What went wrong with Broadband?

[5129frederick]

It came up on the news that the whole of Broadband would be out for 24 hours.  Thank God it's back on again.  It must have been off for about five hours, but that's a long time to look at an orange glow on my BT Hub instead of a blue glow.  It just goes to show how over reliant we all are on the internet.  I've got about sixty-odd items up on the net and was having kittens - what if somebody's bought something and I'm unable to deliver - It happened once before and caused a strike against me.  That's just me.  What of somebody running an internet shop or somebody trying to buy stocks and shares?  They'd lose a hell of a lot more than me!  Businesses across the country couldn't communicate with one another!  There is a bomb that can knock out ALL communication if detonated at 135,000'.   I wondered for a while whether that crackpot in North Korea had anything to do with it!

I'll be taking no chances - I'll be putting my money under the mattress tomorrow! 

[bitsnknots]

Must admit that my broadband has been fine today.

[kidmore_kats]

How would somebody be able to buy from you if the "whole of broadband" was down ?

If your broadband wasn't working, neither was their's.

[mustavaquid]

It was only BT which had the problem.

[dark_castle1]

fred, it was a BT Broadband problem and although did affect lots of people it did not affect all customers as far as radio said. It did not affect me at all because I was at work and everything was running as normal in my house when I got home.

[5129frederick]

As mustavaquid said, it only appears to have affected BT.  The reason I was getting anxious was that about eight months ago I was badly let down by BT who left me without a landline for three weeks.  In that time people bought items from me but because I couldn't respond - I have a cheap pay & go mobile which has no Internet ebay facility, there was no way I could find out what was happening.  When I did get back on to the system I found that three people had opened cases against me, one of them winning the case in my absence which is why I still haven't got my 100% feedback status back yet and I was worried that history was about to repeat itself.  With the other two I managed to pour oil over troubled water but this woman slagged me off which is why I had to defend myself on her feedback - 1 neg feedback.  I couldn't even get into it at the library.  I'm behind with the times - my desktop sits at my computer desk - I don't walk round with a mobile phone costing £N's per month.  My mobile tells me the time and makes phone calls when I have to and sends and receives text messages.  It slow too.  If I wanted to send an email to somebody telling them that the cat sat on the mat, I'd have to press the ABC button three times for the letter C to come up.  It went out with the ark, but it works and costs me nothing bar the odd £5.00 on my top-up card.   

[cee-dee]

For anyone suddenly left without a landline and with no BB connection, you can get a mobile router (a tenner) and use a £10 top up to connect. You plug it in to your desktop USB port and ***BINGO***, you've got internet access. You can cancel it after a month.

You can connect to it by WiFi and have your iPad connected at the same time.

[5129frederick]

Thank you, but as I said I don't have an iPad, ePad or any other pad for that matter.  Handy to know of course, but if one has to spend £10.00 per month on it, it kind of defeats the object,although as you say you can cancel at the end of a month.  My hub is right in front of me although my daughter bought something from PC World which connects to her port outlet and allows her to access my internet at no extra cost.  It took about five goes to get it right - none of us are IT literate but now she doesn't have to keep borrowing mine all the ti, so she's as happy as a sandboy - I could have said as happy as a pig in you know what, but this is a family site!   Thanks for your advice.

[cee-dee]

She's connected by WiFi. Fine if your phone line's working but no good if it's not.

Now here's a tale. There I am, using my computer, about to send an email when *wallop*, off goes my BB. I thought it'd be back within a minute or two, but no, picked up the phone ***dead***. Waited a minute or two, picked up the phone *working", I got a dial tone. Waited for BB to come back, it didn't.

Suspecting someone from BT was fiddling in the cabinet up the road, I walked up there and sure enough..... there's a BT/Openreach van so I tapped on the window and asked the bloke if I could have a word, he says it's OK so I asked "Have you been fiddling in that cabinet?" He said he had so I told him my BB wasn't working but the phone was. He said he'd just upgraded me to fibre and reeled off my phone number. Told that it was all news to me, I hadn't asked for anything but it wasn't working he asked about my router. Told what I had, he said I needed a VDSL router. So I went and got one. No joy, so I took it back and was told I needed to contact BT.

I did and after a lot of questions it was "Ah, um, er, well, he was supposed to have done your neighbours, not yours"..................

Cutting this a bit shorter.......... Next day, I called BT again and the young lady I spoke to had a job finding my account. THEN she dropped a bombshell. The reason she couldn't find me was that she was looking up the number I was calling from. That bloke had switched my phone line for my neighbours, I'd got his phone number instead of mine. He'd got no phone and no BB.

The situation has gone from bad to worse. BT have sent me a "Final Bill" and my old account's been closed. There's got to be a new account set up and a new line with a new number before I can get my old number back.

I'm told that when I moved here 14 years ago, the address was down as my neighbours (me, him and next door have the same word in the house names). Billing had my correct address but the engineering side was wrong. Bills for the last 14 years have had my correct name and my correct address.

The thing is, I can't understand (and neither can BT) how they managed to fit ISDN when I moved here and switched me to BB later without any problem but now....................

The upshot so far is, they've given my neighbour his line and number back but I've got no line and no phone, (yet) hence my using a mobile router.

Comments welcome.

[john.b74]

---

@cee-dee wrote:

She's connected by WiFi. Fine if your phone line's working but no good if it's not.

Now here's a tale. There I am, using my computer, about to send an email when *wallop*, off goes my BB. I thought it'd be back within a minute or two, but no, picked up the phone ***dead***. Waited a minute or two, picked up the phone *working", I got a dial tone. Waited for BB to come back, it didn't.

Suspecting someone from BT was fiddling in the cabinet up the road, I walked up there and sure enough..... there's a BT/Openreach van so I tapped on the window and asked the bloke if I could have a word, he says it's OK so I asked "Have you been fiddling in that cabinet?" He said he had so I told him my BB wasn't working but the phone was. He said he'd just upgraded me to fibre and reeled off my phone number. Told that it was all news to me, I hadn't asked for anything but it wasn't working he asked about my router. Told what I had, he said I needed a VDSL router. So I went and got one. No joy, so I took it back and was told I needed to contact BT.

I did and after a lot of questions it was "Ah, um, er, well, he was supposed to have done your neighbours, not yours"..................

Cutting this a bit shorter.......... Next day, I called BT again and the young lady I spoke to had a job finding my account. THEN she dropped a bombshell. The reason she couldn't find me was that she was looking up the number I was calling from. That bloke had switched my phone line for my neighbours, I'd got his phone number instead of mine. He'd got no phone and no BB.

The situation has gone from bad to worse. BT have sent me a "Final Bill" and my old account's been closed. There's got to be a new account set up and a new line with a new number before I can get my old number back.

I'm told that when I moved here 14 years ago, the address was down as my neighbours (me, him and next door have the same word in the house names). Billing had my correct address but the engineering side was wrong. Bills for the last 14 years have had my correct name and my correct address.

The thing is, I can't understand (and neither can BT) how they managed to fit ISDN when I moved here and switched me to BB later without any problem but now....................

The upshot so far is, they've given my neighbour his line and number back but I've got no line and no phone, (yet) hence my using a mobile router.

Comments welcome.

---

I wish you the best off luck with BT fixing your line.

[evoman3957]

I love it when businesses run smoothly, everybody's on the ball and knows their stuff..........and mainly ( to quote the buzz word of the decade ) everything is open and transparent.

[bitsnknots]

Up to about 3 months ago, I had no problem with Sky.  Now, Sky use BT Openreach for phone lines and therefore, broadband.  The router, along with the phone line is in my bedroom.  When I tried to use the lappie in the living room, nothing - bearing in mind, I live in a two bedroomed bungalow so there shouldn't have been too much of problem.  Sky wouldn't admit that there was a problem even after they had done an upgrade with no prior warning. I only found that out from a couple who go to the same health club as me.  I ended up buying a signal booster for all on £28.  Someone from Sky said that I could have got one cheaper from them.  What they seemed to forget is that I would have to have waited for about a week for it to come and I could have been bald from tearing my hair out in trying to get on to the internet.  I did get a £30 M&S gift voucher and £10 off the bill so I can't really complain.

[dairyview123]

and faints!!!!

[stroppy*cow]

Might be of no help whatsoever if the whole of the BT broadband service is down, but if it is a "personal" issue, then BT customers should be able to connect through a Wi-fi hotspot.

I have often used a wi-fi hotspot when our home broadband was not working.

And before Fred jumps down my throat, his home may well fall in a Wi-fi hot spot, so even with a desktop pc you can often get a broadband connection using a wi-fi hotspot.

If you have a neighbour who uses a different ISP they may either let you use their computer in an emergency, or may be willing to let you use their internet connection - again for Fred even a desktop pc can connect to a neighbour's internet if they share their access code with you. There are 3 households near here who all share one broadband connection.

[5129frederick]

Thank you for your advice, although when it comes to sharing the access with a neighbour I've lived here for nine years and wouldn't be able to pick them out in a line-up.  We're all ultra conservative - a cursory nod is as much as I'll get out of either side and vice-versa!