BT Infinity - a pain without end?

[Brigadier]

Nuts and bolts of it.........

Performance is poor, and varies between slow, and not at all.
Drops out on incoming calls.
Hard-wired - BT telly box, or wi-fi - phones, tablets, etc, is rubbish.

Completely lost BT Sports over the last week or so.
After forty minutes on hold, got promise of engineer to visit, before 1300 today (line test by the help desk guy showed 3Mbps download speed).

Yesterday, phone line and internet dropped out completely, and haven't yet come back.

Wife called (from her mobile) call centre, who (after much chagrin) advised that "someone would be out to have a look, Wednesday next week).

Given what I am about to post, am I stuck with this rubbish?

 

[Brigadier]

Please correct any misunderstandings that I may have, in the following:

Everything up to my master socket is off-limits to anyone, barring BT (Openreach)?

If the above is correct, (regardless of whether I am with BT, Sky, Virgin, PlusNet, whoever), I am ultimately at the mercy of Openreach, and that crappy little bit of cable that dangles from the telegraph pole outside of my house?


It seems to me that, no matter what I do (have done) to improve the situation inside of my house, the weak link will always be stuff beyond my control (shielded from my ire by a "help" desk).


Have I got the wrong end of the stick?
How can I get decent connection, and decent service?
Can anyone recommend a decent engineer who can make sure that I'm above reproach on my side of the master socket, and therefore isolate the blame squarely at the provider's / Openreach's door? Cannock - area would be dandy.

TIA

 

[Sally2000]

Are you actually signed up to Infinity, or the old ADSL service? 3Mb/s suggests you are not on Infinity, as you would not normally be connected to Infinity at that speed.
Have you checked what speed you should be getting?
This will tell you: http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/speed-checker

 

[Brigadier]

Swmbo said infinity, although as I am not the account holder, I don't know for sure.

I do know that we were on c. 20mb a few weeks ago, and (on Wednesday), bt told me that the appalling speed then was preventing us receiving the bt sport that we had previously enjoyed.

I have read a few bt threads, where customers have complained of service dwindling to virtually bugger all, even after being "fixed".

 

[Sally2000]

20Mb is quite adequate for TV. 3Mb isn't.
Did you try the checker I linked?

 

[Brigadier]

Hold on a sec Sally - I was brewing up!

Just checked our account:

BT Broadband with BT infinity1 - says we've got unlimited usage, upto 38Mb download, and 9.5 upload
Unlimited Anytime calls
TV Entertainment
BT Sport Pack on BT TV

 

[Brigadier]

I've used the linked checker before, and have just done so again.

States that I should get a guaranteed minimum speed of 35mbps.

Fat chance of that!

 

[Sally2000]

Then you definitely have a fault.
You should be able to physically check the internal wiring yourself - who installed the modem and TV box connections?
The WiFi is a different issue - lots of possible problems there, so check the copper connections first.

 

[Brigadier]

Update - swmbo tells me that the neighbours have been without land-line for at least today (they were out yesterday, so wouldn't have known). Their internet is supposedly working though.........

 

[Brigadier]

Update
Engineer never showed on Friday, so no internet / phone / sport tv over weekend.

Engineer showed today.
Replaced cable from telegraph pole, too house, after telling swmbo that it was faulty.
Speedtest now showing 31mbps.

Neighbour's phone is still down - engineer told swmbo that someone has buggered up their wire at the next pole up......

 

[roboughton]

Update
Engineer never showed on Friday, so no internet / phone / sport tv over weekend.

Engineer showed today.
Replaced cable from telegraph pole, too house, after telling swmbo that it was faulty.
Speedtest now showing 31mbps.

Neighbour's phone is still down - engineer told swmbo that someone has buggered up their wire at the next pole up......

Lucky you, its been about 10 years and they only just replaced the cable up by us. When it got windy phones/internet went down. New cable has meant we now have a phone that doesn't crackle and more stable internet (cant get infinity as too far from exchange but we get faster broadband which uses the same principles as fibre). They also replaced the telegraph pole at the end of our land its was at almost 45 degree angle 10 years hahah. I call them NoReach not openreach.

 

[Brigadier]

Update
Engineer never showed on Friday, so no internet / phone / sport tv over weekend.

Engineer showed today.
Replaced cable from telegraph pole too house, after telling swmbo that it was faulty.
Speedtest now showing 31mbps.

Neighbour's phone is still down - engineer told swmbo that someone has buggered up their wire at the next pole up......

Lucky you, its been about 10 years and they only just replaced the cable up by us. When it got windy phones/internet went down. New cable has meant we now have a phone that doesn't crackle and more stable internet (cant get infinity as too far from exchange but we get faster broadband which uses the same principles as fibre). They also replaced the telegraph pole at the end of our land its was at almost 45 degree angle 10 years hahah. I call them NoReach not openreach.

My commiserations

Comes to something when we come to accept being fobbed off as being the norm.

 

[SimonH2]

A hint ...
If there is anything audible (crackles etc) then report it as a voice problem on the phone line. Those faults are handled by a completely different process, with sensible resolution time targets etc. Broadband faults follow a byzantine process designed to allow faults to go on for ages without any penalties.