BT Infinity Extremely Slow Upload (380 Kb/s)

Question

I switched from Sky ADSL2+ to BT Infinity FTTC on 9/01/2014.
When I purchased BT Infinity on 27/12/13 in their confirmation e-mail BT wrote:
We estimate your download speed will be between 16.3Mb and 22.5Mb.
We estimate your upload speed will be between 2.2Mb and 4Mb.
I am about 1 mile away from my cabinet and connected with a copper line so these relatively low estimated speeds look reasonable to me.
My Sky ADSL 2+ Connection was providing 6.5Mb/s download and 0.85Mb/s upload so I thought it was worth switching.
SKY ADSL 2+
Every day since activation my BT Infinity speed has hovered around 15Mb/s download (fine) and 0.4Mb/s upload, sometimes dipping to as low as 0.2Mb/s but never exceeding 0.5Mb/s, which is negatively affecting my internet experience.
BT Infinity FTTC
I contacted BT several times and was instructed to measure the speed using a wired connection with speedtest.btwholesale.com, reset the hub, reboot my machine and so forth. Eventually various line tests were performed and a line fault was registered. A BT engineer visited on 25/01/14 and confirmed that my home wiring was fine, only one socket is wired with no extensions and the newest openreach face plate is fitted and working correctly. He tried also using a Home Hub 4 with separate modem. The same speeds were achieved. He tried switching the twisted pair connecting my master socket to the point at which the line enters my property. The same speeds were achieved. He informed me that although my line is quite long I am within the attenuation/capacitance limits and there seems to be no fault on the line. He recommended that I should request a broadband speed boost visit and that an engineer may be able to change the pair used to connect me to the cabinet which may improve the speeds. I contacted BT today and they refused to comply with this stating there was absolutely nothing further they could do to increase my upload speed.
BTW BT Infinity FTTC
I have a few questions:
1) How can BT so accurately estimate the download but not the upload speed?
2) Is the fact that my upload is 5x slower than estimated whilst the estimated download is accurate an indication of a problem with my line or with the setup in the cabinet or at the exchange?
3) How can the ADSL2+ provide double the upload speed of VDSL?
4) When the BT engineer connected his kit directly to the twisted pair it reported that the maximum download rate was approximately 12Mb/s and upload 1.2Mb/s. How can the download increase to 15Mb/s after the filter and modem are attached yet the upload drop by a factor of 3?
5) Is there any way to end this madness? I'd like to at least have my old upload speed back.
6) Since BT have signed the Ofcom Voluntary Code of Practice on Broadband Speeds which specifies:
“If ... the customer continues to receive an access line speed significantly lower than the estimate provided at point of sale the ISPs should offer the customer with an alternative broadband package. Consumers should not incur any change of package penalty in order to migrate onto a different broadband package under these circumstances other than those charges that would have applied had they signed up to that lower package in the first instance.” I, of course, have the right to switch to a cheaper package from BT such as ADSL2+ without a charge. Is it likely this will again double my upload speed?
(All speeds mentioned were measured using a wired gigabit ethernet connection to the home hub 5 modem/router and the website speedof.me, these results match within error those taken using speedtest.btwholesale.com. No wireless devices were connected to the hub and only the speed test was running on an Intel Core i5, 8GB Ram, ASUS P8Z77-V LX machine. They agree within error with measurements taken using a Mac Book Pro with 5GHz wi-fi.)
Home Hub 5 Stats:
1. Product name:
BT Home Hub
2. Serial number:
3. Firmware version:
Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.173.1.6 (Type A) Last updated 10/01/14
4. Board version:
BT Hub 5A
5. VDSL uptime:
0 days, 00:41:10
6. Data rate:
387 / 15534
7. Maximum data rate:
449 / 15779
8. Noise margin:
8.2 / 6.4
9. Line attenuation:
0.0 / 32.7
10. Signal attenuation:
0.0 / 26.2

Answer 1

Hi Bob101,
Thanks for the post and welcome to the forum.  Sorry to hear of the problems you are having with your upload speed.
If im honest something doesn't sound right.  Our speed estimates are just that, estimates but they are generally pretty close and certainly should not be way off the mark.  I cant comments on what is going on until I take a look at your connection stats for my end.  I would also like to review the engineer report.
Can you please get your details off to me and I will see what I can do.  Please drop me an email, just click on my username (SeanD), and you will find my contact link under the 'About me' section of my profile.
Cheers
Sean 
BTCare Community Manager
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