Latest garbage from BT support - the "fault thresh...

Question

Hi all -
So, after months and months - and months - of messing around, spending hours on the phone etc., and following two visits from Open Reach engineers (which I was NOT invoiced for, NB – meaning faults lay beyond my door and not within), it transpires that I must accept a line speed of 0.5mbs.
Let me put that another way. I may well experience speeds of up to - wait for it, wait for it – 1.0mbs, (a speed I *regularly* received from my previous provider - five years which now feel like a golden age, compared to the last 5 months or more).
In the last 3 months, I would guess that my connection has run at 1.0mbs for an hour here and there. Definitely not for any prolonged length of time - e.g. a day or more. Rather, for 95% of the time, the connection has been bumping along the bottom - running at around half a meg. Often slumping to 0.3, and - for a fortnight recently - glimmering very faintly at 0.1mbs.
To say I am extremely dissatisfied with this service – and indeed that of customer support – is at this juncture a huge understatement. This morning I was informed that although I now continuously experience an almost unbroken speed of 0.5mbs I cannot expect much better than this, nor can this be reported as a fault, and thus a case cannot be opened.
Pardon?? 0.5mbs CANNOT be reported as a fault?? But I signed a contract stating that I would received a connection speed between 1mbs and 2mbs. Or did I? Customer support asked me if I could be certain of this. I said yes. Well in any case, I was informed that there is a “fault threshold” that would create a speed below 1mbs (the person I spoke to could not tell me how slow this resultant speed would be, however).
In short, it transpires that there was some small print somewhere to the effect that 1mbs was the max, not 2mbs – and, moreover, that a fault threshold clause somehow manages to make 1mbs the maximum speed. I don't know. I'm not at all clear on any of this - and I'm not entirely sure anyone else is either.
All I *do* know is that for the best part of 5 years I have been able to watch YouTube clips without endless, teeth-gnashingly maddening buffering, and yet since changing to BT about 6 months ago this is has been a rare event indeed. In the past, I learned to drum from YouTube, I've been able to see how to repair and maintain various household appliances and equipment from radios to motorbikes, and now – nope. No way. Just not possible any more.
Yes, yes – my previous provider could be flaky. There were certainly times when I experienced frustrations at various faults. But – as I said – compared to BT they were giants in their field. They were in the broadband pantheon. To find, this morning, after so much futzing and phoning, that there is this “fault threshold” thing, effectively ensuring that I will now remain at 0.5mbs, is – I feel – some extremely devious sleight of hand on the part of BT.
Because really – come on – my connection has increased from 0.3mbs to 0.5mbs. I CHALLENGE ANYONE ANYWHERE TO DETECT SUCH A DIFFERENCE. That should NEVER be regarded as an improvement, it should NOT be definable as a fault located and resolved. And yet my case has been closed – hell, I never even received a call to ASK ME IF THE FAULT HAD BEEN RESOLVED.
BT Customer Support is obliged to call you following efforts to resolve a problem with your connection. But they did NOT call. Categorically, absolutely – nobody from Customer Support rang me following the visit by an Open Reach engineer last Friday. And you can of course guess why. Precisely because I would have stated that, no, the fault has most definitely NOT been resolved. I mean, seriously – can you imagine it? Sir, can you please now go to the test site and measure your connection speed? Yes certainly....*test, test*....oooh, super! Brilliant! The fault has been resolved – look, I'm now getting a glorious 0.5mbs rather than the paltry 0.3mbs that I was receiving prior to the efforts of the Open Reach engineer. FFS!!
Mine are very modest requirements for a broadband customer. I have never sought to DL films, or do whatever else it is possible to do with a 5mb connection or more. No. All I ask is for a more or less stable connection of 1mbs. I am very hacked off with BT. I feel like I've been paying for a service I've not been receiving – and been thoroughly ripped off. It's been pillar to post, endless rounds of call queues and b*llsh*t service. And now this – the “fault threshold” gambit. Genius. Utter genius. I have to admit, this is a masterstroke. My god, you've got to hand it to them.
Solved!
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Answer 1

In that case why do I keep getting a message from BT telling me to reset my router?? If resetting my router is the worst thing I could possibly do, don't you think BT would ensure that no instruction to do so would be repeatedly sent to me??
Or am I missing something very obvious here? Is there a screen that I'm missing that says something along the lines of " We know we have just told you to go straight to your BT router and press the reset button on the side of it, but in fact that is actually the worst thing to do - and for this reason you must utterly disregard our first instruction."
Because I am not seeing such a message. All I ever see is the first message. So now I am wondering if resetting my router is the worst thing to do, quite why BT would tell me to do that.
Now, straight on the heels of that, let me tell you - here and now - that I do believe you. I do believe that resetting my router is the worst thing to do. Because it all fits in with the level of service I have received right from the very beginning of this sorry, pathetic fiasco - a fiasco that I am paying hand over fist for, and yet repeatedly, determinedly and resloutely not receiving. To wit, broad band. My speed has hardly ever been fast enough to be regarded as broad band. But of course that's precisely what I've been billed for.
So - now that you tell me BT are instructing me to do something that is wholly opposed and very much at odds with what I actually SHOULD be doing - I realise that you simply *must* be right. Because this utterly perverse and wrong development is totally in keeping with every other aspect of the provision I have received.