Zen Internet Support Forum

Hi, I've been a Zen customer (8mbit connection) since December last year and unfortunately it's been a rocky ride for me.

 My internet connection has been quite intermittent for few months since I signed up, after a long battle it was pinned down to  a fault in the exchange, BT engineers visited and my connection finally reached heights of 7mbit/s. It stayed like that for a month, then it went back to being even worse then before. I am getting frequent disconnections, my BRAS profile is flapping like mad until finally getting locked at 160kb/s for a week (that is the second time it happened now).

 Zen support seem to be unable to help me. I have already purchased a new router (Netgear DG834),  replaced my adsl filter, purchased a new phone and even tried unplugging the phone for 2 weeks at all. I am also permanently plugged into the test socket. Apparently there is some kind of "noise" on my line but who is responsible for that I do not know, neither I know who's supposed to fix it. Support also suggested I report the noise problem to BT but I get no crackling on my phone when the phone alone is plugged into the socket, only when it's plugged along with my router.

 Any suggestions are welcome, I'm out of ideas.

well if the support team cant help u i would sugest goig to a better isp as u stated u never had the prob before the isp change

the net gear router is a good one as i am using the same,i changed isp and now i have a better, faster service

 

good luck

Zen support guys told me it's no use changing isp's as the problem will stay. I didn't say I had no problems before, just said that I had problems with Zen.

It's likely that Zen can't help because it's almost certainly not an ISP problem. It's impossible for the ISP to be the cause of noise on the line. That's BT's responsibility. So ignore the previous ridiculous advice.

Your BRAS profile issue is low because there is a fault on your line or affecting your line (e.g. your equipment, local external interference, something at the exchange). I had the same thing a few months ago - 6Mb suddenly became 1Mb with lots of disconnections. I didn't contact Zen but went straight to BT who, to their credit, sorted it out quickly. If you've fully checked your equipment then log another fault with BT. Just because they fixed one fault it doesn't mean another can't occur. Or the same one re-occur. If you're 100% your equipment and wiring isn't at fault, and BT deny any line or exchange fault (like they do) tell BT you want an engineer to call round.

BTW - What's your SNR (in your router stats)?
 

Thanks for the suggestion le_baron, how do I report the fault to BT? What I mean by that is what do I tell them, do I report it as a telephone line fault or internet fault or what?

 Also, I just remembered a while ago one of Zen Support guys mentioned that the chipset in my router (dg834 v3) has problems with resyncing if there is noise on the line and that might be causing my frequent disconnections so I plugged in my old speedtouch 330 modem - just to see.

If you think there's noise on the line I'd report it as a line fault that manifests as a crackling sound and drops in your connection.

Not sure about the chipset; that might be correct but I have that same router and it hangs in there even when the SNR drops to 0, and has never had a problem resynching. Last time there was a line fault it was still connecting even though my phone connection disappeared completely and the line attenuation had almost doubled (that's bad).

It's still worth while trying another though. What I would do is try all combinations and write them down in a table, e.g. Netgear / Speedtouch, old filter / new filter, phone plugged in / phone not plugged in. Try each of these combinations and write down the results. That should tell you if you've any problems with your equipment. If you do, and BT come out, they might charge you.

New filter, different router, same problems. Line is still disconnecting and I can't hear any crackling on the phone so I assume BT would charge me for unneccesary fault reporting. If you have any other suggestions please share, I'm about to toss all this *** out the effing window.

One more question: is there a way to somehow get BT to reset my BRAS profile other than waiting for 72 hours?

Back to old router now (Dg834).

 My Downstream Attenuation is 29db, noise margin is 15db. Upstream Attenuation is 8db, noise margin 21db.

You have tested the line for noise?

Dial 17070 and select quiet line test. (option 2)

BT will not come out at your request for a ADSL fault you have to go through your ISP and here you are in luck as Zen will do their best for you but at the end of the day if your BT line is at fault there is nothing Zen can do about that apart from make a request to BT and we all know what BT are like.

You can make a request to BT for a voice/noisy line fault so if you have noise report it to BT.

There is no noise on my line, I did quiet voicechecks and all that.

 Zen suggested an engineer visit last week and one came. He told me there was absolutely NO PROBLEM with my connection, then went on to check some stuff in the exchange and I never heard from him again. Strangely enough since his visit my connection mysteriously came back to full speed and there are no drop outs at all....
 

Ha!! ha!! doesn't that strongly suggest that the problem was at the BT phone exchange, except BT never have to good grace to admit as much. Yet they are quick enough to tell you that a charge MIGHT be made if the engineer comes to visit and they cannot find a fault. (mostly empty threats I sense?).

**Typical BT engineer behaviour from past experience of dealing with BT at a professional IT level. BT do exactly what they like and they never seem to think they should be accountable to anyone else outside BT (even customers who pay them for the service). BT constantly are known for changing the goal posts as they go along, & the bigger the project the worse it tends to be. Deadlines seem to mean nothing to them.

Ivan.