Sorry about this but has anyone got any experience of Primus as a provider? Currently with Post Office and always been happy with it till just recently and now it is down to 700 odd kbs from about 4meg.
Or who do you recommend? Cheers

faulty line?

BT supply the line in most cases so changing reseller is unlikey to help

I changed to BT and my speed went up by 6MB, they’ve been faultless the router is excellent too.

Changing can impact speed. I think if it’s unbundled the larger ISPs like sky, talktalk etc have their own kit in the local exchanges. Couple of our sites we have gone to another supplier as they have offered better speeds

Bruneep,
Dont think so. Mate at work and also his parents have just left po for the same reason. Mate complained and po said nothing wrong with line and would cost 130 quid for engineer to call. Seems to have been capped for some reason.
Cheers all.

Take a look at what isps have kit in your exchange . Samknows is it ? Maybe a better one these days

Up here bt is the only way to go.

I live in the sticks and can stream apple tv movies on bt . My neighbour was in awe at that fact – he was on a cheapy sky package through

Bt infinity if you can, I can’t fault it, high speed and very rarely drops out, and never for long if it does.

Seconded.

Went to BT Infinity and the best speed went from 2.5 – 3Mps to 28mps.

Like night and day. If you can get it, you should.

Just to clarify mine was ADSL2+ not infinity.

Iikewise mines just bt broadband – gives speeds of about 4-6 where as my neighbours sky tops out at 2meg

Mate complained and po said nothing wrong with line and would cost 130 quid for engineer to call.

That’s normal. This is what I found out when I had problems:

1) There may be a wiring problem somewhere between you and the exchange. Calling someone out is a bit of a gamble, because if they find the fault is in your house you’ll get charged. If it’s with their line, they’ll pay.

2) You can eliminate most of the wiring in your house by plugging into the test socket (google this)

3) Different providers share the same kit. There are different types of ADSL though – ADSL+, ADSL Max, ADSL 2 and ADSL 2+ and probably some more. They handle poor lines differently. You need to find out which companies have which kit at your exchange. Some companies host their own kit there which may be better than BT wholesale, these companies are called LLU providers. However MOST companies simply re-sell BT wholesale, so if you switch from one to another you’ll be using the exact same kit and have the exact same speeds.

4) Your provider may cap your speed according to your plan, but most providers put you on at least 8Mbps.

5) If you switched from one provider to another and got better speeds, then you went to better equippment ie ADSL2+ or something.

6) If your neighbours get worse speed than you, it could be their house wiring is not as good, it’s not necessarily the provider.

7) BT infinity is completely different and runs a fibre optic cable to your house, so you’ll definitely get huge speeds. Likewise Virgin.

So in summary, it’s highly unlikely to be the post office’s fault, and simply switching is unlikely to improve things, unless you go to infinity or some other fibre broadband.

Fixing the fault can be extremely difficult, because different bits of it are owned by different pepole so all they have to do is blame someone else and you’ll never get it fixed. ISN’T PRIVATISATION **** MARVELLOUS 👿

The truly infantile belief that privatisation gives better services only ever ends up **** things up for us. In our great modern world we now have dozens of companies all selling us the same stuff and now we have to try and figure out who to use and how the bloody hell to get it fixed if it goes wrong. It’s a total nightmare, it’s NOT progress.

Molgrips, have you any idea what its like for the end user to try and get any sense from BT?
If it was just BT and nobody else, your pricing would be higher, your service support would be worse and there would be little innovation, because there was no incentive to.
BT needed to be brought down a rung or two. Industry deregulation has done that. Im not saying its perfect, far from it, but its better than it was.
They’re still shit to deal with, but at least the end user doesn’t have to deal direct with them.

I don’t think you can say it would be worse without privatisation. Everyone complains about service at their telcos, so it’s hardly turned the industry into a shining beacon of customer service has it?

Companies are competing on price which means the companies have to cut costs. So that means offshore call centres, pressure on engineers to pass the buck or fob us off if they can’t fix the problem in an hour and so on.

Maybe BT needed some reorganisation, but I can’t see how creating a mess of resellers and creaming a load of profits to shareholders helps the situation. And as for innovation – BT were pretty innovative when they were a national company afaik, now they are just trying to make money to give to rich people.

So in summary, it’s highly unlikely to be the post office’s fault, and simply switching is unlikely to improve things

Poor ISPs give you slow speeds, good ones give you good speeds. I’d wage money if he switched it’ll improve.

Depends on a few things though doesn’t it Drac? Like WHY his speeds are slow…

It does I agree but I’d still wager it.

standard response from me – try another router first.

routers dont live forever – a good sign of a dying router – poor speeds.

does the speed increase if you plug in via cable ?

I remember when VM started doubling customers’ capacity, and those on the sidelines felt they’d lost out. BT is now offering free football, and my service dropped to little or nothing on Fri and Sat nights. I moved on, in the hope of better things.

And if any ISP executives are reading this, I’d rather pay more for a sensible and consistent service, it’s not only about price.

The issue is that the ISP you pay aren’t in charge of the quality of the line. They can alter some parameters, but if your line is sub-par you have to get BT Openreach out. And they don’t really care if your BB is any good, because if you switch ADSL providers they still get paid.

So then you end up in a protracted 3 way argument which never gets resolved…

In my area, VM had their own fiber optic cables (formerly telewest) and their own green box at the end of the street. The opinion on the help & support forum was that they weren’t rolling out upgrades fast enought to cope. This was some time ago.

So I wonder if BT are keeping up with demand.

Cheers for the info everyone. Dont think infinity is available in our little village at the mo-will make enquiries but left BT to go to PO cos of garbage customer service.
Router is fairly recent (maybe 2 years old)got it off workmate who had switched to EE about 6 months ago. Will try ringing PO but recently have been unable to get through. Have always been answered in about 5mins max but last few times Ive tried I have actually given up!

2 years is a good life if it was one of those crappy freebie routers you get with most packages.

not all routers are equal.

I don’t think routers are as disposable as people make out, but you never know.

Pick up your home phone – is there any noise on the line? My dodgy speeds were accompanied by noise so bad sometimes you couldn’t hold a conversation.

Try plugging into the test socket, first step.