COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Stanley]

Orange speed was 8 yesterday and 6 today, instead of the 18mps I have been getting. Are other users experiencing the same? Xmas rush?

[Big Kev]

16.5 down and 1 up for me

[Stanley]

Thanks Kev. One hopes we will return to normal service shortly.....

[Stanley]

I have a funny feeling that this is some Orange ploy to change our tariff. I went on the site and noted that I am marked as being on an 8mps service so I have mailed them to ask what is going on.

[EileenDavid]

I'm with o2, we have had slow response recently, also changed the home page so you see all the Christmas options for sale. Resonably priced though at £9.50 a month as long as I top up my mobile phone with £10 every 3 months. Also gives me 100 free texts a month and it's so much easier than texts sent from my phone. Eileen

[Stanley]

Pluggy and Kev. I cracked yesterday and rang tech support at Orange about the speed loss. They started by saying I perhaps had a bum filter but went quiet when I said Kev had the same speed drop and it was a bit of a coincidence if his filter had failed as well. He had all my speeds on the computer screen and agreed that it started to fall off about five days ago and is now down to 5mps. So he has sent me a new filter (I didn't tell him I had one and had already changed it) and put me on the usual line check and adjustment routine, (leave the router on and wait for X days etc.) He said he'd ring me back in half an hour but didn't. I shall wait and see and might call again Monday to gee them up. It looks as though the fault is in the Barlick exchange and I have been taken off the 21CN network. I am not impressed with Orange, I have other things to do than monitor their incompetence. Question: If they knew my speed was falling back to 5mps why didn't they initiate the action? We are cash cows not valued customers!

[Pluggy]

I read Big Kevs reply as "Mines OK". 16.5 down and one up is excellent in my book. I rarely see above 14 on my travels in Barlick. Mine is languishing around 3. But the router says its the line speed. When I get a bit of time, I'll go through the checks.

[Pluggy]

Bah, I hate ADSL. Done all the checks I can do (New filter, New Cable, Plugged straight into the test socket). Router says 10,600 attainable with 8096 Download now but it doesn't change if I put it back as it was. Still only getting around 3 on multiple speed test sites. I'm not really in the mood to do battle with "John" with the thick Indian accent.........

[Stanley]

Plugs, I missed Kev's post, thanks. I know exactly what you mean by 'John'. I got an email from them asking me to do all sorts of remedial checks and I've done every one of them but no change, still on 5mps instead of 16 so I shall be calling 'John' again when he gets up! My version is that unless the router has had a funny and isn't giving me my fair whack it's down at the exchange. Such a waste of time........

[Pluggy]

Just come across a weird problem. I bought myself a copy of Windoze 8, because I thought sooner or later people are going to want me to repair machines with it on and its a radical departure from "the norm". Ubuntu 12.04 looks normal alongside it. Anyway, I have Chrome and Firefox installed on it as well as the 2 variants of IE 10(Desktop and what was called Metro whilst it was in development). I cannot login to OGFB using Firefox (it goes through the motions, but remains logged out), The Linux version of Firefox and Firefox on Windoze XP (presumably the same one I put on Windows 8) work fine. Just to keep you guessing, Firefox on Windows 8 will work on the as yet incomplete version of OGFB on my hosting www.pluggy.me.uk/ogfb. IE and chrome work fine on windows 8.

Ah well back to Ubuntu......

I'll arrange a meeting with Doc today to gain further clues on all the addons on OGFB.

[Stanley]

Thank God I don't have to monitor W8 problems! Have just come off the phone from the nice lady at Orange. She will call me back at noon after she has done all her tests.... Now where have I heard that one before?

[Stanley]

She rang back at 16:00 and I'm into the old process of waiting to see if the speed rises, if not I have to get back to her. Boring.......

[Pluggy]

Mine is back up to 6.5 today.

[Stanley]

You're doing better than I am Pluggy, still on 5mps...... We live in hope!

[Stanley]

Still no improvement. Can't be arsed calling them, have just sent them a reply to the last email response with the case number on telling them to pull their finger out.

[Big Kev]

14.9 down and 0.948 up. It looks like it's just you. Give them a kick up the backside and tell them to get on with it.

[Big Kev]

Stanley, If you use http://www.speedtester.bt.com/ and choose the ADSL/FTTC (Fibre to the cabinet) option you will get the following results. Actual speeds, maximum speeds available and maximum available for your specific line.

Download Speed 15.28 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed 21 Mbps

Download speed achieved during the test was - 15.28 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 4 Mbps-21 Mbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 18.58 Mbps

2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.
Upload speed achieved during the test was - 0.71Mbps
Additional Information: Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 0.83 Mbps
We were unable to identify any performance problem with your service at this time.

Cheers

[Pluggy]

Sometimes its easier to just see how it goes. Thick Indian accents aren't everyones cup of tea, one of my customers has asked me to call BT to sort out her email password she's forgotton on my next visit (tomorrow). I can't wait......

I'll see if the online system will work, but thats dependent on her remembering the security questions and the answers.

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Kev, it gave me the same results. Pluggy, I agree, no point spending 30 minutes on the phone each day so I am updating them by email every morning and then forgetting about it, after all, I have a service even though it's slow. Keeping a log as well.....
I am getting very close to changing provider. Any suggestions as to who is best?
Pluggy, a question, the speedtester said I haven't got Java installed. Is it all right to download it from their site or is there a better way?

[Pluggy]

Synaptic package manager. Type 'JRE' into the search box, select OpenJDK Runtime version 6 (or 7).

Its not Sun/Oracle Java but it works in my experience.

Last night my internet was seriously slow (300 kb/s). I was getting a better upload speed than download. Switched to test socket, and different filter, no change. I got fed up and watched the telly for the rest of the evening. This morning its back to 7 Mb/s.

It your perogative to change Stanley, but in my experience they are all as bad as one another. I've had customers roundly cursing BT, Sky, Orange (or EE as they are now), Talktalk and Plusnet in Barlick. You pays your money and hope it goes well......

I'd think about Sky and Talktalk, since they can't pass the buck to BT so easily as they use their own gear, although you'll still get BT Openreach coming to deal with line problems and they'll charge you a fortune if its not their fault.

I set somebody up on Orange 2 years ago, I got called back in last week because her computer had slowed right down (it was riddled with the usual cr*p). I asked her how it was going with Orange, She was happy with them. Later the same week I got called into another old customer, who was having Internet problems on Orange and was in the process of changing to Sky. Orange had given her the run around and she wanted me to see what the problem actually was..I reckoned her livebox was on the blink, She'd done the run around with the test socket business etc, but they were reluctant to take it further, so she lost her rag and sacked them. She already had the Sky router, but was waiting for her activation day, (Today as it turns out, I might give her a call and see how its going).

Also in my experience, most internet problems aren't the ISP's fault.....

ADSL is an unholy botch, and its a wonder it works at all, the bulk of what it runs over is 1950's technology that was never envisaged to carry high speed digital information.

[Gloria]

We are Orange which I think is now EE, or am I getting confused. Apparently Orange is rubbish in our postcode and EE is brilliant!!!
Ours is download 0.5MB and upload 0.3MB---how bad is that. It is like waiting for christmas, their excuse is always the distance from the exchange and BT.

[PanBiker]

I would agree that in the main, the ISP is not generally the problem. They are all much of a muchness, you have to get past the first level of script readers with any service provider if if you are to get a decent service. I'm happy with my Talk Talk, 17Mbps solid but this mostly comes down to the quality of the infrastructure between my master socket and the exchange. All owned and maintained by BT of course. Talk Talk have their own kit at Barlick exchange which is the difference between them and all the other providers. I will also concur with Stephens comments above in that it is amazing that any of it works as well as it does as the copper infrastructure above ground is basically the same twisted pair as it was a century ago.

[Sue]

I need a new laptop. I was going to get a Mac to sync with my iPad, however on reflection it would not be any good to me as I have several programmes that I have paid a lot of money for for a Windows machine ( Embroidery design, knitwear design, dressmaking pattern maker, family tree programme) so it will have to be a new Window machine. Bob says Windows 8 has has bad reports, what can anyone tell me about it

[Whyperion]

I have had router ( I thought ) problems , been on the TalkTalk web forums without much solution , with the router losing the Internet/Broadband , which could be due to noise on the line. A couple of days ago I snapped the little bit that holds the routermodem to filter cable in at one end , and now the cable is a loose fit. Result? As long as the cable is (resting) in the router socket I have had no drop-out , maybe the clip was forcing the cable ends in a bad alignment ?? And (unless it was MSs overnight upgrade doing things - like losing default link to my Office 2007 - fairly quickly restored ) internet seems faster on most pages visited. Just Yahoo Mail front screens 'upgraded' , seems most users don't like it , I have got one browser to use an old version ( unfortunately not the version that was on yesterday which had a good mix of speed and usability).

[Whyperion]

Sue , don't know if this is any good , just got my recommendations from DABS.

http://www.dabs.com/products/packard-be ... ote&src=16

I am not fond of Celerons with integrated graphics (PackardBells generally made to a budget , sometimes it shows )

But you might find it of interest.