[Tech] BT Halp? :3

[Dr Drae]

Right, my friend is on BT, the poor sod, and he's getting absolutely horrendous service. Like, poor speeds, a phone line that used to be dodgy with the internet doing anything, but now just gives an 8 second delay, and now the coup de grace, his father used the phone, and the computer in the other room could not use the internet.

Does anybody know if there's any clause or some such they can cancel under now, without incurring the penalty charges? Any phone numbers etc would be useful.

 

[thatbloke]

if the line is cutting out when the phone gets used it sounds like he doesn't have an ADSL microfilter fitted. Tell him to ensure that he has one fitted to EVERY live phone socket in the house. The Microfilter is a small adapter that splits the part of the phone line that uses the phone from the part of the phone line that uses the internet data (i.e. stops them from interfering with each other).

I'm on BT myself and although I get the occasional drop in connection that's normally due to LINX dying as opposed to something BT are screwing up themselves...

edit: also, get him to run a traceroute to somewhere like google and grab the results. If you're unsure on how to do that, see the steps below:

• Open the start menu, and select "Run"
• Type in "cmd" and press enter
• You will be presented with a black DOS-like window with a command line interface.
• Into that, we need to use the command "tracert" to get the date we want - you provide it with the website you want to get a route to as a parameter. To take google as the example, you should be typing the following on the command line:
  • tracert www.google.com
• This will print out up to a maximum of 30 lines of seemingly random information. Each line will contain 3 numbers, followed by an IP address, then (if it can figure it out) the name of the server it just talked to

This command will provide you with the route that his traffic is taking along the internet to get to Google. To copy it directly from that command window (the process if a bit archaic):

• Right click the small black icon in the top LEFT corner of the command window.
• Expand the "Edit" menu and select the option "Mark"
• Using the mouse, drag a box over the whole area of text that you want to copy.
• Once you have the WHOLE area of text that you want to copy highlighted with the box, press ENTER on your keyboard.
• The text you highlighted will now be in your copy buffer. you can then open up a program such as notepad and copy it into there (either CTRL+V or right click->Paste) for safekeeping and for easily copying onto here.

 

[Dr Drae]

I've heard of problems with microfilters, but do they have to be fitted to EVERY socket? IE: Ones that have nothing plugged in? Also, here are the tracert results. Unless I'm mistaken, everything looks okay, except maybe the jump at 13. But I'm definitely no expert at this, so.. yeah.

Tracing route to www.l.google.com [209.85.229.99]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 2 ms api.home [192.168.1.254]
2 44 ms 45 ms 45 ms 217.32.147.103
3 51 ms 59 ms 59 ms 217.32.147.126
4 53 ms 51 ms 52 ms 213.120.181.110
5 52 ms 52 ms 52 ms 217.32.25.78
6 49 ms 52 ms 52 ms 217.32.25.178
7 52 ms 52 ms 52 ms 109.159.251.103
8 59 ms 58 ms 58 ms core1-te0-2-4-0.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.25
1.13]
9 58 ms 58 ms 59 ms core4te-0-3-0-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [62.172.
102.17]
10 61 ms 59 ms 58 ms 195.99.125.78
11 58 ms 59 ms 59 ms 209.85.252.76
12 66 ms 65 ms 69 ms 72.14.232.134
13 62 ms 65 ms 147 ms 209.85.252.83
14 64 ms 69 ms 72 ms 209.85.243.73
15 65 ms 65 ms 65 ms ww-in-f99.1e100.net [209.85.229.99]

Trace complete.

Thanks for the help by the way. :3

 

[thatbloke]

That all looks fine - so what's the actual issues that he's receiving? is it while gaming? Is he sure that nothing else is on the network and hogging all the bandwidth?

I find that even if the phone socket is active (but there's nothing plugged into it) having a microfilter plugged into it can help. i.e. if he were to plug a phone into the socket and he were to get a dialtone from it, then just slap a filter into the socket (even if nothing else is in it) and see if it helps.

 

[VibroAxe]

Speaking from an electronics point of view, i've never quite worked out why you need a microfilter in a plug which doesn't have a phone plugged into it. I don't normally see any effect by microfiltering all the unused sockets, but if a few really bad cases I have seen it make quite a difference.

Worth trying for a few bob

 

[Traxata]

Poor Speeds,


Where is the (presumably a BT HomeHub) located in relation to where the MASTER phone socket is? Extension sockets do not do internet speeds justice. I had a 10M extension socket which was using high quality shielded cable, moved the Homehub to the master socket, and my speeds doubled.

Generally with microfilters and sockets, you may not have something plugged into a socket, but that doesn't mean something isn't wired into that socket .... That can make a difference. Sky requires a microfilter, Fax, phone etc...

 

[thatbloke]

the other thing to look into is an I-plate. You can find them on the BT online store for a few quid.

 

[Traxata]

the other thing to look into is an I-plate. You can find them on the BT online store for a few quid.

They're free if you're BT customer (made no difference for me as I moved the Homehub to the master socket, if you can't do that the iplate will make a difference)

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

We got one of those, though as our bt home hub restarts so oftern and my dad (the responsible person who doesnt beleive it isnt restarting because of what i am doing online, because he uses the net about 5% isnt affected by it) refuses to look into the issue, and i like to be near the hub and wired to reset it. In our house we always get terribad wireless connections. Took me 4 years to convince him that the reason i refuse to have a wireless connection for gaming doesnt have the same effect on someone who only uses internet explorer on the internet. So for 4 years he would just cut me off when he wanted the net

 

[Dr Drae]

Hmr. The only sorta ... 'digital thingy' he has aside from the internet is the freeview box. I'm going to try the microfilter thing though.

As for the internet speeds; it's no different from the master socket than it is in the one it's in now (I moved it into it's current one for convenience after realising the speeds were the same.) They may have increased on the master socket since, so I'll make sure to test it.

In all fairness, it's mainly the being unable to use a phone and the internet at the same time which is getting to me. I would've thought that that is the broad definition of broadband. Thanks for all your help btw guys. ^_^

As for the slow speeds, it's generally all the time. At some points it's better, but things like youtube videos, loading most sites takes a lot longer than either of us are used to; a pain as we both spend 90% of the time on the net. Things like downloading steam games do require leaving the PC on for several days at a time (which can be the case for certain games anyway, I know, but this is even for small ones. >.>" )

Also, phone problems aside; it'd be nice to be able to have the PC browsing, and the PS3 able to online game at the same time; something that at the moment is out of the question, with the PC being bad enough.

 

[thatbloke]

In all fairness, it's mainly the being unable to use a phone and the internet at the same time which is getting to me.

If that is in fact the case then he does not have microfilters installed at all or they are installed/being used incorrectly.

Having this set up correctly should sort everything out.

As he's on BT he will have received a Home Hub, it should have come with a couple of such filters.

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

Some homehubs come with internet phones too.

 

[Traxata]

Some homehubs come with internet phones too.

The Wifi phone that comes with all home hub 2.0s doesn't cut your internet out while you use it.

 

[Dr Drae]

Nope, it's a BT HomeHub 2.0 I believe (with the wifi and the detachable base for the wireless phone) which I set up; microfilter and all.

 

[thatbloke]

Nope, it's a BT HomeHub 2.0 I believe (with the wifi and the detachable base for the wireless phone) which I set up; microfilter and all.

Please don't think I mean any offence here, but the whole point of the microfilter(s) is to prevent precisely the problem that seems to be occurring - that the broadband is receiving interference from the phone line.

Something is still not set up correctly. Perhaps a faulty microfilter?

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

Nope, it's a BT HomeHub 2.0 I believe (with the wifi and the detachable base for the wireless phone) which I set up; microfilter and all.

It should be (in most cases) microfilter(s).

 

[Dr Drae]

Please don't think I mean any offence here, but the whole point of the microfilter(s) is to prevent precisely the problem that seems to be occurring - that the broadband is receiving interference from the phone line.

Something is still not set up correctly. Perhaps a faulty microfilter?

No offence taken; I set up this thread for help, and I could have easily missed something silly like that. I think faulty microfilter might be the case; although no idea how.

Also, if there's meant to be more, then I guess we're supposed to buy them or something; we were only supplied with one for use.

 

[KillCrazy]

Having got myself a place to live, and in the past month got BT broadband, here is a run down of our experience so far:

• Waited one month before our phone line and broadband could be connected and set up.
• Had two joyous days of our promised 8meg broadband.
• Had one day of constant drops in the connection.
• Had two and a half weeks of a red light on the Home Hub as the router would not connect to the internet at all, and BT shrugged it off as being in our set up period and there would be expected problems.
• After our set up period expired BT finally recognised there was a problem and we waited a further 1 week without broadband to wait for an engineer to come out to fix it.
• Engineer arrived, fixed our connection only to tell us we were capped at 0.5 meg and to wait 72 hours for it to return to normal.
• 72 hours later a phone call had to be made as our speed had not returned to normal, only for them to tell us a "cap" had been placed on our broadband speed and they were now removing it.
• We are now in another 10 day set up period and on day 4 our speed is sitting at 1meg with no sign of getting any better and another 6 days to wait to see if it improves before I can phone and complain again.
• Oh....and even with all microfilters installed in each socket, the broadband drops every so often when the telephone is merely picked up.

So...BT. Thank you so very fucking much.

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

Also, if there's meant to be more, then I guess we're supposed to buy them or something; we were only supplied with one for use.

I have had bt internet for over 10 years, and ive had notihng but bad service all the way since dial up, but my dad always just says "they own the lines they must be best" bullshit really, but i cant get away from them.

Do you have just 1 phone plugged in?
If yes it MUST be plugged into that 1 microfilter (with the internet hub).
If no, you have more than one phone plugged in, they all need microfilters, as does a sky box, fax, etc.

When we first got dial up, we recieved on microfilter, but we had to buy 4 more ourselves.

 

[Traxata]

We had to move to BT because everyone else was changing their contracts (without prior warning) to include a bandwidth cap in the 'unlimited' packages (I'm looking at you O2) after we dropped from Pipex, they weren't bad, for the most part, but after having nothing but problems with their service after talk talk bought them out it was time to move on.

The BT Connection we have has had no problems, they even gave us a new telephone line because talk talk / pipex where being dicks about us leaving their service. The initial 10 days of the connection were flakey (which is to be expected, unfortunately you only get about 3 days after this before their 'YOU ARE BOUND BY CONTRACT' kicks in) while your line works out a handshake with the DSLAM in your nearest exchange.

More so on topic...
There are some other steps you can take with the connection, you can ask BT to reset the DSLAM handshaking (other alternatives are forcing it by shorting out your telephone line, but that's really best left alone )

If after checking every phone socket in the house has a microfilter, it will be worth swapping them out for new ones, just in case. They're far cheaper than a BT Engineer call out, who if he/she finds a fault in your home, will cost you £80.