Fluctuating Broadband Speed (Again)

Posted on October 30, 2011 by David

A lot of people (possibly everybody) in the Purbeck Area are experiencing wild fluctuations in broadband speed again. To be fair, broadband speed results are never the same from one test to the next, but over the last three to four weeks my speeds have varied from a good 6 MB (6000 kbps) to an appalling 0.8 MB (900 kbps) in less than 30 mins… then back to 6 MB again an hour later.

Consistency in speed appears to be the number one problem (frustration) here in the Isle of Purbeck.

A number of people are running speed tests on a regular bases – I personally run hour tests using www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk as it keeps a record of all your tests and also allows you to export the results.

We would like to hear from anybody in the Purbeck area (Wareham through to Swanage) who is also experiencing fluctuating broadband speeds.

Please leave a comment below, stating your broadband supplier and a brief overview of the best and worst speeds.

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Tiscali customers frustrated by move to TalkTalk

Posted on December 17, 2010 by David

Tiscali customers are facing a second day of frustration as their phone lines are moved/migrated to TalkTalk.

Purbeck Broadband has heard from a number of customers who have no phone or broadband service. When speaking to customer support, they are told disruptions could last 24 hours, the same answer was given last week!

Are you a Tiscali user? Have any thoughts good or bad?

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Broadband Outage 29/30 November 2010

Posted on November 30, 2010 by David

Last nights Broadband outage that affected (some?) users in the Isle of Purbeck, appears to have been caused by planed engineering work in Reading by BT.

The outage lasted around two hours and appears to have come back on at 1.50am (approx.).

Speeds seem normal, although there has been some fluctuation over the last few days again!

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The BT Superfast Broadband Lottery

Posted on October 6, 2010 by David

On Monday (4th October 2010), BT announced Race to Infinity, a competition allowing members of the public and businesses the chance to vote for superfast fibre broadband to be installed at their exchange.

What is the Race to Infinity?
The Race to Infinity is a nationwide competition run by BT whereby members of the public and local businesses can vote to get our superfast fibre broadband, BT Infinity, in their exchange. The top 5 exchanges with the most registered interest as a % of the total telephone exchange size on 31st December will be added to BT’s fibre rollout plan. Exchanges need to get a minimum of 1,000 votes in order to enter the race. People will be able to register their interest via the web site (www.bt.com/racetoinfinity) from 4th October to 31st December 2010.

So after the race has finished, BT will upgrade the top 5 exchanges with the most votes registered as a percentage of the total telephone exchange size. But each exchange would need at least 1,000 votes in order to enter the race.

The Isle of Purbeck has 4 exchanges, located in Corfe Castle, Studland, Swanage and Worth Matravers (5 if you count Wareham). This would mean each exchange would be racing against each other, with Swanage and Wareham having a tactical advantage over the rest as they have a lot more people and businesses being served by their exchanges. Corfe, Studland and Worth have a limited number of residents and business with Studland and Worth falling way short of even the required 1,000 votes to enter.
Continue reading →

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Tip: Things to try if you have Broadband Problems

Posted on September 22, 2010 by David

We have put together a quick list of things to try if you are having problems with your Broadband.

Link: Things to try if you have Broadband Problems.

The list is by no means complete, so we will add more tips and advice soon.

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We need your help!

Posted on June 25, 2010 by Worth Matravers

If you are a resident of Purbeck (particularly if you are on the Corfe Castle or Worth Matravers telephone exchanges, though the problems may be more widespread) and are experiencing problems with your broadband connection (mainly fluctuating and inconsistent download speed at random times of the day and night, recently made worse by severe packet loss during afternoons and early evenings), and you wouldn’t mind your name being included in a complaint/report to the BT Chairman’s office, please get in touch either via email to info@purbeckbroadband.co.uk or the contact form.

Our ISP, Fast.co.uk, is willing to log a complaint/report with the BT Chairman’s office on our behalf on the issues we’ve been having with our broadband connections in the last seven months (we have supplied lots of evidence and hundreds of speed tests etc. in that time). But to give the complaint/report more weight, they would like to hear from other Purbeck residents who are having similar problems. The more residents who come forward and put their names to the complaint/report the more likely it is that BT will take it seriously. As things stand we have reached an impasse: our ISP can’t do anything more because BT Wholesale refuse to acknowledge that there is an underlying problem with broadband performance/speeds in some areas of Purbeck.

So, if you are as fed up as us with the quality of your broadband connection and want to help us try to do something to improve it, please get in touch. The more the merrier, as it were. A little community action and we might get this sorted before Christmas!

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Broadband Testers Required

Posted on June 18, 2010 by David

Hi, we are looking for volunteers who can ideally test their Broadband Speed and Ping Times* on a daily basis.

As you will have noticed, there has been an ongoing problem in the Purbeck area since December 2009, possibly even earlier. Our ISP (Internet Service Provider) has suggested that we collate data to persuade BT that there is still a serious problem that is causing random fluctuations in speed and loss of data (packet loss*).

Can you help?
If you live in the Isle of Purbeck and have 5 – 10 minutes spare a day to test your Broadband Speed and Ping Time (ideally first thing in the morning and again in the afternoon) then we would really appreciate it if you could visit the following websites and send us your results.

Continue reading →

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Fluctuating download speed and occasional packet loss – again

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Worth Matravers

Download speed and throughput are fluctuating again today. I’m also seeing packet loss. Nothing new then.

Just to let regular visitors to Purbeck Broadband know that lack of updates from us doesn’t mean that all is fine. I experience fluctuating download speed and throughput at various times throughout the day – it is rarely consistently fast. We tend to only add an update to the blog when things are worse than “normal”.

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Inconsistent download speed/throughput and packet loss

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Worth Matravers

For the last several hours download speed has been yo-yoing again – throughput is inconsistent. To make things worse, I’m seeing 5 – 10% packet loss during nearly every ping test. I was hoping to find the situation had improved after taking a two-week holiday, but if anything it’s worse than before I went away.

This issue started in December 2009. We’re now into June 2010 and there is no end in sight. It amazes me that BT can get away with providing a substandard broadband service for so long. My ISP has proved useless in getting BT to do something about the problem.

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General Election Slowness

Posted on May 7, 2010 by David

If you are experiencing slow broadband today, chances are it is due to the Election Coverage. As remarkable as it sounds, there are countrywide reports of general slowness and BT and ISPs (Internet Service Provides) are attributing the problem to a higher than normal use of the internet!

Normal service should resume once the mess is sorted out!

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