BT_Broadband_Problem ?

[gac]

I don't think BT "forced" you to anything. I seem to recall that they withdrew the speed-capped products when everything became generic ADSL2+ (a la the "up to 24Mb/s" or later "up to 16Mb/s" service). This was the same provisioning for every customer, and your speed was defined by your line, not a soft cap. BT may have taken this opportunity to market VDSL-aka-FTTC to you, but I doubt they would have forced you because VDSL is a fairly big jump in price, particularly 7 years ago (I don't even remember it being around 7 years ago, although my area took a long time to become enabled)

 

I'm sure you are welcome to cancel your FTTC and order ADSL without involving the CEO of BT and the Ombudsman, since there is nothing that would stop you buying ADSL. Of course, BT's internal systems may not allow you to downgrade in which case you would have to cancel and re-order, but taking up the Ombudsman's time on a pointless complaint seems a bit counterintuitive to me.

[VWD]

Not surprised you don't have time to watch TV what with all those strongly worded letters to various companies you have to compile.

Don't complain too much, LEE- for the likes of BT,that'll mean a separate little empire checking out the complaints , possibly with a technical arm, so keeping a few other blokes in a job.

[cheezemonkhai]

So have you changed your WPA key and are you using WPA rather than WEP.

Have you checked what's on the network.

What about windows updates (For example the windows 10 updates)

 

These are not small.

[GentleGiant]

So have you changed your WPA key and are you using WPA rather than WEP.

Have you checked what's on the network.

What about windows updates (For example the windows 10 updates)

 

These are not small.

 

You should be at least on WPA2 TKIP or AES with PSK (pre shared key), as the older WPA version and WEP  were hacked years ago.

[gac]

TKIP is also broken. WPA2-PSK with CCMP/AES or WPA2-Enterprise with proper PKI is the "correct" way to do it.

[cheezemonkhai]

You should be at least on WPA2 TKIP or AES with PSK (pre shared key), as the older WPA version and WEP  were hacked years ago.

 

It was kind of a given when I said WPA that it would be WPA2-PSK using AES.

 

Could always get Nick to install a RADIUS server and authenticate every use of the broadband

[GentleGiant]

TKIP is also broken. WPA2-PSK with CCMP/AES or WPA2-Enterprise with proper PKI is the "correct" way to do it.

 

I thought it was, but as someone keeps calling me a liar and my not having a link, to a peer review article, I didnt mention it.

 

It was kind of a given when I said WPA that it would be WPA2-PSK using AES.

 

Could always get Nick to install a RADIUS server and authenticate every use of the broadband

 

How could it be a given?? Lots of routers still offer all three, and if you dont know the difference.......

 

The guy uses BT and a BT supplied Hub, that places him in the "I dont know a great deal about technical stuff" category to me.

Edited 27 September, 2016 by GentleGiant

[Clunkclick]

I've had bitmeter running for the last 5 days, during which my usuage has been well above average -  I have done things which are bit usuage intensive  and which are not normally regular occurences  e. g. I  have downloaded 1.2 GB for European maps. And about 300Mb of the downloads were done using the BT Fon service running off my router - I understand that Fon usuage shouldn't be included in any total usuage which is reconciled against my monthly home data allowance of  45GB.

 

Bitmeter. is showing 6GB of downloads + uploads for 5 days i.e 1.2 GB a day or the equivalent of 36 GB a month i.e. well within my 45GB a month data allowance. But clearly well short of BT's average Infinity customer who are using, as I said previously, 80-90GB a month and  the majority of that 80 -90Gb a month will be the usuage of the TV service.

 

Interestingly, ​I  found that  the actual download speeds I have been getting, as measured by that ex- BT engineer's app on the we,  is 14Mbps !

 

I would say that my usuage figure would stick out like a sore thumb to an ambitious sales type. interested in "Revenue improvement". Further, they won't thank me for switching to the Opera browser with built-in ad blocking enabled. I would think that would effectively further undermines their revenue model.

 

They are plenty of BT customers who have been getting exactly the same treatment as me over the last 5 years whether ADSL or VDSL - just look at the BT forums. And some of them have taken taken the very non-you marketing man step of going to the Police with fraud allegations after the "Customer Service" process has failed to halt the falsification of records nd unjustified demands for payment.

 

BT have adopted the banks business model undoubtedly.

 

Perhaps its time to move to say PlusNet, where I would presume that there will not be the pressure to get everybody buying into the  TV service ?

 

As for going for something more technical on the router  side, I don't feel inclined  to spend £200+  on a Draytek or similar cause the usuage doesn't justify it. More importantly, how would that protect me  against usuage falsication by the ISP ?

 

Best solution is, a I suggested earlier, is to go back to ADSL. I can get 5 Mbps download speed on that at my location. If that isn't too badly contended, then even You Tube vids would run OK. 0

 

Posted 00:40 Wednesday 29th

 

 

Nick.

 

[Clunkclick]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/sep/26/john-oliver-wells-fargo-last-week-tonight

 

 

Effectively BT ? -  Slightly less meat, different gravy ?

 

How many other corporates are doing the same/similar ?

 

Sad to say, but this seems to be a common feature of all these unregulated systems of life/belief systems when taken to extreme - commercialism/capitalism, politics, religion, . . . .sport.

 

One frightening common feature is the brainwashing of  the young, to do the instigators dirty work for them and to take the can when it all goes tits.

 

 

Nick

 

 

[Clunkclick]

I thought it was, but as someone keeps calling me a liar and my not having a link, to a peer review article, I didnt mention it.

 

 

How could it be a given?? Lots of routers still offer all three, and if you dont know the difference.......

 

The guy uses BT and a BT supplied Hub, that places him in the "I dont know a great deal about technical stuff" category to me.

Would this be censorship ?

 

Nick

[Clunkclick]

My four day embargo on normal posting for Moderator abuse lifted last night. So I take it that all will be posted up immediately now, without any moderator censorship. But i do note that two previous posts on this topic made during the embargo period are not showing.

 

 I'll summarise here.

 

Bit meter shows 9.5 GB (Up + down) over the last 7 days. So that's 1.3 GB a day or 40GB a  month - and that included 900Mb of maps (A highly infrequent download)  and 300MB downloaded on BT FON, as an experiment

 

My BT data allowance on infinity 1 is 45Gb a month. So this sample would seem to indicate that my average usuage is well within budget. 

 

A said previously, I'm sure what is going on is a bit of sales target inspired inflation. as the doctors say, "There's a lot of it about" - Wells Fargo, Tesco  and the premier League for instance. Its all pages out of the same hym book, the bankers book of rob 'em an shaft 'em.

 

Interestingly, another piece of software produced by an ex-BT engineer is showing  average download speeds of only 14 Mbps. Yet my  VDSL line is now rated at 52Mbps. So it would be interesting to see how I managed to clock-up £60 of excess usage a month, priced @ £1.80 a GB, with the router only switched on between 09:00 -:0200 daily at that data download rate, with a factor 0.5 - 1 as system overheads.

 

Further and deeper !

 

 

Nick

Edited 29 September, 2016 by Clunkclick

[@Lee]

IIRC Nick, your data allowance means that when you connect via FON you still eat into your own data allowance.

If this were not the case then everybody would by a deal with a 10Gb cap and then connect via FON and download the whole internet lol

 

TBH I didn't think you could even connect to your own HomeHub via FON?

 

Oh, and don't keep switching your router off or you'll never get a steady BB speed.

[cheezemonkhai]

Have you changed your SSID, made sure you're using WPA2-PSK (AES) and changed the passcode?

 

Also have you made sure your machines are not hacked and perhaps installed some bit accounting software?

The router should also give you statistics.

 

It's pretty rare for these things to just be made up without it affecting a metric **** load of people, which usually gets an oh sorry we messed up letter very quickly.

[GentleGiant]

It's pretty rare for these things to just be made up without it affecting a metric **** load of people, which usually gets an oh sorry we messed up letter very quickly.

 

Having done "Recovery" work many years ago, I know there are companies out there whose entire business plan is based on the fact that many people wont argue, and just pay up.

 

And I have a current one that started 6 months ago, and I experience every few weeks.

 

DHL started to send out £3-4  "UK Customs Duty" demands EVERY time I have an incoming overseas parcel in the pipeline, even though the parcels are carefully calculated to fall under the threshold. The first time this happened I paid, as I thought a currency shift had possibly made the parcel value go slightly over, but when it arrived, not only was there no documentation for the charge, but the parcel valuation was 40p UNDER the limit.

 

SO the next one, due a few days later, I didn't pay, after a second text (they send the demand by text message), and a two day delay, they delivered the parcel, and there were no further demands for the money.

 

The same thing with the next parcel, and the next, and every parcel since, I get a text saying the parcel is due to be delivered, give us money; I dont pay and they hold the parcel up for 2-3 days, then delivery it.

 

ALL of the parcels have customs confirmed valuations BELOW the threshold.

[Clunkclick]

IIRC Nick, your data allowance means that when you connect via FON you still eat into your own data allowance.

If this were not the case then everybody would by a deal with a 10Gb cap and then connect via FON and download the whole internet lol

 

TBH I didn't think you could even connect to your own HomeHub via FON?

 

Oh, and don't keep switching your router off or you'll never get a steady BB speed.

Maybe I went through one of the neighbours !

 

On the list of Wi-Fi signals (Per the Wi-Fi icon in the Task bar) it shows, amongst the 7 signals displayed, BT Wi-Fi X (Secured) and BT Wi-Fi-with-FON(Open). I went through the FON signal. Does HH5 (My router) support FON or Wi-Fi X ?

 

I switch the router off to power save,  and in the belief that  by so doing I'm improving security by avoiding the peak usuage (Hacking) time in the States and getting myself a fresh IP address everytime I restart the router.

 

Nick

[Clunkclick]

Having done "Recovery" work many years ago, I know there are companies out there whose entire business plan is based on the fact that many people wont argue, and just pay up.

 

And I have a current one that started 6 months ago, and I experience every few weeks.

 

DHL started to send out £3-4  "UK Customs Duty" demands EVERY time I have an incoming overseas parcel in the pipeline, even though the parcels are carefully calculated to fall under the threshold. The first time this happened I paid, as I thought a currency shift had possibly made the parcel value go slightly over, but when it arrived, not only was there no documentation for the charge, but the parcel valuation was 40p UNDER the limit.

 

SO the next one, due a few days later, I didn't pay, after a second text (they send the demand by text message), and a two day delay, they delivered the parcel, and there were no further demands for the money.

 

The same thing with the next parcel, and the next, and every parcel since, I get a text saying the parcel is due to be delivered, give us money; I dont pay and they hold the parcel up for 2-3 days, then delivery it.

 

ALL of the parcels have customs confirmed valuations BELOW the threshold.

Somehow I feel that this sort of practice will escape being addressed when Nelly the Elephant "Makes America great again".

 

I wonder why ?

 

Nick.

[gac]

Bitmeter. is showing 6GB of downloads + uploads for 5 days i.e 1.2 GB a day or the equivalent of 36 GB a month i.e. well within my 45GB a month data allowance. But clearly well short of BT's average Infinity customer who are using, as I said previously, 80-90GB a month and  the majority of that 80 -90Gb a month will be the usuage of the TV service.

 

Interestingly, ​I  found that  the actual download speeds I have been getting, as measured by that ex- BT engineer's app on the we,  is 14Mbps !

 

I would say that my usuage figure would stick out like a sore thumb to an ambitious sales type. interested in "Revenue improvement". Further, they won't thank me for switching to the Opera browser with built-in ad blocking enabled. I would think that would effectively further undermines their revenue model.

 

They are plenty of BT customers who have been getting exactly the same treatment as me over the last 5 years whether ADSL or VDSL - just look at the BT forums. And some of them have taken taken the very non-you marketing man step of going to the Police with fraud allegations after the "Customer Service" process has failed to halt the falsification of records nd unjustified demands for payment.

 

BT have adopted the banks business model undoubtedly.

 

Perhaps its time to move to say PlusNet, where I would presume that there will not be the pressure to get everybody buying into the  TV service ?

 

As for going for something more technical on the router  side, I don't feel inclined  to spend £200+  on a Draytek or similar cause the usuage doesn't justify it. More importantly, how would that protect me  against usuage falsication by the ISP ?

 

Best solution is, a I suggested earlier, is to go back to ADSL. I can get 5 Mbps download speed on that at my location. If that isn't too badly contended, then even You Tube vids would run OK. 0

 

Posted 00:40 Wednesday 29th

 

 

Nick.

 

Your best option is just pay for unlimited usage and stop worrying about it? I don't understand anyone who wouldn't do that. Also you don't take into account the various encapsulation - to get 6GB of actual data from the Internet includes overhead by necessity. The amount depends on how you're downloading, whether that's a single 6GB file or 6GB of tiny files, that sort of thing. But it is not as simple as "I downloaded 6GB of files, so my broadband usage is 6GB". As for speed tests, what is this "app"? If it's an app on your PC that says you're downloading at 14Mbps then it could just as easily be the server end which can't keep up. Use something like speedtest.net, they have a massive infrastructure designed specifically for testing your speed, I would trust that as an actual throughput test better than an app.

 

 

Maybe I went through one of the neighbours !

 

On the list of Wi-Fi signals (Per the Wi-Fi icon in the Task bar) it shows, amongst the 7 signals displayed, BT Wi-Fi X (Secured) and BT Wi-Fi-with-FON(Open). I went through the FON signal. Does HH5 (My router) support FON or Wi-Fi X ?

 

I switch the router off to power save,  and in the belief that  by so doing I'm improving security by avoiding the peak usuage (Hacking) time in the States and getting myself a fresh IP address everytime I restart the router.

 

Nick

 

It's not the US you have to worry about, it's almost certainly China, if anyone. By turning your router off, you will likely be affecting your speed due to constant retraining, and this will likely get worse on ADSL (which, if my memory serves correctly, only really retrains once per day, fibre is more responsive to adapt to line changes). As for fresh IP address keeping you safe, it's a bit of a fallacy. You'll be getting one from the same pool, someone can automatically scan the entire range, and if they make the assumption that you're all customers of the same ISP using the same equipment, once they find any kind of flaw it would be trivial to automatically apply it to every vulnerable device regardless of its IP. The only advantage of turning it off is that if someone was actually in the middle of hacking you at 2am they would be disconnected. But given that as I said, they would likely be scripted exploits, they could do any damage within seconds and it wouldn't need them to be connected for long, they could just find your new IP and start again the next night.

[Clunkclick]

Until I find out what is at the base of BT's demand, its probably not a good idea to pay-up the excess or move to the unlimited service as those actions could be taken as an approval of what's  been going on.

 

I've got to ask myself, if it is hacking, then would I want to pay an extra £60 every month ?

 

Would this response be so far adrift from the average ? Are you keen to pay an extra £60 a month, perhaps ad infinitum for a service that normally costs only £30 a month normally ?

 

Nick

[gac]

Where is this extra £60/month figure coming from? On the BT website, Infinity 1 only costs £20/month in total - given that you're already a customer, it would be a much lower cost for you to upgrade. Obviously I would not pay £60/month on top of my broadband which already costs £40. But that's not the scenario that you're looking at. 

 

Until I find out what is at the base of BT's demand, its probably not a good idea to pay-up the excess or move to the unlimited service as those actions could be taken as an approval of what's  been going on.

Paying the extra would make BT's demand simply "go away". It becomes a non-issue. I also wouldn't be surprised if they waived the one-off excess charges if you agreed to sign up as an unlimited customer. As for "an approval of what's been going on", you don't even know that there has been something going on. Have you followed everyone's advice yet? Changed your wifi password, made sure the settings are as secure as possible, kept an eye on what devices are on your network? If you have kids, are their friends coming over and using your wifi while they're at your place? Have you recently upgraded anything? Have you disabled Windows 10 peer to peer downloads so you're not uploading Windows Updates to other computers? You're hell bent on making this look like BT being malicious, but personally I've seen literally zero evidence of that.

[GentleGiant]

BT arent (usually) intentionally malicious, but there data logging system is/was* KNOWN to have issues, especially if your line and a heavy user line run close to each other at the point the data is monitored- when this happens there can be "cross-talk", with someone elses data being logged on your line, even though it isnt and was never on your line.

 

BT wont admit this and sadly I am not aware of it ever being tested in court; but an ex BT engineer friend told me it can and does happen, although luckily it is rare. It IS an admitted issue nearer the consumer, where crosstalk at the local exchange can slow your sync and data throughput speeds.

 

I would ask him to register and state this himself, but sadly he died of a stroke 6 years ago, a few months after his wife died of cancer..

 

*I say is/was, because I am unaware of BT CHANGING the way they log data, or the cabling that causes the issues.

 

The ONLY way to prove it is not your data is to do what I said, and log usage using a proper data logger, with hourly stats and compare them with the BT hourly stats. In my case I proved that data was being logged at times my router was inactive (this was a wired router, so no wifi to worry about), on an almost daily basis.

 

It was rare for the BT logs to show less than 1Gb of data per day, even on days when I was away on holiday and the router switched off.

Edited 30 September, 2016 by GentleGiant

[@Lee]

Total utter bull ^^^

[KenONeill]

Total utter bull ^^^

I don't know sufficient specifics to know whether or not it can happen with BT lines, but capacitive induction is a real thing, and GG has given a non-technical description of it.

[gac]

I actually can see how it would theoretically happen on uploaded data - if something "crosses the boundary" between lines and the BT end receives two PPP frames (or similar) instead of one from a single line, maybe that could count. I don't see how it could happen on download though, since if something crossed between your line and your neighbours line, this would be already on the customer side of the accounting system and therefore BT would already have accounted for it in their core

 

As for whether it actually CAN happen, no idea, but even theoretically I can only see how it would apply to uploads and not downloads which is the vast majority of everyone's traffic

[Aspman]

Plusnet

 

Don't. Recent experience has definitely shown that they are just as ****e as the rest of BT now.

[Clunkclick]

I'm aware of that.

 

But if BT insist on imposing this excess usuage charge  of £60+ what other option  have I got to right the  financial balance,   but  following the path that the marketeers like i.e. change supplier and get a discount  at an introductory reduced monthly rate?

 

I'd be far better off moving to Plusnet for 12 months, where they offer unlimted VDSL service for £3 a month less than BT and then, if the service is ****e, transferring back to BT at the end of 12 months as a "Recaptured"  customer and get their £5 a month broadband for 12 months introductory deal. That way the £60 I pay now, I would get back in just over a year.

 

Presumably this only works if a minority of customeris take their custom elsewhere - if everybody did it the system would soon go insolvent, as the discount to new customers is financed from the receipts from the overcharged bulk of existing customers.

 

It is insanity, but that's the system they currently operate to.

 

Judging by the news reports today concerning substantial increases in business rates, particularly in London, most big businesses, including BT will already be looking ahead to recover that spend from the customer, so may be the push to get everybody onto unlimited service an extra £ 6 a month includes provision for the increase in business rates and well as pay back for the original FTC investment.

 

i'll have to look carefully into the claimed August over usuage further as I've discovered today that at least one of the Windows 10 updates downloading in the background to my Linx tablet  (The cumulative update to the Anniversary Update  KB3194496) has taken six attempts to download and install before it was successful and in the process added 700 MB to the data usuage for today

 

 

Nick