet, cutting the line length from 7km to 3km :o), and job jobbed :)........
The beauty here being a) your local knowledge, b) your BT technical knowledge and c) the willingness and understanding of your BTOR engineer.
We have a lot of dealings with BT, Wholesale, Workplace, Enterprise, Newsites, Openreach etc etc, our largest percentage of timewasting is down to Kelly and MV Quinn subcontractors and there inability to do anything more than punch down a bit of 1308 on the DP and run it no more than 2m from it, Heaven forbid they tag the line... sometimes your lucky if they do anything more than leave a loop in the DP. I've always found the proper BTOR engineers to be far better (as you'd expect really), you can discuss the D-Side and E-Side with them and once they realise you do have an understanding they are very helpful, even leaving interstitial plates on PSTN installs when they know it will have FTTC overlaid.
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jimmy944 - that's exactly the way it should be. And in fact the way it is. My Internet doesn't work, I shout at Zen Internet, not their supplier (Openreach).
That's a relief, I know I am a grumpy curmudgeonly young git. But I'm glad I'm not wide of the mark. :y
Tbh, with many companies I find that I have no choice but to "escalate my complaint" at the first opportunity just so that I speak to someone who I understand and who understands me.
Oh and lest anyone think I'm being racist, I firmly include in this category all the bloody Glaswegians that Natwest/RBS employ. ;D
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jimmy944 - that's exactly the way it should be. And in fact the way it is. My Internet doesn't work, I shout at Zen Internet, not their supplier (Openreach).
That's a relief, I know I am a grumpy curmudgeonly young git. But I'm glad I'm not wide of the mark. :y
Tbh, with many companies I find that I have no choice but to "escalate my complaint" at the first opportunity just so that I speak to someone who I understand and who understands me.
Oh and lest anyone think I'm being racist, I firmly include in this category all the bloody Glaswegians that Natwest/RBS employ. ;D
The Scottish are a race, so you're racist. So am I. :)
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Really? I thought it was a genetic condition... :o
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If we play our cards right, it could be a foreign country soon. :y
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Thanks for all your comments on this but you can imagine all the customers being fobbed off with reasons for low speed. They may of course come back and say it is now as fast as it can be at 5meg that, if you attached a morse key to it and started tapping away you'd have communication, so it's fine.!!
FTFY :y
I'm far to rusty now to even pick up slow morse, but when I used to sit in a van all day with a collegue who was learning it via cassettes that were in the vans, I got reasonably good at it, at the speeds needed to pass the exam for the amateur radio licence. Wish I'd done the exam now, not that I'd realistically use it, but with morse being the hardest bit IMHO....
Even now, occasionally I'll hear something rattling somewhere, and subconsciously decode letters, even though the whole thing is gibberish. Sad bastid, I know :-[
You don't even need morse these days.
But it's a curse once you've learnt any. You hear it in music, background noise, everywhere. ;D
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Talking of your morse addiction, has anyone heard of the 'BID tic' ?
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jimmy944 - that's exactly the way it should be. And in fact the way it is. My Internet doesn't work, I shout at Zen Internet, not their supplier (Openreach). Zen then do some (decent) sanity checks and diagnostics, and if believed to be a line fault, send it to Openreach (or BT Wholesale is it needs exchange work).
I, too, have a chubby for Zen. Used them for many years (despite paying much more than I would to their cut-price competition, let alone to useless idiots like Talk Talk) and was incredibly happy; their technical support was actually that - technical - which is an immediate differentiator to their competition!
In the end I moved from Zen to O2 due to cost (while unself-employed) and a week or two later (coincidentally, I'm guessing, unless exchange work happened) the line speed dropped from a rock steady 2.5Mbit (60dB attenuation line, despite being ~3Km from the exchange, poxy Slough) to a wavering 1.5-2Mbit that dropped, regular as clockwork, every 5pm and would resync at ~300Kbit until the SNR came back up magically 30 minutes later.
I gave up on O2 ever figuring out what was wrong there and put up with "Normal for your line, Sir, you're a very long way from the exchange" and just wrote a script to monitor the SNR & sync rate of the router and if the sync was low and SNR had climbed back up to >18dB to kick the router again.
.. bet that would never have happened with Zen.
(Now I use Virgin .. because 200Mbit, and I'm too cheap to pay for FTTH!)
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I know three fifths of fack all about this kind of thing, but what Aaron has just described, describes perfectly what has happened to my interweb since I signed up with SKY almost a year ago. Their interweb and 999 channels of shite TV will be getting binned as soon as the 12 month contract expires.
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I had a little progress yesterday too...
external FTTP team turned up and found and fixed an issue, we now have green lights for power, optical and lan...
No internet light yet, and smarthub now orange..
Apparently we now need the internal team, but what the hell they need to do i cannot say? possibly just confirm its now ready to be activated?
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jimmy944 - that's exactly the way it should be. And in fact the way it is. My Internet doesn't work, I shout at Zen Internet, not their supplier (Openreach). Zen then do some (decent) sanity checks and diagnostics, and if believed to be a line fault, send it to Openreach (or BT Wholesale is it needs exchange work).
I, too, have a chubby for Zen. Used them for many years (despite paying much more than I would to their cut-price competition, let alone to useless idiots like Talk Talk) and was incredibly happy; their technical support was actually that - technical - which is an immediate differentiator to their competition!
Yep, I'm a Zen fan too. I think I've had a problem once, and that was about 2 weeks after moving house. Straight on the phone to Zen and explained the problem. Guy knew his stuff, so no "have you tried rebooting?" BS to wade through. They kicked Openleach's @rse and got it fixed. Turns out they'd processed the cease for the previous service after mine had been connected for a week. ::)
I keep wondering about moving somewhere cheaper, but I just know it would end badly.
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Update - OR Engineer "I am outside your building" . Why?. "To do a Lift and Shift". You are supposed to do that at the Exchange. " It does not say that on my notes, OK will go to the Exchange do the Lift and Shift and ring you later"
This story has legs ....
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oooo My case handler just rang....shes brought the internal team forward to tomorrow :)
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oooo My case handler just rang....shes brought the internal team forward to tomorrow :)
Your case handler? Sounds like someone from social services or the probation service. ;D
It's not, is it, Jimbob? :-\
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oooo My case handler just rang....shes brought the internal team forward to tomorrow :)
Your case handler? Sounds like someone from social services or the probation service. ;D
It's not, is it, Jimbob? :-\
;D ;D ;D
no....
Its what you get when BT have been incompetant for the best part of 2 months
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Only two months :o I thought it was a foundation stone of their mandate... ::)
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Two months could be enough to ruin the business of anyone working from home.
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We seem to be running very well now but speed per BT test hasn't changed (they said it might take time). Performance is far better than it has been for some time whilst seemingly at same line speed pre problems.
Ah well - see how long it lasts.
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Luckily the copper broadband from the old provider has remained working throughout.
Id been told if it stopped, BT could have turned on an ADSL connection pretty quickly to tide us over.
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And finally up and running! only taken since end of Jan!
Internal team needed to do nothing more than make a phone call as expected.
Just need to reopen failed order for bt tv, get reward card, check old broadband goes off, and sort out a refund / compensation.
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I haven't bothered to bore everyone with our situation but it is still ongoing even though speed is as good as it has been in last 2 years. There is an OR engineer coming to our office again tomorrow as they say they have done all the tweaks their end and cannot work out why we are not getting higher speeds. I am amazed that they are showing interest and not fobbing me off with some spurious argument...although of course that may follow at a point in time.