[_] BT ADSL
Tom Gidden
gid at litebase.com
Mon Nov 5 16:21:31 GMT 2001
On 5/11/01 3:35 pm, "Richard Davey" <r.davey at t-minus10.co.uk> wrote:
>
> How often does anyone actually need support for an ADSL account??!
> Once it's up and running what on earth needs supporting?
Erm. Part of the package I bought included web space. I want this web
space. I am entitled to this web space. I can't get what I am entitled to!
They haven't set up my account correctly.
> I've had it installed here without problem for a months now.
You seem to be one of the lucky few. I've had a good day or so of
cumulative downtime (ie. it won't connect at all) in the past month.
Looking at the forums, this is not particularly unusual.
> but show me a decent sized ISP that isn't like that!
Demon. They have got worse over time (pretty much since Thus took over),
but they're still excellent in comparison to BT. No problems with them
whatsoever in years, and they answer the phone in next to no time. If
there's a problem, I phone up and get to talk to a competent techie who
doesn't assume I'm a muppet. Their staff are well trained, and their
support number is an 0845 local rate.
The only reason I haven't stayed with Demon is that their ADSL package
hasn't been launched yet. Their £90 pcm package is out, and a good friend
of mine has been using it for a while. However, I cannot justify £90 for
the connectivity I need.
I wish I had waited for their low-specification ADSL package to come out
rather than signing myself into a non-transferable BT package.
> [web space rant snipped]
Not a rant. An example of their useless support w.r.t supplying what they
are obligated by contract to supply me with. Since the original poster was
asking for information, an example was appropriate.
> While I can see that this is extremely annoying, it's not a reflection on
> their ADSL service.
Okay, how about BT Ignite, then? (The ADSL provider). They refuse to
accept any contact from end users -- fair enough.. they're wholesalers.
However, they have allegedly fobbed ISPs off and refused to investigate
problems. They (allegedly) give preferential installation times to
BTopenworld (yay/nay availabilities instantly as opposed to 2-3 days for
other ISPs), and they cancel appointments at the last minute (happened to
me) or turn up ridiculously late (that's also from my direct experience,
btw.)
> Which services and what evidence?
Check the URLs I gave in my previous message. Look at the IRC logs from
earlier in the year. Both Openworld and Ignite have hosts public chats.
At one point they admitted that they'd been running QoS limiters on various
ports, with allocation by individual protocols.
As a result, at the moment, P2P is sporadic and games services are pretty
bad. Even web services have been sporadic at times. (See the graphs posted
on ADSL Guide today: some users have been logging throughput and creating
graphs. BTO's story keeps changing, as to whether this is (a) happening,
(b) by design, or (c) a fault.)
Incidentally, BT Openworld was recently the subject of a BBC Watchdog
investigation about these very matters. Watchdog don't tend to get involved
unless they smell blood and ratings.
> I uploaded the entire contents of a CD to an ftp server last night without a
> hitch and use the service all day every day for standard work and do not
> have a problem with it.
At times it's been excellent. It was excellent for the first week I used
it (as far as bandwidth was concerned.. lack of other services, such as the
web space mentioned above notwithstanding)
> There is a noticeable "chug" at around 6pm but it
> was the same with our Easynet ADSL Business account too.
You are obviously lucky. From the ADSL Guide news page today:
> "Onto the issue of why some users seem to get better results at the same time
> as other users - people have managed to rule out their exchange and PC setups,
> with some testing off friends accounts, i.e. proved it's the Home Gateway or
> the ISP's internal network causing the problem. In the case of the Home
> Gateway it is possible for two users to be getting two different sets of
> performance - why, well the way the users are populated onto the gateway
> splits them in two, if one side gets more users using a lot of bandwidth then
> some users will get congestion before the gateway is actually 100% full, i.e.
> there is something of a lottery involved."
>> In all, DON'T GO WITH BT!
>
> In all, sorry but this is FUD and NOT an average level of experience with
> the service.
From what I can tell from opinions on the BT newsgroups, the web chats done
recently between users, BTO and a number of ISP representatives, including
Nildram, Easynet, etc., it's not an unusual point-of-view.
In all my years using the internet with various ISPs, this has been the
worst. The only one that comes close is Pusnet, who were pretty damn good
when everything was working (free shell accounts, PHP and MySQL-enabled web
space included free of charge, static IP, SMTP feed, etc., etc., etc.), but
then ballsed up in a very public way when they changed the T&Cs, and (for
example) made it an offence to use the e-commerce facility they'd included
for any sort of business or commercial use!
BT _definitely_ has by far the worst support of any ISP I've encountered.
Yes, for someone with my level of experience, support is rarely required.
However, when it is required, it's vital.
It is _not_ FUD, and I resent the implication. Sam asked how good/bad it
is, and I've related my experiences of it. Just because my experiences with
this have been a lot worse than yours, doesn't mean it's FUD.
However, I apologise for not marking 'IMHO' in front of every word in my
posts. I didn't realise Underscore had descended to the level of Slashdot.
Tom
--
Tom Gidden
Litebase Solutions Ltd
e: gid at litebase.com
>
> How often does anyone actually need support for an ADSL account??!
> Once it's up and running what on earth needs supporting?
Erm. Part of the package I bought included web space. I want this web
space. I am entitled to this web space. I can't get what I am entitled to!
They haven't set up my account correctly.
> I've had it installed here without problem for a months now.
You seem to be one of the lucky few. I've had a good day or so of
cumulative downtime (ie. it won't connect at all) in the past month.
Looking at the forums, this is not particularly unusual.
> but show me a decent sized ISP that isn't like that!
Demon. They have got worse over time (pretty much since Thus took over),
but they're still excellent in comparison to BT. No problems with them
whatsoever in years, and they answer the phone in next to no time. If
there's a problem, I phone up and get to talk to a competent techie who
doesn't assume I'm a muppet. Their staff are well trained, and their
support number is an 0845 local rate.
The only reason I haven't stayed with Demon is that their ADSL package
hasn't been launched yet. Their £90 pcm package is out, and a good friend
of mine has been using it for a while. However, I cannot justify £90 for
the connectivity I need.
I wish I had waited for their low-specification ADSL package to come out
rather than signing myself into a non-transferable BT package.
> [web space rant snipped]
Not a rant. An example of their useless support w.r.t supplying what they
are obligated by contract to supply me with. Since the original poster was
asking for information, an example was appropriate.
> While I can see that this is extremely annoying, it's not a reflection on
> their ADSL service.
Okay, how about BT Ignite, then? (The ADSL provider). They refuse to
accept any contact from end users -- fair enough.. they're wholesalers.
However, they have allegedly fobbed ISPs off and refused to investigate
problems. They (allegedly) give preferential installation times to
BTopenworld (yay/nay availabilities instantly as opposed to 2-3 days for
other ISPs), and they cancel appointments at the last minute (happened to
me) or turn up ridiculously late (that's also from my direct experience,
btw.)
> Which services and what evidence?
Check the URLs I gave in my previous message. Look at the IRC logs from
earlier in the year. Both Openworld and Ignite have hosts public chats.
At one point they admitted that they'd been running QoS limiters on various
ports, with allocation by individual protocols.
As a result, at the moment, P2P is sporadic and games services are pretty
bad. Even web services have been sporadic at times. (See the graphs posted
on ADSL Guide today: some users have been logging throughput and creating
graphs. BTO's story keeps changing, as to whether this is (a) happening,
(b) by design, or (c) a fault.)
Incidentally, BT Openworld was recently the subject of a BBC Watchdog
investigation about these very matters. Watchdog don't tend to get involved
unless they smell blood and ratings.
> I uploaded the entire contents of a CD to an ftp server last night without a
> hitch and use the service all day every day for standard work and do not
> have a problem with it.
At times it's been excellent. It was excellent for the first week I used
it (as far as bandwidth was concerned.. lack of other services, such as the
web space mentioned above notwithstanding)
> There is a noticeable "chug" at around 6pm but it
> was the same with our Easynet ADSL Business account too.
You are obviously lucky. From the ADSL Guide news page today:
> "Onto the issue of why some users seem to get better results at the same time
> as other users - people have managed to rule out their exchange and PC setups,
> with some testing off friends accounts, i.e. proved it's the Home Gateway or
> the ISP's internal network causing the problem. In the case of the Home
> Gateway it is possible for two users to be getting two different sets of
> performance - why, well the way the users are populated onto the gateway
> splits them in two, if one side gets more users using a lot of bandwidth then
> some users will get congestion before the gateway is actually 100% full, i.e.
> there is something of a lottery involved."
>> In all, DON'T GO WITH BT!
>
> In all, sorry but this is FUD and NOT an average level of experience with
> the service.
From what I can tell from opinions on the BT newsgroups, the web chats done
recently between users, BTO and a number of ISP representatives, including
Nildram, Easynet, etc., it's not an unusual point-of-view.
In all my years using the internet with various ISPs, this has been the
worst. The only one that comes close is Pusnet, who were pretty damn good
when everything was working (free shell accounts, PHP and MySQL-enabled web
space included free of charge, static IP, SMTP feed, etc., etc., etc.), but
then ballsed up in a very public way when they changed the T&Cs, and (for
example) made it an offence to use the e-commerce facility they'd included
for any sort of business or commercial use!
BT _definitely_ has by far the worst support of any ISP I've encountered.
Yes, for someone with my level of experience, support is rarely required.
However, when it is required, it's vital.
It is _not_ FUD, and I resent the implication. Sam asked how good/bad it
is, and I've related my experiences of it. Just because my experiences with
this have been a lot worse than yours, doesn't mean it's FUD.
However, I apologise for not marking 'IMHO' in front of every word in my
posts. I didn't realise Underscore had descended to the level of Slashdot.
Tom
--
Tom Gidden
Litebase Solutions Ltd
e: gid at litebase.com