is your bt broadband rubbish at the moment?

[Philby]

BT are fobbing me off doing 'diagnostics' on my line at the moment. The fact that my broadband speed is increasing dramatically during the early hours and then slowing to a crawl peak time is telling me its a general problem due to local useage. Im around Landells road. Is anyone else having problems at the moment? I can barely send an email from 10am-10pm at the moment.

[Penguin68]

Which exchange are you on? - 8299 was uprated to 'up to 20Mgb' about 20 days ago - there is a settling-in time, when you can get drop-outs, but I am getting 13Mgb on a regular basis.

There are a number of technical reasons why speeds can fall, but these aren't normally time dependent - that would suggest a contention issue - but it shouldn't be over a 12 hour period - BT's own ads suggest a peak around 7.00pm in residential areas.

I would wait until BT complete their diagnostics - if there is a fault external to your premises it can lie in the local loop (wire overhead or underground to your property) in flexibility points (pillars and cabinets where lines come together - sometimes these can end-up cross wired) or on the line-card in your exchange.

There are numbers of speed measuring programmes (BT's own desk-top diagnostic tool offers one) where you can test your speed - of course to get a useful reading you have to close all other applications.

One classic speed consumer is if your system is 'infected' by a virus and has become part of a 'bot-net' unknowingly sending out spam - that will slow things down dramatically from your perspective when you try to run applications for yourself, but I had not heard that these were time dependent. You can check by closing all applications and seeing whether there is much network activity going on with diagnostic tools.

[Philby]

wow, you know an impressive amount about this sort of thing!

I have no idea what exchange Im on. How do you know what number you are on?

It has improved again now to be fair. yesterday was ridiculous and I have had a lot of 'drop outs'

BT do say there will be a settling down time again but then they have always said that...

[PeckhamRose]

The exchange is your phone number, ie 020 7639 xxxx - so the 7639 or the 8299 in your case, maybe, is the exchange.

7639 (Peckham and New Cross) as is 7635) were one of the first exchanges to get broadband at 500kb and now it is still only about 2 to 3mb according to my tests, anyway!

[cate]

I noticed that BT is now doing a very competitive offer for broadband and phone line, with 3 months free as well. It's less than Plusnet who I am currently with. I am thinking of changing.

[ianr]

> 7639 (Peckham and New Cross) as is 7635) were one of the first exchanges to get broadband at 500kb now it is still only about 2 to 3mb according to my tests, anyway!

You can enter your postcode here to get a more official version: http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adslchecker.php

[The Minkey]

I'm on the New Cross Exchange - I had BT Business up to yesterday when I switched over to Sky Unlimited. My BT link was fine for browsing etc. One was to determine whether the issue lies with your link or your computer is to connect another computer to your router and see whether it suffers similar performance issues or not.

The Sky package I'm on is pretty good value ?26 pm for Unlimited Broadband and Talk Anytime - as well as free calls to 01, 02 & 03 numbers, it's 25% cheaper than BT to call mobiles. Line rental is included in the price. The switchover last night was seamless.

[PeckhamRose]

Thanks ianr for the link - indeed I am getting about 2mg :(

When I have 2 hours spare I shall indeed telephone BT Sales and demand to know why I am paying for such a poort deal.

Someone else I know got cut off and then when being put back on, was offered all sorts of goodies, so we all need to make those demands for all the money we're paying!

If I weren't so professionally attached to my email addresses and phone numbers I would def go with Virgin Cable.

I've heard nowt but good things. But I will stand up for the BT technical advisors. All very very polite and knowledgeable people in Mumbai or somewhere who always fix the problems, the few times I've had them. Another good thing I would say about BT internet is that it filters all my spam. Every time I go in to my web based mail and see the spam folder, I am impressed at what they caught. I get all the right stuff into my Outlook Express!

[katie1997]

Really happy with the service from BT (so far) ... and I'm near North Cross Road.

In fact, haven't had any problems with it although maybe now I've said that...:-S

Hope you manage to resolve the issues you're having.