[bazzais]

I agree - thats why I choose BT.

[Small Farmer]

I can't think of enough swear words to describe my relationship with BT and their god-awful call centres which are always "experiencing an unusual level of call volumes".  For a company whose business is all to do with communication to be quite so bad at it is astonishing.

We moved our line to the cheapest O2 tariff for broadband and calls.  Instantly the speed rose to 2.5mbs and reliability improved - which is a mystery because the hardware is all BT.  But their customer service is ten times better, answers the phone promptly and remembers what it tells you.  It has got more expensive but we never hit any download limits any longer, even when the kids come home.

[jaykay]

I can't get any service that comes via the phone line as we are too far from the exchange.
So we have a microwave system in the dale that bounces from little aerials on barn to barn, then comes into the house via the house wiring.

It goes off if a bird sits on the aerial, of it snows or rains heavily ( we're talking about somewhere that has the same rainfall as the wettest place in Britain!), if there's a powercut ( about two a week) or if anyone switches theirs off in a fit of pique, as the old farmer next door does on occasion.

And when it does work it's so slow forget downloading anything 

[FiB]

I wouldnt touch BT with a bargepole.  We have had the most appalling customer service Ive ever experienced for the last year.  If service is your criteria Id avoid them.  We have  0.1 Mb Internet connection (I'd hesitate to call it broadband) and although we once did have a heady 1.7 MB for a day, there are so many faults on our line (only 1.7 miles from exchange, but emebdded in trees through years of lack of maintanance) that resolution can only be through line renewal.  However as we dont officially have a longstanding problem (the indian callcentre keep closing it after 10 days to make sure there stats look OK) its a struggle to get it escalated to Openreach (the guys who run the lines - completely different, of course, to BT and uncontactable by the general public!!).  So a year on, no broadband.  Still I can at least browse slowly, email etc, even if I cant watch the tantalisingly lovely looking 'video' clips on here.  Rant over!!!

I miss my Virgin Broadband very much!   Always amazing customer service.

If you are in wales you can get a grant towards the installation of satelight based internet if you are in an internet  'not-spot'- but then its £40/month there after which we just cant support at the moment

[Smalltime]

Blimey, i can't believe how many people have bothered replying. See post 3. Thats your problem. BT - the worst company in Britain.
You line is overloaded, it was never designed for the internet. It wont get better, its not fixable, it wont make any difference switching ISP, thats how it is. It is not, as you seem to think, a rural problem. It is a countrywide problem because the phone line was not designed for superfast broadband. It will work fine when you are not sharing it, but somewhere along the line (excuse the pun) you will be and at that point the signal breaks down. They are never going to fix the lines because by the time they do we will all be on wireless satelite internet anyway, which is an option now but expensive. Do not even talk to me about BT.

 

[Smalltime]

Incidentally, the best thing you can do is leave the router on permanently so the signal is not broken. BT will then, using its fantastic automatic system, gradually increase the speed on your line. The longer it goes on uninterrupted, the more allowance, or speed, will be assigned to the line. Sooner or later it will overload, cut out and the whole cycle starts again but the best advice is to leave the router on permanently.

[Gorse-Lea]

Don't get me started on BT. I'm another one only with them cos I have to. When I pointed out that I'm paying the same per month as a work colleague who is getting 7-8mb p/s and on a good day I get 3 (better than some of you by the looks of it) I was told that "we don't charge by download speed" so I pointed out the article below and was told tough sh*t.

We're only about 15 miles from "the best high-speed broadband infrastructure of any city or region in the UK and Ireland", but it has absolutley no effect on our speeds so I wonder how big the "region" BT talk about actually is?


Pity BT had the monoply for so long. A bit of serious competition would probably have led to their old lines being upgraded throughout the country.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/technology-gadgets/derry-nets-fastest-broadband-in-uk-16065844.html

[deepinthewoods]

well my o2 contract is up tomorrow, ive found that i could save about £10 monthly by changing isp but having read this thread im staying put, simply because the customer service is so good. thanks guys!

[bazzais]

If BT didnt have the monopoly and had once been state owned we wouldn't even have telephones in rural areas as it would never have been financially viable.

[Small Farmer]

well my o2 contract is up tomorrow, ive found that i could save about £10 monthly by changing isp but having read this thread im staying put, simply because the customer service is so good. thanks guys!

Deepinthewoods - Phone O2 and ask for the price to stay another year.

FIB - you need someone to steal the telephone cable!

[Small Farmer]

If BT didnt have the monopoly and had once been state owned we wouldn't even have telephones in rural areas as it would never have been financially viable.

That's true, but there'd have been a better mobile phone system earlier.  We're stuck with antique infrastructure.

We're 3 miles from BTs fastest offering - actually the fibre runs down the side of our fields - but we might as well be 30.  Bear in mind that with ADSL every connection is shared with other people.  Business users allegedly have fewer users contending for the same circuit than private users.  So available download speeds will fall after school and during the evenings when people start hitting the keys.  However our neighbour who is a business user is having much worse service out of BT than we are though our phone lines come off the same poles.

[jaykay]

I'm seriously considering satellite broadband. I've been quoted £500 set up and then a very reliable 2MB. It would be heaven! This is via a friend of a friend, so I don't know with which parent company. He does it as a sideline and did say that satellite broadband has got way better and cheaper recently.

[FiB]

well my o2 contract is up tomorrow, ive found that i could save about £10 monthly by changing isp but having read this thread im staying put, simply because the customer service is so good. thanks guys!

Deepinthewoods - Phone O2 and ask for the price to stay another year.

FIB - you need someone to steal the telephone cable!

Yes!!  And I did enjoy thinking about chainsawing the poles!  We'd probably just be without a blimmin phone too then for a year or so.   I AM getting desparate though.  I might threaten to move to O2 - you seem to get UK call centres and someone who might actually do something if you threaten to leave.

[bazzais]

I used to run a website for my main cash (until farming took over everything and lack of time trashed it into the ground) - I asked BT how much it would be to have a dedicated line put in - it was over £10,000 and that was per year!!  They also said that I would not get any higher speeds than I did now (pretty pointless then!) - There is no point stressing about contention ratios with such a poor speed anyway!

I sent off for information about the free satellite BB for not spots here in Wales - they sent a telephone directory size wad of application forms.  It involved getting three quotes from other companies stating I couldnt get broadband - I couldn't get any quotes because there was nothing to quote on - the BT broadband database says I shouldnt be able to get BB cos of the line length and thats the database that everyone uses.

No wonder they have had such a poor takeup of the free installation - to much paperwork for me.

todays figures are:-
Downstream   416 Kbps
Upstream   448 Kbps

Luckily we had a lightning strike on the old lines so alot was reknewed up the hill.

The stupid thing is that I have two telephone lines in the house as I thought we were going to have to stay on dail-up - I cant see why in rural areas they cant piggyback the lines that are unused to get a better signal strengths?  I could get twice my speed but it would mean having a whole new broadband package and cost twice as much.

What ever happened to the trials of sending broadband down the electric cables? Surely they could be utilised?

Not enough is being done to increase broadband speeds for rural users IMO - or at least price packages on bandwidth rather than downloads.  As far as I am concerned my broadband price should be a fraction of what I am charged as I cant get the speeds that others get paying the same.

Baz

[jaykay]

And I keep hearing Government folk talking about upgrading everyone to superfast broadband - I'd like them to concentrate on getting rural areas reliable 2MB first!