BT & TT Broadband tech help awful! Where to now?

First let me qualify the subject by saying; in my experience. I have just come to the end of two separate and major (connect the yellow cable) sessions with BT technical where they take remote control. There have been a number of lesser contacts. The problem was an erratic signal which went from good to zero for no apparent rhyme or reason. BT tech lull you into a false sense of security with their professional cool “remote” approach. At no point was it mentioned that the problem may well be the hub. I was left to correctly deduce this myself after much wasted time because I foolishly thought the experts would have mentioned the hub if it could have been the problem.

TT are much better because even I have known that on the two or three occasions I have spoken with them they have talked rubbish – on one occasion when I realised later that the problem was with the TT server I was given no less than five sets of detailed characters to put into my router to reset it – yes they had asked for the router make and model number and no there was no possibility whatsoever of putting the settings into my router unless I had taken the piece of paper with the settings, cut the router in half and stuffed them inside!

Finally. Three friends/acquaintances who are apparently near expert status also fiddled about with settings added nothing to my knowledge base and never mentioned hub or router.

REQUEST

Does anyone know of any way a layman like me can get a little more knowledge so that I can, in practice, deal with all but impossible situations. Thanks in advance.