Slow BB and faulty router

[Captslog]

Having had slow speeds and dropouts since 22 Feb, I eventually got an engineer to call yesterday.  he reset the line and confirmed that as i suspected, the router is at fault.  There have been no lights on it for a while and although I was supposedly getting 34 mbps at the time of his visit, the router still only provided 12 Mbps wired to my PC. (yes, I have changed all the leads).

He said he's put in the report that the router was faulty but I'd still have to call.

So I called, and was told I'd have to pay for a new one.  When I questioned this I was told that I'd said the router was broken.  I pointed out that 'broken' does not 'smashed', there's no physical damage and why should I have to pay for TT's faulty equipment.

After getting an agreement to send a new router, free of charge, I asked for email confirmation of this whilst I was still on the phone (about an hour), but was told that this would not come until I'd finished the call.  A day later, I've still not had any confirmation that I won't get charged for a new router, or even that one is it's way to me.

My speed has been as low as 1Mbps, so it's getting steadily worse.

I have that sinking feeling that by the weekend I'll have to start all over again to try and rectify the fault.

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

Glad to hear our colleagues removed the previous engineer charge for you. 

Now the board has been changed, we can see if DLM will make any improvements over the next week.

Thanks  

Karl. 

[Captslog]

Hi.

I'm sorry i didn't get back and tell you the outcome, we had a busy week helping son move his business and then went away for a couple of days.

The engineer came and it was the same one as last time.  He nearly didn't come in as he said there was obviously some problem at the cabinet but i asked him to check here anyway.  He had  a look and confirmed that although he could get a decent download speed (i couldn't, it still never topped 20 on the new router) he couldn't get an upload of more than 0.5.  That was what I got too.

He said that he was going to change the board in the cabinet and that I would lose internet for a time after he'd left me.  Sure enough, the lights on the router went to orange and when they came back my internet was fixed.  Well almost, i now get 29-30 and an upload of 7, the latter making it much easier to use as i share photos quite a bit.  I can put up with the 29-30 even though it is under than guaranteed speed, because at least it's stable.

I was disappointed to find that I'd been charged £65 for the original visit on Feb 4th. It didn't seem correct when a). the engineer did a reset on my line when he came, and b). he found that I had a faulty router.  I've managed to get this waived via online chat.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

No problem

[Captslog]

Will do.

Thanks.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Captslog,

Monday wasn't available so I've booked the appointment for Tuesday April 19 2022, AM (8am-1pm) - please let us know how you get on

Chris

[Captslog]

Can you arrange for Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning please?

Thanks

[Chris-TalkTalk]

No problem, could you let us know when you can be available for the visit and we'll book it for you - appointment are either AM (8am to 1pm) or PM (1pm to 6pm) between Monday to Friday.

Thanks

Chris

[Captslog]

Okay,

Let's get him/her here then please.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Well your speed is significantly below the guaranteed minimum so there will be a reason for this. I think in this scenario it's unlikely that you would be charged for no fault found 

Chris

[Captslog]

Please can you tell me what happens/ gets charged if the engineer comes and DOESN'T fix it?

There's the scenario where he comes, resets the line and yet I still have slow speed and problems.  Just like last time.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

It would be an Openreach engineer visit

[Captslog]

And which category of visit would this be?

[Chris-TalkTalk]

There is a potential engineer charge. The following help article explains exactly when you would and wouldn't be charged - Engineers charges

Chris

[Captslog]

I'm fine with that on principle.  However, what is that going to cost?

Please bear in mind that I've already had one visit and there was nothing wrong in the house.  On that basis he's likely to find nothing wrong again and I'll get charged.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

OK thanks. To investigate further we'll need to arrange an engineer visit. If you'd like us to do this please let us know and we'll confirm some details

Chris

[Captslog]

It crackles a bit.  I put that down to it being cordless.

EDIT.  Just to go through some of the usual...

I have known the internet drop out during telephone calls, however, I don't do a lot of streaming at the same time as receiving/making calls.  Therefore I wouldn't notice if it did drop out.

I have tried disabling the Wifi, it makes no difference to the speed i get on the wired connection.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

OK thanks. Are you experiencing any problems with your telephone service, any noise on the line?

[Captslog]

One telephone socket.

A previous online chat agent had me pull the front off the prefiltered socket (he  said I was using it wrongly) to connect to the test socket behind using a mircofilter with two outlets, one phone and the other the BB.  the socket is NTE5c Mk4.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Thanks for answering the security questions. Could I just ask, how many telephone sockets do you have? Is your router currently connected to the test socket?

Chris

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi Captslog

Ok thank you. Your line is currently in sync at 25mb.

I'm just sending you a Private Message to confirm some details so we can check the predicted speed range for your line.

Thanks

Debbie