Hello - having a nightmare with broadband. Hope it's just the BT line but...??

[#1]

Hello everybody,
Am wondering if anybody has experienced anything similar to this. For the last two to three weeks (I think it's been that long) my broadband is suffering from the following problems:
1. Crashing (going down) every two minutes or so. This is basically all day but I obviously don't know if it is the same over night. Basically the internet will work and then a moment later the connection is down. I don't recall many occasions in the last few weeks where it has worked consistently.
2. When it does work the speeds are painfully slow.
So far I have changed the microfilter and a new double socket at the phone socket. I have noticed a crackly phone line (not always but on occasion) and have reported to BT. Hopefully if there is a fault they can repair.
I'm just wondering if I've missed something obvious on this? Hopefully the line issue is the cause but any feedback would be much appreciated. The router I'm using is a very old Thomson one so there's a small part of me thinking it could be that.
Many thanks,
Gareth

[#2]

Hi gareth35,
Sorry to hear that you've been having problems with the connection as well as the speed. I've taken a look at your connection logs and as you can see in the graph below, you're disconnecting on an excessively frequent level!
<img src="http://community.plus.net/visualradius/generated/image14083678996336.png"/>
After running some fault checks on your line I can see that the chronic disconnections have resulted in your line been physically banded at 288k, this means that the exchange equipment has lowered the speed in order to keep the connection up however in this instance it has been a very extreme reduction. The test results that came back from the checks also highlighted that you currently have a Phone fault open with your telephone provider which could well be causing the issues you're seeing with broadband. In addition to this, we're unable to ask the broadband supplier to investigate a fault until the phone fault is fixed and cleared from the line.
If you can let us know how this is progressing or when this has been cleared and we can look into this matter further for you however you'll probably notice the connection stabilising and the speed increasing soon after the phone fault is fixed.

[#3]

Hi Adam,
Many thanks for posting the connection log. I much appreciate the assistance. Yes, as you can see it does seem to be disconnecting rather a lot! And thank you for also explaining that the line has been banded which has obviously slowed things down. Yes, I have tested the line with BT and they seem to have found a fault further down the line. That should be fixed by Thursday so hopefully things will improve then!
Just one quick question. If the phone line is fixed and this then stops the disconnections, will the speed come back automatically or does have to be manually unbanded (not sure if that is a word!) from the 288k figure?
Many thanks,
Gareth

[#4]

Hi gareth35,
The banding should be lifted automatically once the phone issue is resolved although this can take a little time for the equipment at the exchange to decide that the line is clear enough to start moving. I would hope that you see things move back in stages to where they were over the course of a few hours/days but if the disconnections stop and you've seen no change in speed 24/48 hours later then we may need to look at what we can do from our side.
Either way, please let us know how you get on with the situation