BT wireless 'problem' - a rip-off?

[MISS.CANDY]

Hi

I'm sure I'm not alone in this concern - I recently moved house and as soon as I plugged my wireless router into the new house, it failed to get a connection. After 2 investigations by BT, they concluded it was a fault with my router (rather than with the phone connection) and therefore I must pay their fixed £180 charge for coming to the house. I am annoyed about this, as I am still not convinced it is the router - why would it suddenly fail just because I moved house? I have moved house with the same router previously, and it worked fine - just 'plug and play', even though I am not a techie. Should I resist paying the charge? Even if it was the router at fault, how could I have possibly known that in advance? I didn't have a spare router or anyone to lend me one!

Comments/advice very welcome!

[sammyc]

Hi and welcome Your best bet is to re-post your query* in the specific section for all broadband stuff, http://forums.hexus.net/networking-broadband/, more people will see it & hopefully be able to help.

Enjoy being a hexus community member.

[0iD]

I've asked an admin to move it to the Networking & Broadband area.


Welcome to Hexus MISS.CANDY

[Jay]

Get yourself a second router and test it out.

[TheAnimus]

I had something similar to this years ago with BT in the days of Home Highway ISDN. These boxes used to break about once every 4 months or so, one day when a BT engineer was looking at the problem, actively watching my line status it started working agian, they decided it must have been my modem, so asked me to pay £60. I politely asked them to prove this was the case.

When they couldn't they didn't carry the fee.

[Dingo]

You wouldn't be able to know that in advance but you should ask them to prove to you that there is a solid connection coming into the premises before you consider paying them. In addition make sure you re-seat your wireless card in the pc just in case it became dislodged when you moved, and dig out your router CD, unless you know the ip to access it (192.168.1.1 address), to make sure the router settings are all fine.

I have had similar problems with the "boys from BT" all too ready to blame routers and not their lines. Fortunately I have a separate ISP who were also helpful in pointing me in various directions to solve the problem.

I downloaded Router Lite and monitored the connection for a couple of weeks and it clearly showed, in my case, that the line was dropping out at regular intervals and for hours at a time, due to the BT line.....needless to say I did not pay their call out fee!!

get it here
http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/internet/fi...outerstatslite


Scroll down to make sure you download the Lite version, which is plug and play, and you can select from a list of routers within the programme.


As to a "loaner" to test, someone on the forums may live near you and be able to help on that score as they are a great bunch here, but of course you will have to let them know which area you live in!!


Let us know how it goes

[MISS.CANDY]

Thanks to everyone for these replies...I'll take your advices! The whole thing is becoming a royal pain in the posterior!

[CrazyMonkey]

Did it fail to get a wireless connection and a wired connection or just wireless?

I once had what the engineers said was a dodgy router, but it was just the line dropping every odd hour, internal LAN would work solidly no problems. I ended up leaving BT as i thought they were pants.

[Stoo]

BT basically suck - they know full well that their phone lines are pretty much unfit for the purpose of ADSL unless you happen to live close to the exchange.

Refuse to pay the charge and complain to the chief exec via email - you'll get the charge revoked or refunded if you pay via direct debit.

If they cannot conclusively prove that it is your hardware at fault, they have no right to charge you.

I've had them fiddle at the cabinet down the road, turn up and try to say that there was nothing wrong and then try to charge us - luckily I was running line stats and saw the line drop out when the engineer was playing in the cab, then come back with virtually no noise for when he turned up..

Refused to pay, complained to the CEO, had the charge revoked..

Oddly enough we've got a crappy line again, and no doubt if we get them out they'll try to blame our equipment and charge us once more - despite the fact that we've removed and replaced every bit of hardware connected to the line - yet the fault is still there, and gets worse as the weeks go by..

[MISS.CANDY]

Did it fail to get a wireless connection and a wired connection or just wireless?

I once had what the engineers said was a dodgy router, but it was just the line dropping every odd hour, internal LAN would work solidly no problems. I ended up leaving BT as i thought they were pants.

Well, they are pants as an ISP, but this was just the broadland line engineer - and we all use BT lines via our various ISPs - don't we? I used to have BT as an ISP, but they were expensive and had a dreadful support line. When I left them, they were even worse - continuing to send me bills for years, despite the fact I had not broken their contract....had been with them more than the minimum 12 months.... had given them (more than) enough notice and had paid them up to the date I finished using them. Despite trying to explain this to various semi-English speaking twerps in Bombay on numerous occasions - they kept sending me bills and eventually threatened to sue me! I would have quite enjoyed seeing them in court, given all the evidence - but eventually the penny dropped and they closed my account. I would advise people NEVER to use BT as an ISP.

Returning to your first question - no, I think it was just wireless. Various other tests were carried out, and it seemed like it should work. Perhaps it was the router after all - but it seems a mighty co-incidence that it should happen to fail just because I plugged it into a different house!

Thanks a lot for your reply.

Miss C.

[MISS.CANDY]

BT basically suck - they know full well that their phone lines are pretty much unfit for the purpose of ADSL unless you happen to live close to the exchange.

Refuse to pay the charge and complain to the chief exec via email - you'll get the charge revoked or refunded if you pay via direct debit.

If they cannot conclusively prove that it is your hardware at fault, they have no right to charge you.

I've had them fiddle at the cabinet down the road, turn up and try to say that there was nothing wrong and then try to charge us - luckily I was running line stats and saw the line drop out when the engineer was playing in the cab, then come back with virtually no noise for when he turned up..

Refused to pay, complained to the CEO, had the charge revoked..

Oddly enough we've got a crappy line again, and no doubt if we get them out they'll try to blame our equipment and charge us once more - despite the fact that we've removed and replaced every bit of hardware connected to the line - yet the fault is still there, and gets worse as the weeks go by..

Hi

Thanks a lot for this reply. I think I will try to put up a fight re the charge if I send my router back to Netgear and they find that it works....but I'm slightly losing the will to live! Having just moved house, there's so many other 'issues' going on....especially with utilities, (can't they ever get it right?) that its all getting exhausting...on top of keeping the day job!

Miss C.