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EsatBTBT in Ireland provides a range of adsl packages to domestic and business users.
The thread "BT Connection gone to hell" has not received any replies for a month. It has been automatically closed as a result. You may start a new thread on the topic if the information in this thread is not sufficient.
I'm with BT - I suppose I've nothing to whinge about with these figures:
Occasionally everything slows down dramatically - to say 500-600kbps and then BT's appalling customer service comes in to play, when you try to get an explanation, (I've NEVER got one!) But then perhaps after a day or less these figures return.
Summary Last 10 Results:
Date Download Speed Upload Speed Qos RTT Maxpause
10/06/2006 212 1670 kbps (209 KB/s) 208 kbps (26 KB/s) 99 % 30 ms 11 ms
09/06/2006 216 1669 kbps (209 KB/s) 207 kbps (26 KB/s) 99 % 29 ms 40 ms
08/06/2006 09:55 1661 kbps (208 KB/s) 207 kbps (26 KB/s) 99 % 28 ms 10 ms
05/06/2006 22:43 1668 kbps (209 KB/s) 207 kbps (26 KB/s) 98 % 32 ms 260 ms
04/06/2006 23:46 1670 kbps (209 KB/s) 208 kbps (26 KB/s) 99 % 29 ms 9 ms
04/06/2006 120 1670 kbps (209 KB/s) 208 kbps (26 KB/s) 99 % 26 ms 8 ms
03/06/2006 14:51 1670 kbps (209 KB/s) 207 kbps (26 KB/s) 99 % 32 ms 39 ms
01/06/2006 21:55 1645 kbps (206 KB/s) 207 kbps (26 KB/s) 93 % 30 ms 298 ms
01/06/2006 21:55 1644 kbps (206 KB/s) 208 kbps (26 KB/s) 95 % 31 ms 186 ms
31/05/2006 21:58 1670 kbps (209 KB/s) 207 kbps (26 KB/s) 99 % 30 ms 11 ms
Total Averages:
1664 kbps (208 KB/s) 207kbps (26KB/s) 98 % 30 ms 88 ms
im having the exact same problem as the OP
but i have a prestige 600 series modem so im actualy waiting for the tech guys to ring me back im gona tell him i want a new modem sent out as i think it mite be the problem this is going for months now for me and i mite just look for a new isp the tech guys always tell me unplug all lines for 15 minets bla bla bla its really anoying me now im sick of it.
this is my last 10 tests
Summary Last 10 Results:
Date Download Speed Upload Speed Qos RTT Maxpause
23/06/2006 17:20 314 kbps (40 KB/s) 168 kbps (21 KB/s) 0 % 17 ms 6356 ms
23/06/2006 16:50 339 kbps (43 KB/s) 180 kbps (23 KB/s) 0 % 16 ms 4434 ms
23/06/2006 15:56 417 kbps (53 KB/s) 161 kbps (21 KB/s) 0 % 16 ms 8733 ms
12/04/2006 23:38 783 kbps (98 KB/s) 107 kbps (14 KB/s) 82 % 45 ms 398 ms
12/04/2006 13:55 1402 kbps (176 KB/s) 119 kbps (15 KB/s) 93 % 22 ms 51 ms
06/04/2006 22:27 1220 kbps (153 KB/s) 45 kbps (6 KB/s) 62 % 30 ms 117 ms
05/04/2006 22:26 1062 kbps (133 KB/s) 56 kbps (7 KB/s) 58 % 35 ms 370 ms
05/04/2006 19:45 1311 kbps (164 KB/s) 55 kbps (7 KB/s) 86 % 18 ms 117 ms
04/04/2006 20:27 1002 kbps (126 KB/s) 40 kbps (5 KB/s) 48 % 42 ms 639 ms
01/04/2006 218 1435 kbps (180 KB/s) 94 kbps (12 KB/s) 86 % 66 ms 103 ms
Total Averages:
929 kbps (117 KB/s) 103kbps (13KB/s) 52 % 31 ms 2132 ms
I'm looking for a new provider,
Bt's after sales service is beyond bad,
A "manager will call back", but they never
said when, so I called back,this sound familier?
A new bill is due soon and I'm not starting with
a new round of calls
There are a number of issues that can affect your download speed and connection reliability. Changing from one Service provider to another more than likely will not solve the issues as they are using the same lines and more than likely share the same equipment at the exchange.
First and foremost ensure that your OS and Hardware has the latest Service Packs and firmware upgrades. Ensure cables are good quality.
Connecting your modem/router through Ethernet is considered more reliable than through USB.
Remember that as more people sign up for Broadband the contention ratio issue begins to be felt. If you have a 40 to 1 ratio then theoretically you could have 40 users sharing the same bandwidth at the same time. The more users using the same bandwidth at the same time the less you'll have available.
How far you are from the exchange and the quality of your line will also have an affect – check with your service provider if you’re on Rate adaptive ADSL (at start up your connection speed is adjusted depending on the quality of your line)
Also the use and termination of bridged taps (where lines from a number of houses would have been spliced onto a single local loop) will have an affect on the quality of your line and depending on where they are terminated it can also cause Sync problems to the local exchange.
And remember any device (Sky Box, Burglar Alarm etc) that connects to the phone line (and it is recommended that it should be no more than 3 or 4 devices) needs a microfilter.
Hopefully the service provider has removed all loading coils (used to reduce the signal loss of higher voice frequencies) that had been used in the pre digital days from the line.
Linksys WAG354G wireless broadband/adsl2+ modem router. Fixed all of my problems!
2.56 kbps download, and one or 2 dropped connections a week maybe.
Indeed. It's a fine router, and sure beats the hell out of BT's ZyXEL Wireless router, which was constantly resetting the connection (every 3 hours or so). I'm on Option 3 inc. line rental for €50 a month. I'm also on the Shannon Town exchange, which I don't believe is a new one. Aside from using BT's wireless router, I've had no real problems. Maybe on some days, 1-3pm time I might experience sluggish periods. I'm sure that's down to maintenance work which would be carried out in my area as it doesn't happen every day at all. Overall, I'm quite happy so far. I've been a broadband customer since the end of February 2006, and link vitalIrish, I'm getting on average a 2.56mbps/319kbps (down/up) speed on Blacknight's speedtest. Until cable is available in my area, I don't see myself switching. I will agree however that most of BT's staff are a bunch of ignorant feckers with little or no knowledge to utilize, on top of the fact they just don't seem to want to help you out (it's as if they are dying to get rid of you to move on to the next caller).
Anyway, do keep pushing to sort out your problems, or consider downgrading to a lesser package so your exchange can deliver the goods with less stress.
Seifer.
Last edited by oneill.dav; 23rd July 2006 at 09:48 PM.
I’m also having the biggest nightmare with BT. I connected up with them in March 06 and have had nothing but trouble from billing to slow speeds. My Internet is so slow now certain websites won’t even open, nor can I put an attachment on an email.
I have been on to technical support numerous times over the past few months, I’ve been promised the earth, I’ve sat at home and waited for technicians that have never appeared and been promised phone calls from tech support that never came……….
They are the biggest time wasters, their latest excuse the problem is my laptop! Even though I’ve tried to tell them it doesn’t work on several computers I’ve tried.
Can anyone recommend a good service provider in the Finglas area?? I'm slowly going insane
Since I first got BT broadband April 2005, I have had mixed reactions about them. In the start, I have to admit that their service was very good in that they admit problems on their end when ever something went wrong, unlike Eircom which nearly always blamed the customer. When they upgraded my line from 1Mb to 2Mb during the time the broadband packages were improved, I use to get a fairly steady 1.74Mbps on every speed test I carried out on IrishISPTest and downloads from quick sites typically came in at around 214KB/s.
Unfortunately, I started to notice my connection deteriorate just over a month ago when I was seldom reaching 200KB/sec, so I went back to periodic testing. About a month ago, I was getting between 1Mbps and 1.4Mbps on the average weekday evening and in the past two weeks or so, performance often seems to drop below 700kbps (worse on a Monday and Friday).
I am fairly confident that it is not my PC, my phone line or my modem at fault as tests during the day up to around 6pm or so are nearly always between 1.4Mbps and 1.74Mbps (usually the latter) and the same applies usually throughout Saturday and Sunday including the evening also. There was even one case (on a Friday) where the download speed was so poor that I got a faster upload speed than the download speed on the IrishISPTest speedtest and browsing the internet reminded me of going back to the days of ISDN (forgot to note down the test results). I can confirm that I had nothing else running in the background at the time.
For those who are curious, here are some speed tests I have recorded over the past couple of days, taken on when I was online and had some time to spare:
BT Broadband : 24th July
7:30pm - 477kbps Down - 162kbps up - Qos 94%, RTT 72ms, MP 378ms
BT Broadband : 25th July
6:54pm - 1.23Mbps Down - 169kbps up - QoS 73%, RTT 33ms, MP 97ms
7.00pm - 1.71Mbps Down - 180kbps up - QoS 92%, RTT 33ms, MP 55ms
7:25pm - 1.70Mbps Down - 127kbps up - Qos 91%, RTT 38ms, MP 60ms
8.03pm - 1.66Mbps Down - 138kbps up - QoS 82%, RTT 32ms, MP 89ms
8:59pm - 1.14Mbps Down - 141kbps up - QoS 60%, RTT 50ms, MP 329ms
9:27pm - 1.73Mbps Down - 182kbps up - QoS 98%, RTT 34ms, MP 270ms
9:55pm - 1.71Mbps Down - 189kbps up - Qos 77%, RTT 34ms, MP 231ms
10:46pm - 612kbps Down - 103kbps up - QoS 71%, RTT 60ms, MP 384ms
11.07pm - 677kbps Down - 198kbps up - QoS 75%, RTT 65ms, MP 224ms
11:32pm - 798kbps Down - 119kbps up - QoS 76%, RTT 52ms, MP 295ms
11:52pm - 1.60Mbps Down - 170kbps up - QoS 74%, RTT 33ms, MP 166ms
BT Broadband : 26th July
6:58pm - 622kbps Down - 128kbps up - QoS 52%, RTT 56ms, MP 512ms
8.01pm - 820kbps Down - 146kbps up - QoS 73%, RTT 50ms, MP 118ms
8:35pm - 740kbps Down - 165kbps up - QoS 77%, RTT 51ms, MP 377ms
9:58pm - 669kbps Down - 175kbps up - Qos 88%, RTT 55ms, MP 520ms
10:47pm - 1.4Mbps Down - 125kbps up - QoS 67%, RTT 46ms, MP 175ms
11:47pm - 613kbps Down - 125kbps up - QoS 91%, RTT 62ms, MP 136ms
BT Broadband : 27th July
10:12pm - 795kbps Down - 164kbps up - QoS 77%, RTT 67ms, MP 425ms
10:32pm - 776kbps Down - 166kbps up - QoS 47%, RTT 47ms, MP 465ms
Abbreviations
Down = Download performance in kilobits/sec
Up = Upload performance in kilobits/sec
QoS = Quality of Service
RT = Round Trip Time
Just out of curiosity, has anyone tried using BT’s 3Mb service (after previously having poor performance from a lower package)? From what I have heard, it is suppose to half the contention ratio of their 1Mb & 2Mb packages. If someone can confirm that it gives significant improvement over their basic packages during peak times, I would be willing to spend the extra €10 a month if it means that I can get at least 1Mb in the evening on weekdays. I am kind of put off from trying Digiweb at this time due to hearing bad experience from other people who use it (especially their Wireless service) and most of the other providers would require us to change our telephone service to them, which is something we would not be keen on.
Sean, I'm a BT user so simply because of their prices, and for me so far, their performance is adequate enough for me. But you can change to UTV, who I was previously with. They were quite good, and over the one and a half years of me using them, my connection was dropped no more than 10 times. Another bonus is that they don't require you to switch to their phone service. Here's a link for you:
I was one of the first people to sign up to Eircom BB a few years ago. Initially, it was a 256KB d/l speed etc. It all worked perfect and as the ADSL "Thing" caught on ,the speeds were increased to 1MB etc. After a while the cost of the service became an issue and so I decided to change Servce Provider. I switched to Smart and from day one , nothing worked. So, I switched cap in hand back to Eircom and enjoyed another year of 2 MB BB. Then, with the kids involved in the GAA etc. I decieded to give Gaelic a go. At 17.25 Hrs on the 17th April, my phone service was changed over. Nothing has worked since. BB constantly drops and at the moment, I do not even have an ADSL Sync. There is no doubt in my mind these issues are as a result of a deliberate Denial Of Service policy by Eircom. I cannot prove it, but Hey. I will probably go back to Eircom now as the loss of my BB is seriously affecting my work !!!!!!!
Thanks for the tip Seifer. I have recently visited someone who had Perlico Internet and going by their broadband username, the phone company seems to run their broadband over UTVInternet as their ADSL username ended in something like 'utvinternet.com'. However, even though they had a 1Mb service, when I tried IrishISPTest, they were getting around 400kbps to 500kbps like myself on Monday.
So for curiosity sake to start with, I called up BT and asked them about how much it would cost me to switch to the 3Mb service, what the new contract will be after switching and so on. According to them, it is free to upgrade to a faster service, however while there is no minimum duration one must remain on the faster service, they charge an administration fee of €40 to change to a lower speed connection. Once one upgrades to their service, they are charged for the remainder of their billing period at the new subscription price and are refunded for the remainder of the billing period for their old subscription.
The lady also mentioned that the 3Mb service has a lower contention than the 2Mb service, which is one thing I wanted to ensure, especially since both the 1Mb and 2Mb services share the same contention ratio of 1:48, where as from what what I have read around, the 3Mb and higher packages feature a contention ratio of 1:24.
In the end, I decided to go ahead with the upgrade just to see what it is like, since if I find that it does not meet my needs or drops in performance later, I would sooner change to another broadband provider anyway than go back to the slower connection with higher contention, never mind pay the €40 downgrade fee.
Here are a few more speed tests carried out with my existing 2Mb connection, since she mentioned it will take three to five days to activate the new connection:
I'm a bit suspicious about why my performance is so much better this evening, considering I use to be lucky to get even 1Mbps on previous Friday evenings in the past month or two and I only requested the upgrade at about 7pm. I rebooted my ZyXEL router and can confirm that it is still connected at 2048k / 256k at this time of writing, so I know I haven't been upgraded yet, unless my line is incapable of handling the 3Mb service.
Only just noticed (after seeing an ad in the Sunday Indo) that BT are doing line rental and 1 meg BB for €35 pm, LR + 2meg BB for €40 pm LR + 3 meg BB for €50 pm. I think that I'm fed up waiting for Smart to BB enable my local exchange. Thinking about 2meg, should I or shouldn't I?
Gordy, it all depends I suppose, on where you are and the pressures on the contention ratio. I'm pretty happy with their service here in NAVAN. See my earlier post (#21) for a sample of my statistics. My BT bill for the 2meg service + LR is around €82 per 2 months. I use VOIP wherever I can and of course I have a mobile phone as well, but at least the BT bill has no ugly surprises
Only just noticed (after seeing an ad in the Sunday Indo) that BT are doing line rental and 1 meg BB for €35 pm, LR + 2meg BB for €40 pm LR + 3 meg BB for €50 pm. I think that I'm fed up waiting for Smart to BB enable my local exchange. Thinking about 2meg, should I or shouldn't I?
Gordy i was checking smart telecoms site the orther day to check my exchange,it use to say that's it'on the build programe for 2006now it says that its not.This is the same for several exchanges,my mother lives in Cabra Dublin 7 and it's the same story,Idont think smart are doing anymore upgrades at the moment,maybe there happy with what they have?
Gordy i was checking smart telecoms site the orther day to check my exchange,it use to say that's it'on the build programe for 2006now it says that its not.This is the same for several exchanges,my mother lives in Cabra Dublin 7 and it's the same story,Idont think smart are doing anymore upgrades at the moment,maybe there happy with what they have?
Chris
Cheers Chris
At least they have finally come clean on the whole "your exchange is in the build programme for this year" scam. They now state that the Mullingar exchange is not in the build programme, and probably never will be unless SKY TV buy them out and inject a serious amount of funds.
I'm on an Eircon 1 meg package and have always enjoyed excellent service, I've never once had to contact support. My primary motivation is price, but I've heard so many stories of billing issues with BT that I am more than a bit wary. I have also heard of a couple of horror stories with the BT service locally, but then you always tend to hear the 2 bad stories and not the 200 good ones!
If I do go to BT then I would probably opt for the 2 meg service as the wife uses VoIP alot and whilst in theory it should use only 56K, it sometimes wipes out all of my 109K upload making surfing impossible whilst she's on the phone.
Oh decisions, decisions!
Apologies to all you who can't get any BB in the first place....
Thanks for posting your results, much appreciated. Up until Tuesday evening, my connection remained at 2Mb and the performance was still mixed with downlink rates as low as ~600kbps in the evenings, including Saturday. At around 12:30am late Tuesday night, I checked my ADSL modem and it still showed 2048/256, but before I would go off to bed, I decided to check my e-mail, but without success as I could not get online. I went back into my router to check the connection status and noticed the line rate had changed to 3072/384 in the meantime, but still could not get online. I waited about 10 minutes and my Internet connection came back up again, so the first thing I done was head off to IrishISPTest and got a fairly nice surprise - 2.61Mb down, 319kbps up.
So far I have not been online much between Wednesday and today (Friday) as we had visitors staying over, however I definitely noticed a significant improvement in browsing and transfer rates, more than I expected for even web browsing. I ran several speed tests and so far have not seen a downlink result of under 2.4Mbps, so I have to say that this upgrade was well worth it and hopefully the performance stays like this. If anyone is planning on changing away from BT due to low performance, I would strongly recommend trying the 3Mb package first going by my experience so far.
Here are a couple of speed tests I carried out when I got a chance:
Reply from 81.17.240.197: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=53
Reply from 81.17.240.197: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=53
Reply from 81.17.240.197: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=53
Reply from 81.17.240.197: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=53
Ping statistics for 81.17.240.197:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 26ms, Maximum = 26ms, Average = 26ms
However, if my performance does start droping again, I will be sure to mention about this here.
The thread "BT Connection gone to hell" has not received any replies for a month. It has been automatically closed as a result. You may start a new thread on the topic if the information in this thread is not sufficient.
2 1670 kbps (209 KB/s) 208 kbps (26 KB/s) 99 % 30 ms 11 ms 
Linear Mode
