BT 8mbit connection issues

miftha

Is anyone else having issues with their switch to 8mbit BB from BT in Swords or elsewhere?

The problem is I cannot get connected to the network. The line will sync no problems (8124/507) but I cannot get an WAN IP for anything from 20 minutes to an hour.

I don't think its a line issue as I can sync (could be wrong), seems to me that BT don't have enough IP addresses available. Once I get an IP it will stay connected for days, then disconnect (maybe their disconnection policy) and I have the delay in getting reconnected again. Worked flawlessly on 3mbit previously.

Any ideas?

smellslikeshoes

I presume you have already rang them about the issue? Anything said on this forum or any other is just going to be speculation on that sort of problem.

miftha

Not yet (thats my next step) but was wondering if I am alone with this issue or was anyone else having the same bad luck!

smellslikeshoes

Support should be you're first port of call for an issue like this not Boards. What difference does it make if other people are having the same problem at the end of the day this is a problem on BT's end and the sooner you call them the sooner they will know there is an issue and the less downtime you're going to have.

Auvers

yes Mifta it happend to me last night for about 30 mins as well, and shoes have you ever tried to call BT?

Little-Devil

miftha wrote: »

Is anyone else having issues with their switch to 8mbit BB from BT in Swords or elsewhere?
Worked flawlessly on 3mbit previously.

Any ideas?

Just an idea but is your router compatable with ADSL2+? BT 8MB is a LLU so if its not then you need to upgrade or ask for a replacement if you use a BT router.

Like some have said, best to call BT.

miftha

tried 2 modems, both adsl2+ so its not that!

At least it seems I am not alone (auvers, thx.

It always helps when calling support to say its a common problem (other have it) than letting them fob you off with some BS excuse!!!

Auvers

belive it or not after posting this mifta the same problem arose again, if you ring BT will you post back there answer. Cheers

Oh yeah I am also on 8meg in Swords

Bohrio

miftha wrote: »

tried 2 modems, both adsl2+ so its not that!

At least it seems I am not alone (auvers, thx.

It always helps when calling support to say its a common problem (other have it) than letting them fob you off with some BS excuse!!!

Hi there

Does it happen at peak hours? Lets say around 6-8 pm?

Auvers

Bohrio wrote: »

Hi there

Does it happen at peak hours? Lets say around 6-8 pm?

it has happened to me twice at 22:00 until around 23:00

L31mr0d

happening me to me everyday... last week it was happening between the hours of 4pm to 10pm, this week its sporadic, it went down yesterday at around 11am and only came up again this morning.

BT support will tell you nothing, they will tell you they are putting a call in to check the line at the exchange and then that will be the last you'll hear from them. If you do call again they'll say there must be an issue between the line from your house to the exchange which they don't maintain.

Basically people who got moved over to the 8Mb service are now BT's own beta testers for their new service.

Let us know what BT says, aside from their obligatory "hmm, that's strange! have you tried restarting your router?"

PotBelly

Thank god I am not alone.I am on the swords exchange also. My line will sync no probs aswell but will not connect. I have raang bt tech support about this and they have told me that they have not received any phone calls about this. I am throttled at the moment and I thought it could be as a result of that. I said I would call back if it continues after I get unthrottled.

Please anyone who is experiencing problem with their line in the swords area, Contact 1890923111. Press 1 to skip the opening times bull**** and wait. If the call queueing service comes on the line press 1 again and leave your name. I always do this now and they always ring back within a hour. We need to hound these people into fixing all the issues with the lines.

Bohrio

Its everyone affected on the swords exchange?

miftha

Just spoke to BT. This is a known issue. They just got an email about it 15 minutes ago - seems very suspect - especially since I told him others have the same problem so don't fob me off. They are looking into it and he believes it is only connected to the Swords exchange!! He will call me back later...hmmmmm be waiting for that I bet!

He seems to think it is an authentication issue, maybe, I suspect it is a limited ip pool issues.

clubcrown

Bohrio wrote: »

Its everyone affected on the swords exchange?

Well, its also happening me in the Blanchardstown exchange. Every evening since I've been upgraded, from about 6.45 to 8.45 in the evening it dies. Sometimes I'll get it back up be continually rebooting the router; otherwise I just wait and it comes back online regular as clockwork.

Support are ueles as per usual - they want to do a line check, the usual. I spent all of yesterday from about 8am online, and it happened again at exactly the same time.

So something is up on a system-wide level...............................

M3RL1N

I've been having same issues in swords (RV), having semi-stable connection today though, but it's at 507/3618kbps wtf is up with that?

therecklessone

Went down on me again, about 15mins downtime with the Internet LED on my Linksys router showing red.

Has happened a few times the last week, and I was on to tech support for an hour last week when it went down for 36 hours.

In Swords (Ridgewood), confirmed LLU upgrade but I never get better than c. 6Mbit connection.

PotBelly

miftha wrote: »

Just spoke to BT. This is a known issue. They just got an email about it 15 minutes ago - seems very suspect - especially since I told him others have the same problem so don't fob me off. They are looking into it and he believes it is only connected to the Swords exchange!! He will call me back later...hmmmmm be waiting for that I bet!

He seems to think it is an authentication issue, maybe, I suspect it is a limited ip pool issues.

Thats exactly what they said to me when I rang today at about 17.30. Finally came back about 19.30

The chap on the phone said that they have gotten on to eircom as he suspects it is their fault and if they have to do work on the line I could lose my bb for up to 1 week.WTF

clubcrown

PotBelly wrote: »

Thats exactly what they said to me when I rang today at about 17.30. Finally came back about 19.30

The chap on the phone said that they have gotten on to eircom as he suspects it is their fault and if they have to do work on the line I could lose my bb for up to 1 week.WTF

I think they're telling porkies - I've been down for the last 90 mins on the blanchardstown exchange, again. 4th night in a row.

Can't be contention, surely?

miftha

Seriously looking like contention, went down at 7ish tonight. Went out and just turned back on, online in minutes as usual (pre 8mibt move). To me it is seriously looking like the have a contention issue with the availabilty of ip addresses! No call back today as I suspected, will call again tomorrow for the next fob off excuse!!

Yggr of Asgard

Same problem here (but only in the evenings) , also in Swords.

When I came back yesterday evening I could not get connected (again), even when trying manualy in the router interface.

This morning connected in seconds.

This is now going on for about 1 week, it looks like when people come home in the evening and all put their broadband on some don't get connections.

Bohrio

miftha wrote: »

Seriously looking like contention, went down at 7ish tonight. Went out and just turned back on, online in minutes as usual (pre 8mibt move). To me it is seriously looking like the have a contention issue with the availabilty of ip addresses! No call back today as I suspected, will call again tomorrow for the next fob off excuse!!

Hi, the problem is not contention but it could be related to your ATM link.

Its strange Tech Support hasnt called you back yet. Give them a ring just to remind them.

Dublin-Texas have you called Tech Support?

Yggr of Asgard

Bohrio wrote: »

Hi, the problem is not contention but it could be related to your ATM link.

Its strange Tech Support hasnt called you back yet. Give them a ring just to remind them.

Dublin-Texas have you called Tech Support?

Oh yes and tech support is like "I can't see your account Sir" or "Everything is fine Sir, please reboot your router" or "There is nobody here who can help you, why don't I arrange a call back".

I have to point out, that I'm actualy a business customer not a home customer too. BT is my home office DSL provider.

In any case, yesterday and this morning no problems so far, let's see if it continues.

PotBelly

dublin-texas wrote: »

Oh yes and tech support is like "I can't see your account Sir" or "Everything is fine Sir, please reboot your router" or "There is nobody here who can help you, why don't I arrange a call back".

I have to point out, that I'm actualy a business customer not a home customer too. BT is my home office DSL provider.

In any case, yesterday and this morning no problems so far, let's see if it continues.

So this is affecting business packages(Static ip) and domestic packages (Dynamic ip). Does this rule out the ip address pool theory?

The Chap from bt told me it is a username and password authentication problem, which would explain the getting the sync but not connecting.

pilotsnipes

Oh thank God! I feel like I've just found an AA meeting and I want to get this off my chest!

[Pre-note - Been with BT for 3 years, in the last 6 months or so I upgraded to 8Meg LLU in Swords and whilst I was without broadband for about 1 1/2 weeks, BT's service has always been perfect. I have been a fan of them, but only because I've never had to deal with customer care/support.]



This issue started for me on Friday 4th April. Just like the rest of you, my connection went down and I started to investigate. Having a very trusty decent Draytek Vigor 2600VG, it was easy to get a lot of stats and information.

My router was getting a solid signal, syncing at 8064000 and uplink of 512000. And I mean SOLID. No matter how many times I rebooted, I would get a handshake and sync within 20-30 secs.

However, there was no IP address being assigned to my WAN, I monitored the packets/login requests going out using syslog, but nothing was returned. After approx 3 mins of requesting I get a "PPPoE No response from server side".

I called tech support, had to wait for them to call me back. I was ready for the retarded questions and they came quickly.

Have you switched off and restarted you router?
Is there a solid DSL green light?
Have you removed all the phones from the wall?
How long is the wire from router to phone socket?
Is it the master socket?

Etc etc. We ALL know the rules about BB here - we are not complete idiots. My router hasn't been physically touched in months, nor any extra wires/equipment added.

Of course he was convinced it was something to do with my router, not BT's exchange and wouldn't continue to help unless I had BT's original router on the line.

As pissed off as I was, away I went and got it and connected it. The fecking thing worked, and I thought damn it WAS my router, so off I went to purchase a new one. It arrives a few day later and I plug it in. Nothing. perfect Sync again, NO connection. Now I start to sweat, have I just bought another dud?

But BT's one back on the line, it doesn't connect. Switch it on and off dozens of times, never connects. So now I know that 3 routers can't fail on me within 48hours. Plug back in the BAND NEW router and on the 5th reboot it gets a connection! Whoohoo.

I ring BT with all of this info

"First we've heard of it"
"Nothing's wrong with the exchange, it must be your line/router"

Oh F&^k off.

Decide I want to test the new router to make sure the line is fixed. Switch it off and on......no connection (still syncs), Bugger. It took over 5 hours before I managed to fluke another connection yesterday and now that i have one I AM NOT turning this router off again until I know this problem is fixed!





Thank you to all of you who have posted here. You have confirmed what i knew 2 weeks ago that this was a BT problem, and I'm annoyed I've just wasted 150 euro on a new router for no reason as the old one wasn't broken.

Please keep reporting back

L31mr0d

whats the rule, if you do something for 14 days or more it will become a habit... well its been well over 14 days now. Every day my line will just die, go down for ~8 hours then come up again all by its self.

It also happens at around the exact same time so it can't be just coincidental. Oddly enough (although not really odd at all), it comes up at ~9am then goes down again at ~6pm, looks like the BT engineers are kind enough to turn on my BB when they come into work and then when they are signing out for the day just switch it off again. On the days it comes up at ~10am, i'm guessing Bob from BT had a few drinks the night before and came into work late so couldn't switch my line back on at the usual time.

At this point i'm livid, like the previous poster, BT tech support is a joke. At best you will get them to say "we'll get someone to check the line" at which point that will be the last you will hear from them.

There is frankly NOTHING we can do about this, aside from leaving them.

pilotsnipes

Just after having BT tech support call me.

They acknowledged that there was a problem (at least with my line/exchange) and told me it was fixed.

I told them it took me almost 6 hours yesterday to get a connection and that i was reluctant to test it again (ie reboot the router) unless they could either use the information to fix the problem if it wouldn't connect, or just fix the bloomin thing.

He assured me it was fixed, and I rebooted. The router did log in immediately, and I've now tested this 4 times, all successful.

Now I'm happy that i have the internet working, but I'm annoyed that I've wasted a couple hundred euro for a new router for no reason.

Lesson learnt? Trust your own gut feelings.

L31mr0d

pilotsnipes wrote: »

Lesson learn? Trust your own gut feelings.

no the lesson should be to post on here first seeing if others are having the same problems

Bohrio

L31mr0d wrote: »

no the lesson should be to post on here first seeing if others are having the same problems

How many people are still having this problem?

of those left have you recently rang Tech Support?

L31mr0d

Bohrio wrote: »

How many people are still having this problem?

of those left have you recently rang Tech Support?

What is BT tech support going to do exactly? Its already been confirmed that BT knows there is issues in the Swords Exchange, also my line is coming up and going down at set intervals. This isn't some random problem on the line, it is BT doing some testing or debugging or something.

All the calls in the world aren't going to make the BT technicians work any faster. I'd just prefer if there was more visibility with these issues. BT should ring their customers if they are going to start experiencing downtime in a given area due to maintenance, rather than having the customers call a uninformed technical support who rarely know the full story, and go about recommending people to buy new routers or DSL filters when the problem lies with BT itself.

Bohrio

L31mr0d wrote: »

What is BT tech support going to do exactly? Its already been confirmed that BT knows there is issues in the Swords Exchange, also my line is coming up and going down at set intervals. This isn't some random problem on the line, it is BT doing some testing or debugging or something.

All the calls in the world aren't going to make the BT technicians work any faster. I'd just prefer if there was more visibility with these issues. BT should ring their customers if they are going to start experiencing downtime in a given area due to maintenance, rather than having the customers call a uninformed technical support who rarely know the full story, and go about recommending people to buy new routers or DSL filters when the problem lies with BT itself.

Some people are back up and running....at least for the moment. If you want to be one of them you should ring them, dont be scared! They will need to know you are having an issue.. what if your problem is something else? Anyway its up to you, like you said, they are probably doing something at the moment.

L31mr0d

Bohrio wrote: »

Some people are back up and running....at least for the moment. If you want to be one of them you should ring them, dont be scared! They will need to know you are having an issue.. what if your problem is something else? Anyway its up to you, like you said, they are probably doing something at the moment.

I have been ringing them consistantly, but its been in regard to being moved over to my business line. Neither BT residential or business tech support will deal with me until sales sorts out when they will be sending me my new router and switching my line over.

My call to them today felt like something out of a comedy sketch. I first rang the guy in sales that put through my order 3 weeks ago, he passed me onto business tech support, who passed me onto residential support because my line hadn't been changed over yet, who then passed me back to sales because they didn't know anything about why I hadn't received my router, who passed me back to the guy I rang initially who wasn't at his desk instead a lady answered his phone in his name, who immediately passed me over to corporate customer care who said they'd look into it and get back to me :mad: this took up 45 minutes of my day.

Oh and my internet appears to be up at home today after 6pm for a change. Although it did go down at 5:30pm, I needed to restart the router to bring it back up again.

Yggr of Asgard

Well I just came to the home office and my DSL won't authenticate me again.....

Auvers

connection was gone all night last night again :mad: rang BT and got the usual response, we are aware of the problem effecting 8Meg local loop customers in the Swords\Blanch areas of Dublin and our engineers are working on it.

the support guy he did tell me that all the 8meg users have been lumped onto one server, so they can monitor the logs and see what's happening and come up with a fix answering why we are not being authenticated.

Yggr of Asgard

Auvers wrote: »

connection was gone all night last night again :mad: rang BT and got the usual response, we are aware of the problem effecting 8Meg local loop customers in the Swords\Blanch areas of Dublin and our engineers are working on it.

the support guy he did tell me that all the 8meg users have been lumped onto one server, so they can monitor the logs and see what's happening and come up with a fix answering why we are not being authenticated.

I rang them too and for the 1st time someone actualy asked concrete questions and gave me the feeling he cared.

It came back arround 2100 in the evenig and this morning it all worked fine.

A support person called me back this morning, asked some more questions, did know when I logged on this morning and also gave me the feeling he cared.

So I hope that it will continue to be worked on and that we soon have a solution.

L31mr0d

my connection is up... but at 0.8Mb/s :mad: as i'm now on a business line throttling should no longer be an issue...

guess i'll be giving UPC a call this afternoon

pilotsnipes

I'm away from the home PC at the moment, but I have a sys log monitoring my router, I've just been emailed by it 3 times this morning showing the connection dropping.

The "good news" is that it does reconnect fairly quickly. However this is not what I want to be happening!

I have been told to get in contact with tech support again, and I'll be doing that tomorrow morning ASAP.

In their defence - this is my first major outage in 3 years of very good service with BT, but I'm starting to lose patience at the moment

Bohrio

pilotsnipes wrote: »

I'm away from the home PC at the moment, but I have a sys log monitoring my router, I've just been emailed by it 3 times this morning showing the connection dropping.

The "good news" is that it does reconnect fairly quickly. However this is not what I want to be happening!(

Apparently everything should be better now, it would be interesting if people could test it this afternoon.

Remember that the problem here is that people wont get an IP address. So DSL is solid but no PPP connectivity.

For ex, pilotsnipes, your issue could be related to something completely different like MTU settings or DNS or even the PVC settings, we will see

MickeyD

Been having the same issue described here since around the time of the upgrade (on swords exchange). DSL link is ok but has problems obtaining an IP. Router log shows this (this happened as recently as 10am today):

Sending PADI.
Resending...
Resending...
Failed to negotiate PPPoE connection: 0 Success

Some days I get an IP very quickly, other times it can take upwards of an hour. The connection also drops occasionally. I've noticed that I'm only assigned IP addresses in the 78.16.*.* range whereas before I'd be assigned to several different networks. Before the upgrade I never had any problems whatsoever.

On top of this, over the past few days I've noticed a degradation of service: hostnames not resolving at times, having to request web pages more than once for the request to go through and lower download bandwidth (get ~200kb/s from heanet on the 8mb connection) and lag in network games. I have a feeling it's got something to do with insufficient upload bandwidth. I don't think I'm being throttled but I havn't rung to confirm.

Bohrio

MickeyD wrote: »

Been having the same issue described here since around the time of the upgrade (on swords exchange). DSL link is ok but has problems obtaining an IP. Router log shows this (this happened as recently as 10am today):

Sending PADI.
Resending...
Resending...
Failed to negotiate PPPoE connection: 0 Success

Some days I get an IP very quickly, other times it can take upwards of an hour. The connection also drops occasionally. I've noticed that I'm only assigned IP addresses in the 78.16.*.* range whereas before I'd be assigned to several different networks. Before the upgrade I never had any problems whatsoever.

On top of this, over the past few days I've noticed a degradation of service: hostnames not resolving at times, having to request web pages more than once for the request to go through and lower download bandwidth (get ~200kb/s from heanet on the 8mb connection) and lag in network games. I have a feeling it's got something to do with insufficient upload bandwidth. I don't think I'm being throttled but I havn't rung to confirm.

Looks like your modem might have issues with their ADSL2+ line card.

Are you using one of their routers?

therecklessone

I've had speed issues for the last 24hrs, still getting a connection but speeds fluctuating from 0.6Mbit/s to 3.1Mbit/s.

Had been getting steady 6Mbit/s until then.

MickeyD

I'm using a netgear DG834 (which is adsl2+ and with latest firmware) in bridge mode connecting to a linksys wrt54gl (latest tomato fw). I don't think its the fault of my modem/router seeing as that sometimes it connects straight away without any problems (more often than not this is the case) and up until recently I was enjoying download rates of at least 700kb/s depending on source.

Bohrio

MickeyD wrote: »

I'm using a netgear DG834 (which is adsl2+ and with latest firmware) in bridge mode connecting to a linksys wrt54gl (latest tomato fw). I don't think its the fault of my modem/router seeing as that sometimes it connects straight away without any problems (more often than not this is the case) and up until recently I was enjoying download rates of at least 700kb/s depending on source.

Call them (again) and tell them to run a line test on your line.

Doesnt really matter what modem you have. Based on that test if they find nothing wrong then they might send you one of their test modems.

Its not a problem with the modem not being compatible with adsl2+ but with the PVC settings (UBR for ex)

good luck!

MickeyD

Surely if something was wrong with my hardware it would never connect at all? Or at least have some sort of consistency?

Ill give them a ring anyway, thanks.

Bohrio

MickeyD wrote: »

Surely if something was wrong with my hardware it would never connect at all? Or at least have some sort of consistency?

Ill give them a ring anyway, thanks.

Not necessarily, other router such as netopias 3341-3346 have the same issues.

In fact, Eircom has recently released a communicate were it informs that routers such as 3341-3346 will not work on their new ADSL2+ exchanges.

And routers such as 3347, 2247 will need firmware version 770R3 or higher.

Some modems like Zyxels P660 will need the encapsulation changed to LLC/SNAP. There have been issues also with some Cisco Integrated Services routers.

Router like Zyxels P623 and P630 will not work either.

miftha

Still not fixed in Swords, just had the issue again! Another call to BT I guess!

Auvers

yeah me too Mifta it was gone all night last night again :mad: this is starting to really piss me off :mad:

I think I will ask to be put back on the 3meg Eircom line not the LLU BT 8meg beta tester line.

Its a pity I am moving soon or I would be off to NTL this morning.

L31mr0d

contacted BT this morning as i've been able to authenticate my business username and password at least once and they are finally dealing with me without forwarding me.

The guy got me to unplug all the phones in the house and leave them unplugged for 15 minutes, then reconnect the router only, directly into the wall socket without using the filter. After this I was able to reconnect and am getting 8Mb/s now (for how long though :rolleyes:)

The reason he gave was that unplugging everything will cause the voltage drain to drop off on my line, so that when I reconnect I will be given a new DSL connection at the exchange. Seems to of worked for me, maybe some other people experiencing difficulties can try it?

Yggr of Asgard

Today again constant disconnects and massive time between reconnects and when it connects the max I can get out of the line is 517.9 kbit/s!

It is becoming a joke. This is like 3, get too many customers and the service stops..

therecklessone

Not long off the phone to tech support (after an hour on hold, their call back service isn't worth a ****)

I'm getting a DSL connection on my Linksys WAG325 but the internet light was intermittent red with the Gateway Information page showing my internet connection interface as down.

Tech support was useless.

Am back now, but this is happening too often for my liking, I'm considering UPC tbh.

pilotsnipes

dublin-texas wrote: »

Today again constant disconnects and massive time between reconnects and when it connects the max I can get out of the line is 517.9 kbit/s!

It is becoming a joke. This is like 3, get too many customers and the service stops..

I'm away from my PC again today not back til Thursday, but I've just logged into the router to take a look. Yep, looks like I had a few re-connections today, that last one was 2hrs 15mins ago.

As for the speed problem, here's a similar story:

Was talking toa 3rd level BT tech guy last Friday - very nice fellow, who actually knew what he was talking about. We were playing with my line for a while, moving it between VLANs (or something) seeing if we could fix problems etc.

After a while I had to go and cam eback an hour or so later to discover whenever I went to get my files that I was struggling to make 200Kb/s.

My connection with BT 8meg, for the past 6 months had me pegged at 810kb/s rock solid everytime I used newsgroups etc. Everytime, without fail and a solid 810kb/s.

Between 16 emails back and forth we couldn't get the speed to increase, at all, in the end I just went to bed and forgot about it for the night.

The next day, speed had jumped back to around 650-750kb/s and has never really improved...(unless I try to resync my line for a difference broadband speed but that's another story.)

My problem? 1) Why did waiting 12-18hours increase my speed
2) How do you ring up and complain that you're used to 810kb/s instead of 700 and expect them to do anything. You'll only get the "it's what your line is capable off," Or "You're lucky you're getting that".

It's just fustrating knowing what I used to be able to get and now things have changed!

Anyway the point is dublin-texas, check again say tomorrow afternoon to see if things improve with you.

I was told that Tuesday was going to be the day they patched a lot of things to fix our problems, perhaps that's why we got disconnects today.