shawnb Posted April 13, 2007 CID Share Posted April 13, 2007 I have an issue with my ISP not providing the speeds they indicated I would get before I signed up to them. I have contacted regarding this and they have planted the blame on BT capping the local exchange to 2mb. I spoke briefly to BT helpdesk and they deny capping exchanges and insist it is the ISP's who purchase certain packages etc who dictate the speed that is supplied. If this is the case who is telling me the truth? Or neither of them? It's frustrating as all the estimates from the ISP's on line all came back saying I should not have a problem getting upwards of 6mb as I am located 800metres from the exchange, my line attenuation is good enough to recieve the speeds, the exchange was uprgraded March 2006 to ADSL Max etc. but I have never topped 1.9mb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PeePs Posted April 14, 2007 CID Share Posted April 14, 2007 you better start raising ****! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawnb Posted April 14, 2007 Author CID Share Posted April 14, 2007 I've contacted ofcom and been advised to write a letter of complaint, which I hae done. The next step is wait and see what the ISP response is to this AND then ofcom are very interested in this as a case of misselling and misleading customers with those two little words 'up to'. Found aother case where the ASA ruled that 'up to' suggested to many customers that they could expect speeds close to the advertised/estimated. In this instance the ASA reckoned 6mb was reasonable and anything below that wasn't. Shall wait and see what response I get. The speed is no longer the issue as 1.9mb, so long as it is consistent and reliable, is OK for what I use the internet for. What I have a problem with is being misled by ISP's who offer a service that they know they can not provide. Shall keep you all up dated if you are interested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roco Posted April 16, 2007 CID Share Posted April 16, 2007 Hi Shawnb , wellcome to TMN forum , and wellcome to the world of B.T. adsl , keep us posted on your progress , but I fear you are like me, one of millions in the UK , that only get the average of 2Mbps on their UP TO 8 Mbps plan , the pic is a record of my UK test over 4 weeks , note I nearly hit 3Mbps for a day or two , and was toying with the idea of fitting car seat belts to my computer chair like you I am happy enough with the speed , (1.9Mbps average ) and my ISP Pipex .com has be very reliable over the past 2 years , only one outage due to B.T. upgrading the local exchange (Molesy S.W. London ) , not that it made any differance to my speed , Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voltageman Posted April 18, 2007 CID Share Posted April 18, 2007 Unfortunately, this is still a grey area IMO...Pretty much they are getting away with ripping people off by saying "up to", if they never plan on offering speeds anywhere near the "up to" speed. I had this problem with OOL(cablevision). We paid for 10/1, but got maybe 2 out of the 10mb on the download most of the time, and NEVER got anywhere near 10. Basically I took many speed tests from various places and at varying times during the day, while saving the screenshots of the tests/etc. Then to disprove their "it's your pc" excuse, I brought my pc to a friends and tested it there, again saving screenshots of the tests/etc. Then, I had them come to my house several times, to test the speeds....Each time they got no where near 10mb, not even at the pole outside... I must have had them come to the house 5 times...Eventually I got a refund for 6 months of service(took forever to get them to "remember" the refund...Had to call a supervisor and tell them we were promised a refund), but we did get the check finally...Which went to Verizon for Fios, which proved without a doubt that my PC was NOT the problem, as I get full speeds 24/7 now. To make a long story short, collect as much info to prove what your actual speeds are...Then, if they offer free service, have them come to your residence, and make sure there is nothing physically wrong with the service, and to see what speeds they get... Then all you can do is state your case...The laws are so vague right now, IMO, that they can pretty much give you anything they want, and use the "up to" clause to get out of it...BS in my eyes, but thats the way it is here...To me it would be like a gas station saying it's premium is "up to" 93 octane, but they sell you stuff that is 87 octane all the time, with no intention of ever giving you more. A legal scam IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawnb Posted April 18, 2007 Author CID Share Posted April 18, 2007 Hi Voltageman The stumbling block could well be those horrible little words "up to" as it looks like a lot of ISP's use these to avoid any comeback! What I found when I was looking to change from Tiscali (who by the way couldn't manage a simple upgrade to their Max service in 3 and a half months even after assuring me it had been escalated and was in the hands of engineers who were doing something somewhere to ensure that I would get the service sorted etc.) was that the majority of the ISP's all said I should be able to recieve their Max service with an average connection of 6.5-7.5mb. It was only after double checking this claim that I switched to Virgin Media and found out after several on-line help sessions and phonecalls that they don't know what is wrong and insist I am stuck with 1.9mb as it exceeds the BT fault threshold. I have also discovered that my parents have the same issue with Tiscali trying to upgrade from the 512k to the 2mb package. They are on the same street as me serviced by the same exchange etc. yet Tiscali calm the exchange can't handle it or their line is faulty or a thousand other excuses! WHAT IS GOING ON WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE THESE DAYS???????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roco Posted April 18, 2007 CID Share Posted April 18, 2007 the UK's problem is in the set up between the ISP and BT , and you end up like the tennis ball at a Wimbledon final , <.....> <.....> end of the line comment from BT is the phone lines were not designed for broadband only voice , so be gratefull for what you get , yes it is grim that the 8mb complaint threshold is around 1.5 Mb , certainly keep records of tests , I had a 256Kbps BB plan with pipex , I upgraded to 8mb MAX, and got near on what I expected 2MBps , so I gave them some grief , and they reduced the price down to my original 256Kb price , so it is worth complaining , BTW, I am 2.3 Km from the exchange , straight line , Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawnb Posted April 18, 2007 Author CID Share Posted April 18, 2007 the UK's problem is in the set up between the ISP and BT , and you end up like the tennis ball at a Wimbledon final , <.....> <.....> Thought I was getting dizzy!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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