Broadband - BT Internet

Fri 20 Dec 2013, 11:59

We've been experiencing problems with both our broadband lines this month. We have both TalkTalk and Plusnet lines into the house.

Devices appear to be connected but webpages don't load and emails can't be picked up. A few minutes later, and the connection can be OK again.

All of which leads me to think this is a problem at the exchange.

Today I've reported the fault to Plusnet whose records show that indeed there have been patches of dropped connection. They want to escalate the issue to BT to start them looking at the infrastructure. But, guess what, BT always bats it back to the Internet Service Providers and tries to claim it's a problem with the customer's cabling or router or wifi connection etc

Soooo, the Plusnet support chap said if there are any other Plusnet users in the area experiencing the same problem, DO CALL IN to report it. When they have a few customers all saying the same thing, it's easier to make BT listen.

So if you're a Plusnet customer, do report your connection woes to them on 0800 432 0200

Wed 11 Dec 2013, 11:05

In Market Street I'm nearly as far from the exchange as you can get in Charlbury, but I'm getting 13.5 Mb/s this morning which is my best ever! It has crept up over the years.

Tue 10 Dec 2013, 19:30

Ian, that's interesting and fits well. Incidentally I called the support line for the manufacturer of my laptop and have made some configuration changes as well - all much improved. I do wonder if it was connected somehow with the high winds Thursday last - my weather station recorded one gust above 35 knots that day.

Tue 10 Dec 2013, 08:43

Andrew, Yes, this was a few weeks ago and lasted for a total of three days over the weekend……suddenly improved on the monday. It was all websites including a speed tester (different to those suggested), email servers (couldn't even download email reliably) via wired and wireless with three different computers. Looked to me to be a Charlbury exchange or cabinet problem which was fixed/rebooted on the monday.

Mon 9 Dec 2013, 21:35 (last edited on Mon 9 Dec 2013, 21:35)

Have you all tried these two speed-test sites to make sure it is your connections and not simply that you're trying to access sites using servers that are already overloaded with Christmas traffic.

www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/
www.speedtest.net/

These show that I get around 17Mb/s d/l speed and an admittedly miserable 1Mb/s u/l speed, but the d/l is much more important to me as I seldom upload much and don't use cloud storage very much.

What do you get?

Sun 8 Dec 2013, 20:01

AOL is not a lot better, very erratic the last few days.

John H

Fri 6 Dec 2013, 09:25

Yes, very much over past 4-5 days.

Fri 6 Dec 2013, 09:08

A few weeks ago we had extremely slow connection for a couple of days, then all OK until a week or so ago when it went slow for a day, now back to normal.

Fri 6 Dec 2013, 08:15

Constantly for the past 2 weeks. Though it was a faulty hub, but maybe not...

Fri 6 Dec 2013, 08:11

I was wondering if anyone - like me - has been having problems with broadband connections dropping this past couple of days?