After trawling the internet looking for answers im afraid i will have to post this somewere before it drives me maaaaaaddddddd

ok here's my problem, we live in a semi rural location and service providers and very thin on the ground,we, by no real choice decided to go with BT and there option 3, 8mb broadband

since having the connection we,ve not bothered doing much apart from the odd photo downloaded/uploaded to and from friends etc and maybe the odd windows update,so weve never sat down and checked if the line is as described...

anyway, cutting a massive story a bit shorter i recently clicked on a site advert for checking the speed of our dsl line,it gave results of less than a 1mb down and 175kbs upload,ive been checking this for 2 weeks on and off and the results remain almost the same..

i called BT exchange (india) today and was told that the lines working perfectly and as the results "his end" would suggest he couldnt raise a fault.. i tried to convince him he was looking at the line rated speed not the actual speed and got very frustrated,he kept reading possible suggestions from the screen and when i asked for more information on any of his suggestions he didnt have a clue and he started to increase  his already poor english to such a degree it was impossible to go on..

my point to all this is were does the line stop with " up tp 8mb"  can we all set up these services offering upto amounts,surely they can be held accountable for a min service even in busy/peak times,ive tested at 4 in the morning and the results are the same,i built this computer costing nearly 2 thousand pounds, our kids play the latest games and a good graphics card(bfg 8800 gtx) is 350 pounds uk) and ive checked that out router settings match our computers settings and all cable and hardware work perfectly.....

check your dsl speeds ive found a few posts about BT and very slow connections online, what can i do next,i feel like im banging my head against the BT customer service brick wall

 sorry if this isnt making much sense but this has got we wound up like a clock,im sure i'll update it if someones kind enough to reply, all the best

ive just spent another 58 minutes asking why our service is extremly slow and have been told "that BT has shut down a exchange and all there traffic has been relocated to our exchange" which is a 20/20 foot building in the middle of the countryside..

doesnt BT have any commitments on increasing the local exchanges ability on handling all this new traffic ? or is it a case of you /i have an up to 8 mb service and 50 kbs is up to 8 mb's so stop complaining, maybe they should bill me for a up tp 500mb's the atleast i could post it on a forum somewere about what a great service i havent got

Welcome to the forum,

Line speeds that are 'possible' are not line speeds that you will get. If you are rural (as am I) the biggest thing that will affect your line speed is distance and quality of the line itself. Next are the filters you use (the ones supplied are usually rubbish) and finally your equipment itself.

Just because anyone says you can have up to 8Mbit does not mean you will get it. Bangalore hasn't the first clue about what you are going through and if it is not on their script, there is nothing you can do except to write and complain, but be sure of your facts first.

BT (and everyone else's priority) will be to make sure that major towns and cities are getting the maximum bandwidth possible first before you will see any help in the rural districts.

This may not be what you wanted to hear, but I assure you it is the facts. For some people, dial-up is still the only option.

SHARK!
 

Thanks landshark,

we live 27 paces from were my routers sat and the rear wall of the exchange(next door) so distance shouldnt be a problem,the lines about a year old and is attached via a pole on the exchange site..

i rang them again just to keep up the pressure and was asked to allow the BT phone guy remote assitance, which i did,he quickly went to task manager and said all looks ok..* shakes head*

 while he could see the same screen as me , i took him to a dsl speedtest site which had my results for the last 30 or so attempts,all he could say was he didnt know..

quickly while i baffled him a bit more as to what i expected them to do, i quickly open the email addresses of the big company CEO's and clicked on the BT ready to send my supposed email.. ;)

i then disconected him and it ask's you to fill in what i thought of the service etc, i said im far from happy and on the verge of taking my money elsewere...ive since recieved a call from the same guy from india saying they will monitor my account for ten days and will try to resolve this as quickly as possible,wow would you credit it.......

What did they say your line was cappable of in the biggining? Go to the BT wholesale web site and put in your phone number for a line check and it will tell you what it is cappable of. I was with Pipex Homecall in oct 07 and decided to change to Tiscali ready for the free phone rental I was getting 5.5Mb download from Pipex and when I changed I got 40kbps after 4 days and £25 calls to India I lost the connection compleatly. I managed to get out of the contract and went back to Pipex and am now getting only 700kbps to 1Mb. and have been trying to sort it out since Nov. and have been told all sorts of reasons I am only getting this speed. I found out from BT wholesale on this number I am unable to get even 256 speed because of the very long line length yet the postcode says cappable of 6.5Mb so I contacted BT openreach and they said