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BT broadband problems Crookes?

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Is anyone else in the Crookes area having problems with BT broadband? Since 23rd Dec mine keeps going down. Phone is crackly, too. Over this weekend, 31st-2nd, it was all suddenly OK again, but all the problems have started again today. BT haven't been much help -an engineer could come out, but it'll cost me £130 if the problem is on my property...!! A friend in Broomhill said she'd had some trouble too, so I'm wondering if it's not just me - anyone else?

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Is anyone else in the Crookes area having problems with BT broadband? Since 23rd Dec mine keeps going down. Phone is crackly, too. Over this weekend, 31st-2nd, it was all suddenly OK again, but all the problems have started again today. BT haven't been much help -an engineer could come out, but it'll cost me £130 if the problem is on my property...!! A friend in Broomhill said she'd had some trouble too, so I'm wondering if it's not just me - anyone else?

 

Hi I work for Openreach repairing these problems all over including Crookes which is off the Broomhill exchange,the best thing to do is disconnect everything from the main socket and if the line is still noisy then ring BT and insist you have an engineer out to repair the line the fault might not be anywhere near your house but then it may be the wire from pole outside to house.As long as you are happy that your phone/filter or router are the problem and you have not damaged the internal wiring which you would be able to see then dont let the thought of a bill put you off as it is very unlikely that it would apply.

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Hi I work for Openreach repairing these problems all over including Crookes which is off the Broomhill exchange,the best thing to do is disconnect everything from the main socket and if the line is still noisy then ring BT and insist you have an engineer out to repair the line the fault might not be anywhere near your house but then it may be the wire from pole outside to house.As long as you are happy that your phone/filter or router are the problem and you have not damaged the internal wiring which you would be able to see then dont let the thought of a bill put you off as it is very unlikely that it would apply.

 

Thanks mediumfast - your advice is much appreciated. I thought it was particularly odd that over the bank holiday weekend everything went back to normal, then this morning all the problems started again. I've already done what you suggested re checking the main socket, using an old-style phone rather than the cordless, and it's still crackly. However, BT say they've tested the line and there's no problem with it (even though it was so crackly they had to phone me back on my mobile...!). I've also moved the router from an extension to the main socket and have tried a different filter, but nothing's made any difference. Guess you may be making a house call....!

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Try unplugging every phone and extension, broadband router included, from the house wiring and just plug in a known good phone into the Master socket. If the line is still noisy, the likelihood is that the problem is external and BT's responsibility to fix.

What sort of Master socket do you have? Is the splitter built into it or do you have a separate plug in splitter?

The problem may well be due to the external cabling; we have aluminium rather than copper on our road and have had similar problems in the past.

Having proved the problem to be external, BT were pretty good at fixing it in my case.

When I phoned in to the call centre to report it, I made sure that I was using one good phone in the master socket only with nothing else plugged in.

I asked the call handler to listen to the noise and make a note on the fault log that they had heard it. That way there shouldn't be any argument about the validity of the complaint.

From the Master socket back to the exchange is BT's problem; anything you plug in yourself from the master socket, onwards into the house, is yours.

 

 

Mediumfast, looks like we overlapped; (I too had to get them to call me back on the mobile as the line was unusable, hence asking them to record that fact on the fault notes)

You can also test the line yourself HERE

Edited by peak4
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Thanks mediumfast - your advice is much appreciated. I thought it was particularly odd that over the bank holiday weekend everything went back to normal, then this morning all the problems started again. I've already done what you suggested re checking the main socket, using an old-style phone rather than the cordless, and it's still crackly. However, BT say they've tested the line and there's no problem with it (even though it was so crackly they had to phone me back on my mobile...!). I've also moved the router from an extension to the main socket and have tried a different filter, but nothing's made any difference. Guess you may be making a house call....!

 

If you have tried everything and line is noisy you can insist on an engineer to repair line ,if the fault reception can hear the noise despite the line testing ok then there shouldn't be a problem an engineer visit to your premises might not be needed if the fault is in external network but if the fault is on the wire into the premises then access may be needed to renew it.

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Thanks Bill. Quite honestly, it would have been difficult to report the fault using the phone, because the noise was so bad! Yet they said there was nothing wrong with the line... So good idea - I'll do so next time to make the point. I think I'll run through all the basic checks again and then get back to BT. The trouble with these intermittent faults, though is that it's sod's law that if an engineer comes out, it'll all be working perfectly, just as it did over the weekend!

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If you have tried everything and line is noisy you can insist on an engineer to repair line ,if the fault reception can hear the noise despite the line testing ok then there shouldn't be a problem an engineer visit to your premises might not be needed if the fault is in external network but if the fault is on the wire into the premises then access may be needed to renew it.

 

Yes, the person who phoned me back said they'd been able to hear the noise on the line, so had then called my mobile. They ran through the basic tests I could do (unplugging everything etc) and said they'd call me back when I'd had chance to try all that, but didn't. I'm now logging when the problems occur and what happens, particularly with the broadband, which keeps going down for a few minutes and then coming back, and will go back to BT with all the information. Thanks for your advice - I'm now feeling fairly confident that it's not going to be a fault on my property - unless the router is faulty, and that's BT's anyway!

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My BT connection is very poor tonight, can't even watch sky player.

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So this morning my broadband is working perfectly again. Just a shame that the phone is dead. Sigh. back to BT....

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My BT broadband connection in S5 has always been very bad. Found customer support so poor I switched to Phone Coop. Still use BT connection but their support (only needed once to date) reliable and don't get switched from 1 person to another umpteen times all to no effect as used to happen with BT. Switched without penalty because BT acknowledged their failures.

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My BT broadband connection in S5 has always been very bad. Found customer support so poor I switched to Phone Coop. Still use BT connection but their support (only needed once to date) reliable and don't get switched from 1 person to another umpteen times all to no effect as used to happen with BT. Switched without penalty because BT acknowledged their failures.

Thanks - interesting to know this, especially re switching without penalty. I switched from Sky to BT about 6 months ago, and the BT broadband has been extremely disappointing, even before the problems of the past week - much slower and less reliable than Sky, and the call centre, as you say, difficult to deal with. I'm tied into the BT contract for another year, but will be looking for a way out if things don't improve.

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Hope you manage to get your problems sorted. When I had a similar issue I was also disappointed by the speed I'd been getting for a few years and put it down to the underlying aluminium cable problem. It took a while to sort by a couple of competent BT engineers, but when the problem was eventually resolved, my speed went up from a very variable 2Mb to about 5.5Mb, which is plenty fast enough for normal usage. They sorted me out a new pair of wires from my telegraph pole outside the house to the green cabinet at the end of the road, and also a new pair from the cabinet to the exchange in Broomhill. It's been faultless since then, returning 5.3Mb this evening on Speedtest

When you're up and running again try a BT speed test HERE but be sure to let the line get stable for a while first. The speed should gradually increase with time up to the maximum level your line will support.

The results from this one are also recorded by BT.

What sort of Home Hub do you have, One of the old white Mk1a or b variety, or one of the later Black Mk2 ones. They also come as an "a" & "b" variety. The later curved Mk2 Black "b" ones seem to be the best, so I'd try and get one of those out of the visiting engineer if you can.

Even better are the latest smaller Mk3 black ones, as featured in the recent BT adverts, though these don't support Broadband Hub Phones if you have that facility at home. I do, so I'm still using the Mk2 (Curved) Black Home Hub.

 

Good luck and do persevere; depending on where you are in Crookes, you should be able to get a decent speed.

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