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My BT 'infinity' (ha, not so much) is down completely and my landline dead. They're sending someone to check the exchange on Monday, or at least i think they are as i was on the phone to a call centre to India last night for a long time but ironically it was a terrible line and I could barely understand the woman who was dealing with the problem. I'm near Dulwich Hospital.

My BT 'infinity' (ha, not so much) is down completely and my landline dead


If both of these are down this is almost certainly a problem in the local network - either a severed or a completely disconnected cable, probably at the flexibility point (cabinet) closest to you. BT Infinity takes fibre to the cabinet, which is then taken through the final few yards over copper pair to your house, together with your (copper all the way, mainly in ED although there may be some local optical fibre) phone link to the exchange. If you have neither phone nor broad band then it suggests a cabinet problem (or a problem on the twisted pair between the cabinet and your own home or into your home). It could even be something as simple as the physical connecter between your home wiring and the local loop drop, or the home wiring itself. I wouldn't normally expect a problem like that to be exchange based - if you are on infinity and have lost both phone and digital services. My understanding of the way FTTC works is that voice and data are separately routed until the final link to your home.

I hope you haven't had any work done to your flat recently - I'm afraid a nail through internal wiring is a quite common cause of faults in the home (as is wiring chewed by animals, or even a junction box kicked or knocked whilst hoovering!)

I had to have the carpets refitted recently after a flood - after that, my broadband and landline were terrible. BT sent 2 engineers who discovered internal wiring carelessly damaged by the carpet fitter. They fixed it and didn't charge me (it should have been ?130 as the fault was in my flat) so credit where it's due.


Different issue to the last few days though, when the BB connection seems to keep dropping. I'm at the top of Overhill.

  • 2 months later...
We've had a BT engineer in to 'fix' poor connection 6 times in the last 9 months. We've called about problems dozens of times. We even asked BT to cut our contract short (without the fee) and they have ignored us. We've given up. It was buffering like mad last night so we tethered the TV to our mobile phones. Rolling eyes.. we're moving to Virgin cable as soon as possible.

NicoleChampion Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> We've had a BT engineer in to 'fix' poor

> connection 6 times in the last 9 months. We've

> called about problems dozens of times. We even

> asked BT to cut our contract short (without the

> fee) and they have ignored us. We've given up. It

> was buffering like mad last night so we tethered

> the TV to our mobile phones. Rolling eyes.. we're

> moving to Virgin cable as soon as possible.



We foolishly signed up for BT Infinity with You View 2 years ago. Even more foolishly when I called to cancel in November, I was persuaded that all our drop out, buffering, slow issues would be resolved by getting a new more modern hub and tying ourselves into another contract. What a mistake. You View just doesn't work and the internet connection is slower than with old hub and takes some time to connect. I was told the hub can support I think 16 devices running simultaneously - we're probably running 6-7 with kids computers and phones but it is noticeably slower.


We've had engineers out. Things are ok when they leave but it doesn't last. We have real difficulties using catchup on TV - it just stops with various messages coming up. (Can't remember what off top of head but invariably telling us there is no internet connection). Have made so many calls to BT where the whole issue has to be explained yet again - they don't seem to keep v accurate records which irritates me as we have same conversations about Ethernet cables blah blah. Obviously this is all remote service which takes no account of where your tv, hub, you view box is which makes their advice hard to follow and implement - someone in situ would be so much better. Also hard to follow if you're not a computer/wifi buff as they do go into quite some detail over a lengthy and still don't help to fix the problem ! If you do ask for an engineer they send the 'reminder' tx that it'll cost you ?130 if the fault is found to be yours - quite honestly at this point it might be mine as the wires have been in and out so many times that possibly it's a faulty set up so I feel unsure now about asking them to come.I've run out of steam at the moment but need to tackle BT again. Last time I checked Virgin wasn't available on my road, maybe that's changed.


It's so frustrating when you can't use what you're paying a pretty hefty fee for.

Monica, we're on Melford/Underhill borders with BT Infinity (so we have the same issue with mobile reception as you, but solved this in large part by swapping to 4G where the rececption is much better than 3G). I have to say BT Infinity has been rock solid for us and speeds are good - regularly get above 50mg/s at peak times. I wonder if we're served by a different cable than Overhill?

NicoleChampion Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> we're moving to Virgin cable as soon as possible.


Depending on where you are I wouldn't recommend Virgin. I'm currently a customer for Virgin's top speed service and live near Peckham Rye park. For the past 2-3 months the broadband speeds in the evenings have become barely usable.


Virgin is aware of the problem, due to too many subscribers in the area. However, they won't be boosting capacity until 24 June.


So now I'm on the lookout for a new provider...any suggestions?

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