Stupid ORange have downgraded my speed

I had a perfectly good Wanadoo/Orange 8Mbit connection with 440Kbps updload and I changed to BroadbandMax so that I pay orange for my line rental instead of BT and now our 8Mbit speed has dropped to 2Mb and our Upload speed has dropped too. (The router and online speed tests confirm these speeds). I've been on the phone with technical support and have finally got them to do a line test, we may get a call back in the next 24-48 hours from them. I hope the buggers can fix it.

I hate their technical support, they tell you to do stuff like clean out cookies (which will make naff all difference) and to call customer services and get my speed upgraded (I'm already on the top speed) and crap like that. I just tell them, I'm an IT consultant and programmer, I've done all that, please do a line test and finally they concede. Arg.

</rant off.>

That was my great concern when they were on the phone to me to get me to move line rental over to them.

I expressed great concern about the speed dropping back to the 2mb profile like when I first had the broadband off them. I asked at least four times that to make sure my speed would not change and I would not lose service for a second else I would not be changing. I even got her to make a note one the system to state that I had a 8mb connection.

Luckily nothing did go wrong and all is well *fingers crossed*

You'll probably get a phone call to state "your line is fine.." yet your speed will still be 2mb. I've been through Orange and BT before with this. You need to really shout loudly down the phone at them that you HAD 8mb before and now you're STUCK ON A 2MB PROFILE. Ask them if they understand that and if not get them to transfer you to someone who does understand. Take no crap and never hang up with them saying "we'll pass your information on and get back to you within 48hrs".

I'm with Supanet at the moment and have an ongoing complaint because the speed slows to a crawl after 4pm. It does this every day, without fail.

The speed test I did 20 minutes ago shows 1.7mbps (which is comparatively good for the time of day - it was less than 512kbps this time yesterday).

If I'm paying for an 8mb service, I know I can't expect to have full speed all the time, but would THEY be happy if I paid them 25% of the monthly price for the 25% of the service I'm actually getting? Doubt it.

PS: When I've had enough of Supanet Billy-Bullcrapping me about why the speed drops so much after 4pm, who should I be going to next? Does Ofcom deal with broadband stuff?

I've dropped from an 8192/832 unlimited service with 8 public IP's to 8192/448 with generous bandwidth caps and 1 dynamic IP. Saving around £30 a month.

I'm still getting connection through my old ISP, but they have already regraded my speeds (lowly 40k/sec uploads).

I'm with Newnet now. I really hope they are good.

GfK, we have the same problem at work, at about the same time.

I think it is due to all the kiddies coming home from school and goign on the internet.

At home I don't have adsl (I have virgin media) and this doesn't happen.

My speed is down to 700kbps now! :/

A few weeks ago, my Tiscali connection dropped like a plumbers tool belt.

It was like a on/off dial-up connection, both Tiscali and BT reported no fault on the line, but I had to push them to have a good check and then they admitted there was a problem.

Its stabalized now, but the speed fluctuations were terrible, it really does do your tits in when this happens, and it even does your tits in more when the "Technical" support cannot understand a word of English and they charge YOU for the pleasure of repeating yourself for 30-45mins.

Nothing worse than explaining a problem of the technical nature to a foreigner who doesnt understand a word of Geordie! ;)

Qube: OK thanks. I'm hoping they can sort it. I'll push for them to fix it. The thing is, if I just refuse to pay and cancel my contract, probably they won't listen to my reasons why and will force me to pay the remaining 18 months or whatever so I'd just rather get it fixed, esp. as it worked before.

GfK: Yeah my new connection goes poopy later in the day too when all the kids get home from school. This whole "you don't get 8Mbit" is a big problem but nothing is being done about it because they say "up to" so have covered themselves...

GA: Even though 8Mb never really means 8Mb, there are still 'trigger' levels, below which BT consider service to be unacceptable and they have to fix it. Can't remember offhand what they are, but it's worth finding out if you have constant problems.

Oh, and your ISP can't force you to pay for a contract which they themselves are not sticking to.

Well, if they don't fix it (because its unacceptably slow), I'll advise them that I'll only pay "up to £10.99 per month". See how they like it.

But seriously, we all need to start complaining about this. Broadband in the UK is an abomination, and nothing will get better while we all just sit around accepting that its as good as it'll ever get.

, actually that's a good idea. I can see that making sense to offcom aswell.

Thats the truth, where I live, which isnt far away from two cities in the UK (Durham and Newcastle), the max speed I can get is 4MB... Which is just crap really!

Dabz

The phone exchange is at the end of my street - about 40 metres away.

God help me if I was right on the outer limit.

The Gadget Show are running a camapign against ISPs and their "up to x Mbit" claims if you'd like to sign up.

http://gadgetshow.five.tv/jsp/speed_test.htm

They actually had ISPs complaining to them because they had caused so many customer complaints to ISPs - that makes me smile.
I hope whoever took the ISPs complaints at the Gadget Show office made them hold for 30 minutes, transfered them to somebody on a bad line with an indecypherable accent, told them it was probably BTs fault, asked them to SWITCH THEIR COMPUTER OFF AND ON AGAIN, then told them that they could only talk to them if they removed any extension leads between their phone and the phone socket and to call back with refence number
#JFMDHJMSBJ<CSJBVJSILSHKVGKSEBKJSEBVKJSKVSKBVKBSEVBSUEVBKUSEBVUKSBESUKUKBKSBUBSUVBSEUBKVSNEBVNESBVKSFKUAGKFAHAWBABWF J< JEVJABKKABKEBVKUBVKUABKEBANEBABMBDFBVUKSVBKSUBSUVSBVSBBVKAJBVEJBVAKVUBKSBR
if the problem didn't resolve itself after 14 days.

Thanks for the tip - Just signed up.

I seem to generally very lucky in my area, i pay for 20mb and usually get it.

vinylpusher: Yeah, I'm like 1km from the exhange and BT said I can get 7Mbit which my noise margin and attenuation backs up, plus I had it before fine. Orange have just screwed up. The problem is that it's impossible to speak to anyone that actually gives a sh*t because one customer is such as small fish in the sea with them...

Yeah it stinks. Roll on my winter home in France/Spain/Italy/U.S. ...

Or Yemen, I bet broadband speed in Yemen is better than the UK! :)

Bookmarking that page in case I have to (gasp) write a letter...

Dabhand: Yeah same in Korea, Malaysia etc. plus just about everywhere else...

Hello.

Nice, I'm paying for 16Mb and getting 2Mb. I think I'm going to contact Sky and do as suggested above. 12.5% until you sort it out.

Goodbye.

EDIT: Never mind, wont format so it looked like nowt! Bah

k.... my ISP are taking the mick...

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/12030245031789107447.html

And yes, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. As of two minutes ago, I can UPLOAD faster than I can DOWNLOAD!

!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?.... !

Bloody hell, if you offset your payment to your internet speed (Like SoggyP above), then going off that, you'd have a monthly broadband bill of 4p!!!

That seriously does my nut in when it happens to me... Its worse than having toothache and the trots at the same time!

I don't really pay much attention to my speed, but since I saw the link above where I could test, I thought I'd give it a go. It's currently 10pm, and I got 3830.84 Kbps on a 4meg connection, so I guess that's not too bad.

I think the problem with UK broadband is that people say they want honesty, but often they don't. If all the providers had to provide close to 8mb at all times when they offered an up to 8mb connection, all the prices would go up. A lot. Personally, I'd prefer that, as you know what you're getting and you know what you're paying, but I'm not convinced everyone would.

GfK: That's seriously heinous!

Gabriel: Yeah I'd rather know my range so I could pay for a minimum like 4Mb. Also I REALLY need big upload speed as I often send 50Mb builds to BFG's FTP and that takes 30 mins at my current speed but 20mins at my previous faster speed...

My ISP contacted me about 2 weeks ago to seek my permission to quadruple my connection and charge me less money for the upgrade. I've not been upgraded yet - therefore, technically, I have now been downgraded by quadruple as I have yet to be upgraded when they said I would be.

speedtest.net is a nice site to test your connection.

Well today I got an email from them saying "We've finished making the changes we emailed you about and you're now getting up to 8.0 Meg broadband. Your monthly price for this service is £17.99."

Now I'm getting 6.6Mbit which is fine. The router says 7Mbit which is around my max. My upload speed is still low at 256Kb - I may hassle them to see if I can get this higher.

I'll be interested to see what they bill me because I'd signed up for broadband max at £24 per month including line rental (I'm no longer with BT), and now they say I'm on a 17.99 package. weird...I wish they'd actually reply personally to my issue instead of sending a "stock email".

Now they sent this: "We've finished making the changes we emailed you about and you're now getting up to 8.0 Meg broadband. Your monthly price for this service is £24."

Nice bit of consistency there with the first email, sigh...

try being on 3mobile broadband
i dont recall using 3gb of my credit but im now paying per mb till next bill date
£15 for the 3gb and £16 for what ive used since
it wouldnt be that high if id knowingy broken the barrier as i think some are down to youtube vids
it did once or twice tell me id gone over budget before when id only just gone to 1gb not the 3 i have so i ignored it thinking i had plenty
have to wait for the bill to be sure
they may have slipped me down to 1gb for all i know

Hello.

I've just been looking at the unofficial Sky support site and it seems there are a few things I can try before throwing the toys out of my pram. It's mostly to do with router settings, MTU's, accenuation and noise ratios - I fricken HATE networks!!!!

I'll let you know how I fair. If you're interested.

Goodbye.

Well, just gone 4pm and my broadband speed has dropped from 2.6mbps (which wasn't great, lets face it), to 1.0mbps again!

I've suggested to them that if they're saying that 2.6mbps is the best I can ever expect, that if I'm only going to get 32% of what I'm paying for, that I should only be paying 32% of the charge.

If I pay for a full tank of fuel for my car, I don't expect to find it 2/3 empty after paying. Don't see why broadband should be any different.

I'm still getting 6.8Mbps ;-p Upload speed is still at a stink 288kpbs (it takes 50% longer to upload files now) and I've uploaded about 5 x50Mb test versions of a game today!

I got a call from an *English* person today who ask me if it was better. Is said download was but not upload. They said it may take a week to settle whilst they test speeds. This happened last year when I first upgraded to 8Mb, however, if the download is good, why is the upload slower? I'm not convinced it will change.

What was good is she said do I want a call back in a week and I said yes please because I don't want to spend hours in a week's time trying to convince the normal support staff that I have a problem all over again...sigh.

I'm dealing with my ISP via e-mail. I generally don't ring call centres unless its a last resort as more often than not they're in India and have a very loose grasp of the English language.

Plus I lose my temper quickly with people who work on the assumption that their customers (me) are stupid.

Them: "yes sir, I hear what you are saying. What I'd like you to do is unplug all your modem and computer equipment, then plug it all in again. Now is the speed any better?"

You: "Are you feckin serious mate!?!?!" /slams phone down

Yeah, something like that.

The last time I called an ISP because of problems, the customer service guy told me to get a screwdriver and take the BT phone socket apart to find the master socket, and plug directly into that! o.O

I aint going anywhere near that stuff! If I break it, BT will charge me £90 to put it right.

Yeah they just have this big list of things they want to take your through and you know damn well it's none of those things (especially if nothing has actually changed at your end!).

I just checked my speed for the first time since i upgraded to broadband.

2223kb/s download
379kb/s upload

On a 4mb/256kb download/upload limit satellite internet.

Surprisingly, I'm still able to play and enjoy most online games, such as Lord of the Rings Online without any noticeable lag.

Only sucky thing is I can only transfer up to 1.5gb's a month, before they seriously hamper my speeds. I can barely check my email when they do it, so I really have to watch what I download or upload.

Interesting. So you also have a higher upload speed that what you are supposed to have. I had that speed too once before Orange messed it up.

Hello.

Whoooaah!!!

Ok, so my download speed has gone from 2180Kbps at 10pm last night to 4343 at 8pm tonight. How have I achieved this? By removing the front of my telephone socket and using the engineers port.

Nice.

Now I'm going to play with TCP Optimizer.

Goodbye.

Well I'm not complaining, but sometimes I do wish I did get my 4mb download, but I guess it's an even switch off and on, not to mention the downtime whenever a heavy storm comes through.

It's impossible to get into customer service with my isp though, but how are you going to go about trying to squiggle more upload speeds?

Hello.

Ok, TCP Optimizer didn't do too much. I'm happier for now, but think I will still call Sky and see what they're going to do about it.

Goodbye.

My general conversion with Tiscali usually revolve around:-

Someone - "Can I have you name and first line of address"
Me - "Yes, Michael Denathorn, # ### Street, Langley Park"
Someone - "Sorry, Could you spell your surname please"
Me - "D-E-N-A-T-H-O-R-N"
Someone - "So thats delta echo november november alpha tango hotel oscar romeo november echo?"
Me - "No its D-E-N-A-T-H-O-R-N, one n in the first half, no e at the end"
Someone - "So thats delta echo november alpha tango hotel oscar romeo november?"
Me - "Yes, and my address is # ### Street"
Someone - "# ### Street"
Me - "No, its # ### Street"

And on it continues, everytime I ring them up!

Baring in mind, its not only Tiscali or ISP to blame for this, the whole lot are doing it!

The worst one was a voice recognition thing, cannot recall who it was but it couldnt understand a single word I was saying, so after pratting on for eons, I ended up talking to person anyway!?!

Dabz

Dabhand, Denathorn would be a cool name in the Lord of the Rings series lol ;-)

Sounds like Denethor, Steward of Gondor, father of Boromir and Faramir? Ring a bell? Well,

End Geeking

lol ;)

I lost all upstream capability earlier, couldn't send emails or even post on this forum!

Works for us ;]

GFK: Your issue sounds like an illegal practice that was done for some time here in switzerland: To punish the downloaders they set them onto the same "max traffic" endconnection at their backbone. Consequence is when the shit p2p kiddies go online, your bandwidth will totally die down to nowhere.

But they were not able to do that for long as the contract didn't state that.

(unless you are on a cable and not DSL. In that case forget it, thats the price of beeing on a shared medium)

aye i hate most ISP's speed capping methods cos they dont single out the culprits they just hit everyone with a lump hammer
mot p2p up/downloads are capped so they might not notice any drop in speed but you do if you were speedy fast one minute and gridlocked the next

if i have to and id like to, id go with virgin media, atleast you get faster speeds over decade old cable than trying anything over milenia aged copper ... hell some days i wonder how we managed to get away from the 2 cans and a piece of string

but i cannot get virgin at this address
#1 everyone at the house has had it (when NTL) at some point and failed wholesale to pay bills kinda blacklisting the house
#2 circa 04 i made general inquireies with some bloke behind a stand and 3 months later im getting bills for (small amounts) for stuff i dont have

resulting in alot of nasty phone calls after they threatened to send the balifs round (and i threatened to kneecap em)

so till i move i think im kinda blacklisted from virgin :(

I'm with Orange on the £17.99 'up to 8meg' package. I get ~3.5meg which isn't bad considering my line is only supposed to be able to handle ~4.5meg. Don't really notice much of a slowdown in the evenings, TBH.

Interestingly, I've just received an email from Orange sayingIf I end up with a worse speed after these 'changes', there'll be hell to pay. >:)

wont you be offline and unable to read email till its done
i think the fact you can then get back online means its fixed negating the need for an email ;)

Stop trying to apply logic to tech support emails, GT - it's a fool's errand. :P

lol

That's what happened to me, but now I've escalated the issue it seems to be getting better...

Hotcakes: I'm back. In your face dude ;-p

What? No, welcome back, we missed you <hides the grenade>

Oddly, that's the same tale I got from Supanet!

Oh no, that's pretty much a standard message which usually means your ISP is moving off the BT IPstream service onto their own LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) service.

So now you'll be fighting with "Upto 8mb" and "May be able to speed up".

Good luck with the move to LLU. Sometimes when an ISP changes you to LLU you're even worse off than you are now!


Yeah, thanks for that piece of pointless information.

That's what I'm afraid of. I'm not gonna take it lying down if it is worse, though. I already figure I'm paying over the odds. :(

We need to get Cable installed everywhere in this country. Seriously, ADSL Is piss poor. I can't believe they get away with the whole "UP TO" service...!

My connection has been real flaky the past few days. Thing is I don't get if I was already on 8Mbit and 440kbit upload why they have to go and make ANY changes and thus screw things ups, oh well. Let's hope there is light at the end of the tunnel and maybe before 2008 is over well have some much better options...

Well, the 22nd has been and gone. Nothing seems to have been done. :/

They were supposed to "call me back yesterday" and never did...

You didn't fall for the old "We'll ring you back" line, did you?! :P

I tested mine last night, got over 5mbps. That's the fastest speed I've ever recorded on the thinkBroadband speed test.

I also got an email today advising that my account is now active. I'd be surprised if it wasn't - I've been with Supanet since last June. o.O

heh.

Orange = flail.

I like Virgin Media's broadband. They are upgrading the 4 Meg to 10 Meg. Whooooooo! I know i won't get anything close to 10 Meg, but looking for aboiut double. Plus the uploading rate it going up to 512 Kb/s. Still really poor, but i don't do much uploading :o)

I don't really bother about upload speed. I hardly ever need to upload stuff. :)

We all know your a pirate. Arrrrrrrrrrghh ;)

Weyhey, back to nomal!

My internet is back to its old tricks again.

My router now says it's connected to the DSL carrier at 7mbps instead of 8. I don't know why. Reconnecting/restarting the router hasn't changed anything. My ISP says there are no broadband issues.

I just did a speedtest since my internet has been virtually unusable today. I'm getting a little over 50kbps - slower than dialup!

I've kinda had enough now. E-mailed a complaint to Supanet telling them I want it fixed or I want a MAC code.

Stinker. Orange called me back today finally (like my 3rd request) and said they'll elevate the issue and it will take 5 working days (that's the 3rd or 4th time they've said that, it's take a month so far and all they do is "escalate" and then nothing happens, it's a a flaming joke!)

I don't know why we expect any better from a country where they put the high speed broadband cables in the same tunnels that human excrement flows through.

Might explain why my internet connection is sh..... ah never mind.

Knocky bet scenerio:-

Location: United Kingdon, Bridport, in a street

Dynarod Man One - "ahhh, I can see whats blocking the drain, its that cable... give it a pull... nothing, hold on, I lift the other manhole lid down there and have a look"

Dynarod Man One lifts manhole lit and sees cable, jumps in and gives it a shake.

Dynarod Man One shouts "Can you feel that Dynarod Man Two?"

Dynarod Man Two replies "Yep, its moving"

Dynarod Man One shouts "Okay, I'll cut it here with the stihlsaw and you pull it out, see if that clears it"

3 minutes and thousands of miles later in india, call centres go into meltdown.

Indian Call Centre Man One on the phone - "Yes Mr Alien, we'll elevate your problem to the next level, and will ring you back within 24 hours"

Still no news of this so-called update that was supposed to have happened on the 22nd of last month.

big10p, just go into your Livebox settings and do a manual update, thats what I did.

Jason.

or power cycle it.

Do you guys have a Wanadoo box or an Orange one just out of interest?

Jason.

Power cycle? Wassat? I don't play with any of the manual settings as I don't know what I'm doing. Network stuff isn't my thing.

Anyway, it seems they've done the 'upgrade'. My speed seems exactly the same as it was before.

The confirmation email Orange sent me gave me a scare, though: "We've finished making the changes we emailed you about and you're now getting up to 1.0 Meg broadband." O_O

1 meg, eh? wow!

I have the old Wanadoo box, BTW.