AO(Hell) and Throttling

[adridude]

Hi,

 

My parents have been having an issue with AOL, which I've confirmed as a Director of an IT company.

 

About 6 months ago, their BB was running perfectly.. All of a sudden, during the day, their speeds dropped from 5Mb (8Mb is the max for the exchange) to 125Kb!!!

 

After some testing over a period of 2 weeks, I realised that between the hours of 0:00 and 06:30, the internet was back to 5Mb or sometimes more. at 06:30 on the dot it does down again. This includes browsing, email etc...

 

My parents aren't very IT savvy, so I'm 100% sure that they aren't using any form of torrent or P2P software, nor does any of the basic software on their PC behave like P2P software.

 

I contacted AOL and they laid the blame on the exchange.

 

I contacted a friend from BT Openreach who kindly helped me out and confirmed that the speeds should be OK as everyone else in the immediate area are receiving between 4 and 6Mbps.

 

I contacted AOL again and confronted them with this and they decided to quote the "UP to 8Mbps" clause in the contract.

 

The package my parents were offered and pay for is the unlimited package, and there is no mention of traffic shaping at all in the contract.

 

There is a fair use policy, but I very much doubt that my folks download more than 5gb a month, let along 40 GB lol.

 

 

in light of this, my questions are:

 

1) As an IT company checking and confirming these results, can I bill AOL to put them in their place? I'm happy to send all proceeds to a relevant charity as a measure of good will. This will be ofcourse the £124.99 callout charge they charge ;-)

2) Can they do this without notifying customers? And can they charge full rate for a service where the greater percentage of a day, the services offered are at less than 10% efficiency.

3) Talktalk own AOL but AOL stated that if my folks leave AOL that they will no longer be able to access their email addresses (theyve had them for over 10 years!). Is there a way around this as AOL email addresses are free!

[my-spirit-soars-free]

When I left AOL I kept my email address, the system asked me whether I wanted to keep it when I next went on to their homepage.

 

I had previously been threatened with losing them, but decided that I wanted to leave anyway... and after changing my email everywhere I found the threat was groundless. Mind you, that was some years ago.

[adridude]

How do you mean the system asked you?

 

Did you cancel your account via the AOL software then after AOL was gone you logged in via the aol.com website to check email thereafter?

[adridude]

edit: apologies... AOL was slow again at my folks to pressed post twice..

[locutus]

Have they had any new phone equipment added? Sometimes this gets plugged in without a filter, and that can seriously lower speeds. I'm pretty sure you will have tested that, but if your parents have snook a new phone into their bedroom etc without installing it on a micro filter the result will be a lot of noise on the ADSL signal, reducing and increasing the speed. How are you testing the speed? Do they have an old ADSL modem, or are you logging into the router and checking the sync speed or are you using a speed check website? If the sync speed of the router is varying, then they are disconnecting a lot. If they are using a modem, or if they use a router and turn it off when the computer is not running and it connects slower, that could be because of how they set the profiles of broadband. The equipment in the exchange is set to view disconnects as bad, so lowers the profile to allow more stability and less speed.

 

I feel AOL have not handled this properly. The cancellations team can be pretty helpful, if not the CEO of the TalkTalk group is dido.harding@talktalkplc.com see if her office can help.

[Guest TalkTalk Offical Company Rep]

hi 35adridude,

 

If the account holder registers on the TalkTalk Members Forum we can assist wtih this issue. The Members Forum is equipped with cross brand resources to support both TT and AOL customers as necessary.

 

 

Regards

 

Mark

TalkTalk Online Community Executive

TalkTalk Online Community Department

[adridude]

Don't bother.... I've confirmed through my sources that the LLU's are insufficient for the somewhat 1500 residents connected to the exchange.. look up NDLEY and you'll know what I mean ;-)

 

Talktalk to you later...

 

I've paid for vfast.co.uk packet radio for my folks as I'm sick of discussing first world issues with third world support reps...

[Guest TalkTalk Offical Company Rep]

Hi adridude,

 

 

As advised if you join the Members Forumw e can assist and investigate into this for you. If it is a matter of capacity at the exchange we can confirm this for you and advise if there are any actions towards improvements that can be made

 

Regards

 

Mark

TalkTalk Online Community Executive

TalkTalk Online Community Department

[sparx]

I don't mean to tread on your toes as an "IT Savvy" person, but have you checked your phone lines? Have you added/removed any extensions or had any work done to the lines?

 

You really need to speak to TalkTalk / AOL about this - I had a similar problem about a year ago - turned out to be the aging wire from where the line joined my house to the master socket. Speed would drop to 128kbps, and disconnects were frequent. Replaced the cable and speeds returned to 5mbps - removing the ring wire saw me get to 7mbps!

[adridude]

Let me explain in greater detail:

 

1) Performed a quiet line test on the line and confirmed there is no distortion.

2) There are NO extensions on the line at all, the router is the phone base

3) Tried other routers too, everything appears the same in terms of performance

4) A friend at BTOR did a copper quality test for me and confirmed that the continuity is excellent

5) BT themselves (when I was with them, on the same copper pair) gave me the full speed

6) Companies which go LLU i.e. AOL, TT, Sky etc... tend to "underbuy" or they tend to have a stupidly high contention ratio, but of course they won't publicly release this information per exchange.

7) A a sceptic, I asked my aquaintance at BTOR to try a different pair and he had the same results; Excellent continuity

8) ALso tried several different micro filters too

 

Just a correction from above, my exchange is: NDSIT.. NDLEY is another exchange which I have BTOR looking at :-P

 

So basically I have:

 

1) Ruled out the router by using several brands both by talk talk and 3rd parties

2) Ruled out the copper between my property (test socket in the master socket) and the exchange (NDSIT)