Re: BT internal network problems.

On 7 Oct 2005 07:18:41 -0700, "Mike" <G8VHB@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> have a persistant problem with connecting to a remote site on a BT
>network. I have tried to raise the issue with BT with no joy. Also via
>the operators of the remote system who are also getting no joy.
>
>I have run tracert from my PC targeted at the wanted server. The BT
>network can be unavailable for hours at a time. And always failing at
>the same point every time.
>
>I have installed servers alive to ping the remote system every five
>mins. Whenever the link was down I did a tracert to the remote system.
>Here is the output from a TRACERT to the remote system. Tracert fails
>at the same point everytime.
>
>Tracing route to 217.46.172.*** over a maximum of 30 hops
>1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms voyager.home [192.168.1.1]
>2 22 ms 22 ms 23 ms ***********.ptn-ag1.plus.net
>3 22 ms 21 ms 21 ms ge0-0-0-105.ptn-gw1.plus.net [84.92.3.33]
>4 21 ms 22 ms 21 ms gi1-1-22.pte-gw5.plus.net [212.159.4.7]
>5 27 ms 26 ms 21 ms linx1.ukcore.bt.net [195.66.224.10]
>6 * 22 ms 25 ms core1-pos14-0.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [194.74.65.114]
>7 22 ms 23 ms 23 ms core1-pos5-0.bletchley.ukcore.bt.net
>[195.99.120.210]
>8 24 ms 23 ms 23 ms bar3-pos8-0.bletchley2.broadband.bt.net
>[194.72.31.98]
>9 24 ms 23 ms 23 ms 217.47.220.97
>10 24 ms 24 ms 24 ms 217.41.219.37
>11 23 ms 23 ms 23 ms 217.41.175.185
>12 27 ms 24 ms 23 ms 217.41.219.6
>13 * * * Request timed out.
>.......
>30 * * * Request timed out.
>
>For maybe 20 hours during the day the service is up and working. But
>there are frequent outages for an hour or more at a time. Periods when
>the network was failing.I tried to do a trace route and on each and
>every time the service failed at the same point.
>
>I was advised to obtain a trace from the remote machine the next time
>the service goes down. I explained that if the service was unavailable
>due to a service outage I would not be able to do that as I could not
>login remotly and the server was 150 miles away!!!.
>
>For anyone reading this do you have a contact name and email address or
>telephone number that I can use to get through to some technical
>support person. Going through BT's front desk is like walking through
>treacle. The staff have no idea about networking issues.
>
>And why is BT's network monitoring not picking up the outage?
>
>Mike

See my posts the past weeks, such as 'BT Yahoo packet loss', etc, etc.

Been bad for 3 weeks+. Talking to the helpdesk takes years off your
life - mention ping (they think of pong), mention traceroutw their
eyes glaze over, always your pc, you have virus's and trojans, duff
modem/router, it's always your firewall, their s/w has proven it
(that's what a fw does - stop unknown probes - doh).

It took ages to logon, packet loss and timeouts persistently - the
random chance of 1in100 of getting a good logon had gone. Tracerouting
to www.bbc.co.uk, www.btinternet.co.uk (or com) or www.yahoo.co.uk
failed badly and differnently each time - pings lost %20-100 on
average.

Phoned the cancellation department and asked for a MAC code. Got some
of the usual 'records show it's your firewall, etc' - told the person
I had lowered it for the BT exchange engineer to do some packet tests
(he was talking to me on the phone at the time), and line tests, etc,
had a home eng visit - all showed my line to be fantastic, good for
6-8Mb/s, with no loss from me to the exchange or vice versa in terms
of packets. At the same time, packet loss and timeout galore outside
the BT network. Also have had many, many duff IP's or such - connected
but nothing working at all.

Eventually the MAC lady asked if I would give them one more chance and
put me through to yet another tech person. Got some more drivel but he
said he would put it through to the engineers one last time.
Tracerouts to BT sometimes have internal 10.x.x.x addy's in them
(!!!!!) along with loss. This stays bad (almost guaranteed) or good
(virtually never now) dependant on logon.

ADSL went dead a while later, came back - and what do you know -
without any changes to my PC, fw, sw (use known good ghos), etc, logon
was then fast and pings / tr's all fine - speed is perfect - as it
used to be - gone from dire and shitty all the time to rock solid. 3
weeks of hell to fantastic in 30 minutes or so after telling them I
wish to cancel.

So, chose another provider (such as Zen with monthly contracts) and
ask for a MAC code and be willing to leave - only then will BT
actually fix anything.

I was supposed to be swapped to another 32 user card lat week (just
for BT to say they had done something) - this made no difference - if
they did it as the ADSL conenction went off last week for a bit.
Whether they did this, swapped to another DSLAM, don't know - but it's
damn fine now.

Hopefully it will last - if not, I am off to Zen (BE offer 24Mbit for
£24 unlimited - but have fair use with no details - basically caps).

Cancellation or MAC number is 0800-0852819

BT Order Management 0800-1698649

If you can connect (and your sure your modem is fine, fw is fine (turn
it off or disable it), and you get bad pings (run them a few times)
then it's BT - good luck, took weeks and lots of BT cursing to get
them to do a simple job of finding out what is causing an obvious
problem).
.