BarryK

Mr Jough,

You describe my experience almost exactly, except I haven't e-mailed or phoned BT as much and my service was only as described for one week.

I tried the BTOPENWORLD speed diagnostic tests last night (on their website) and I could get no streaming video on the UDP download and only watchable streaming video up to the 200k on TCP. As a USB modem user it says I should get both.

The download test was up and down but around 20-30 and they took approx double what they said it should be.

Pings on CS varied from 130-250 whatever servers I tried.

I tried the adslguide.org route and went via their links to a test download site THIS MORNING. First download 10 seconds. Reasonably good, it shows you a comparison with other d/l types and their expected rates.

The next two times I repeated the test, it took over 20 seconds for the same download. Now on my caomparison chart is a 28.8k modem. OK ADSL showed as much quicker, but not the performance their ads are leading people to believe. AND THEY ARE ADVERTISING THIS SERVICE fit to bust on every website you visit. IT IS ALREADY DEGRADED.

This morning CS Pings were between 35 and 80. On a server in Holland!! What does that tell me?

Furthermore, I have been charged £75 for a new line, which I don't have a problem with.BUT £75 has appeared on the bill for our EXISTING (previously Home Highway) line to be "installed". Talk about scheisters. I was told ADSL would be installed free, HH would be converted free. On that basis it was my choice to replace the existing "second line" (courtesy of how HH works) with an additional landline for £75. That I will pay for.

They have not "installed" the original line. Where has that charge come from?

They should change their name to Light Brigade Plc. They certainly know how to mount a dodgy charge.

I get the feeling it's a "what do these bl00dy people want" type of traditional British customer service. After all, it's not so long since the majority of these people (and I aim at their management) were comfy civil servants answerable to nobody in public.

Therein I think lies the root of the problem. It would help if they would just fess up and admit it. I'd be prepared to live with that if they said they were addressing it. But they're not! They are mass advertising a service which already appears to be getting swamped.



[Edited by BarryK - 11/1/2001 10:23:00 AM]

BarryK

I am getting pings on Counter Strike the same or worse than when I had ISDN. This was not the case just after ADSL was installed. D/l times are similaraly akin to Home Highway.

What settings can I jig to kick its ar$e?

boxst

If you haven't already tried, go and post your question here: bbs.adslguide.org.uk .

If you are using BT Openworld (poor you!), then they are suffering with problwms right now.

Steve.

Kevin Greeley

My new ADSL (BT Openworld) is superb. I play Legend of Mir online. Sometimes there is lag, but everybody is affected so I can't blame ADSL for that.

Kevin.

Dizzy

o dear o dear.. this is the letter I just sent to bt complaints yeasterday..

Tim Gough
11 XXXXXXXXXX
High Wycombe
XXXXXXXXXX
ADSL phone line : XXXXX XXXXXX

I am writing to complain about the current situation I am in.
My Current situation :
1) My name is Tim Gough NOT Tim Jough I even spelt it out to the operator
when I placed my order.
2) I seem to be told a different story every time I manage to speak to one
of your "customer service advisers" regarding whether they can actually
change my name ( whether that's my login or just my correct name in your
records) or not.
3) I have been told on MANY occasions I will be called back (by either tech
support or a customer service adviser) and as of yet I have NEVER been
called back. I have an answer phone so I can't understand why.
4) I was told upon installation / activation of my ADSL account my old BT
Internet account would be automatically cancelled.
5) I was subsequently charged for my BT Internet account until I realised it
was still active ( about £40 )
6) After spending about an hour on the phone being bounced between
BTOpenworld and BTInternet each saying it was the other persons problem my
account was finally cancelled.
7) I was told by one of your Openworld Advisers that it was there
(BTOpenworld's) fault based on the fact that they had incorrectly taken my
name (i.e. t.jough@btinternet.com) and again confirmed it should have been
AUTOMATICALLY been cancelled. I was also told someone would call me back.
8) After hearing nothing for a couple of weeks I phone back to be told it
was my fault for not cancelling it.
9) I have now learnt that installation of ADSL is now free (only a few
months after my installation that I payed £150 for) which is EXTREMELY
annoying
10) I cannot contact you directly by phone.
11) Since actually having the dsl line installed, which initially was
everything I was promised in terms of service and quality it has degraded
rapidly ( I have phoned a couple of times for line checks etc ) Sometimes I
cant even connect and recently and if I monitor the connection with various
net monitors I am getting LOTS of packet loss (at least 4-5 constantly and
bursting upto 40) which means that the line is almost unusable for games. My
downloads have fallen from 50K/sec to around 20-30 irrelevant of the site I
am downloading from.
12) I have been told once I have phoned you technical support line that you
are "experiencing technical difficulties" that will take an undeterminable
time to resolve.
13) The customer services people understood my situation and problems but
informed me "there was nothing they could do about it".

I could have coped with the loss of money (however annoying, but the
installation fee REALLY bites) and the incorrect email address and login if
the service I received was anything like what was promised to me ( and was
delivered in the first two weeks ). As it stands I am not being charged £40
a month for a service that is barely useable and I have understandably had
enough.

I would like to have my account terminated IMMEDIATELY and my installation
fee refunded. I have used the service up till now and so I do not want the
monthly rent back and I am willing to overlook the £40 that I was promised
back. I really dont want to get OFTEL or other consumer rights agencies
involved and I do not wish to cancel my credit card charges directly and my
BT phone account but if that is what I have to do then I will take that step
and do without the land line aswell (and inform BT why I'm cancelling it).

Yours
Tim Gough

Steve Perriam

nice one diz. i'll be interested to see the reply / result.

i had a cr*p time last nite trying to finally order ADSL !!

i had that nice little mail from BT a week ago basically telling me i use their Anytime service to much !!

so as a gesture to me I could order ADSL and pay no installation fee. (2 months ago i was told ADSL was available to me.)

last nite some other BT nitwit told me it wasn't AND i couldn't pre-order AND he could not tell me when my exchange would be enabled AND he could not find my pre-ordering of ADSL on their database !

useless is the mildest of words that springs to mind when thinking about BT.

so its off to another provider that actually wants and values customers.

DaveU

Tim,

I've had adsl at work for over a year now with no real probs.
Had BT Openworld first - apart from their crap buggy software the service was fine. Moved offices from London Road into High Street (High Wycombe also) and decided to go with demon for some fixed ip addresses. no probs at all. i regularly get downloads sustaining 59k/s and my ping in cs is around 35-45 (ahem, obviously not in work time!)
The only difference is that maybe the single user ver has a lot larger takeup than the multiuser ver round here? I know the contention ratios are different 20:1 vs 50:1
I'd be interested to know how you get on with that letter. I've got customers who have ADSL problems which BT cant actually fix... (not that they are very interested anyway...)

Dave

Dizzy

Theres a big difference between the home500 and business service apparantly.

after tweakeing my netcode I can get my ping down to 17 but its pointless as theres still huge loss spikes. If you r running nt/2000 u can to a tracert on ip's and see where the lossy connections are and how many hops it takes to get to various servers. It takes me 19 hops 2 get to barrysworld (which is based in london) I think there routers r a bit f**ked.

The funniest thing I heard was "We are currently puting a new 'gamers' package together that we will be offering shortly" lmao who wants to bet they'll charge even more.

dsmith

Dizzy

The problem is that most games use UDP which is the non-guaranteed form of IP. All web traffic is TCP and is therefore prioritised over UDP. Even if they put a "gamers package" together they cant overcome the fact that all internet routers will drop the UDP packets if they get congested.

At the end of the day ADSL is a shared service. If the concentrator you have at the exchange is shared with other high users you will notice the difference. The early adopters will see performance decline over time. Mind you depsite that Barry's ping and lag in C/S is beyond a joke. I would be surprised if there isn't a problem somewhere on his line/configuration gving cr*p performance.

Dean

BarryK

No, Deano, I checked it all.

Reading various commentary on the bbs.adslguide.org.uk, this is a problem purely to do with BTopenwound (as it is comically misrepresented). and all folks gaming such as me, depending on your "hg" (mines 15) get the same high latency and packet loss.

What a waste of money.

Word is that the hg h/w is being upgraded to quadruple the capacity just as soon as an O/S upgrade is proven on the new equipment.

But talk is cheap, eh?

Meanwhile, erm.... GTA3 on PS2 I think.

BarryK

I am now convinced this is BTopenworld and not my local PC or set up.

After 01:00 this morning, ping was 40 odd all the time.