HOT VP = HOT VIRTUAL PATH = ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE OF ...

Question

Hey guys for my first post Im going to tell you about my nightmare Ive been having for quite a long time now with my Broadband connection
My Line rate is meant to be 8000k because I am very close to the exchange
In June 2010 I started noticing speed drops at peak times, I reported a fault, they sent an engineer out he couldnt find anything, I phoned them about 10-15 times, they insisted theres nothing that they could do. I gave up, and didnt bother phoning back in because I was getting around 2MB at peak times and 5MB off peak and I could live with this, just about.The exchange was due for an upgrade to ADSL2 in November so no point in pursuing further.
However, over the last 6 months, My broadband has been slowing and slowing and slowing down to an almost complete halt. I am now unable to play online games at peak times, I cannot watch Youtube or BBC I Player. My throughput has been between 300k-600k between 6.30pm and 12am. Sometimes It is impossible to do anything and its very frustrating. Mysteriously in September, the date of upgrade changed from November to April next year for ADSL2. My neighbour accross the road gets a stable 7MB all day long.
This prompted me to try again by starting a new fault, on the 26th of October. After around 5 phone calls, they sent an engineer out to my house, he ran some tests, told me he couldnt do anything. After around 30-40 phone calls, this repeated several times, until I got what I think was my 7th - YES 7TH!! engineer out, who told me I had a HOT VP and my equipment at the exchange needed an upgrade to allow more capacity for bandwidth. I said great finally we have got to the bottom of it, I cant wait to fix it now. So I phoned up technical help again, So they sent me another engineer, and another, and another. Each time they sent me an engineer, They couldnt do anything, They were not the right type of engineer to fix MY problem - HOT VP.
So after 10 engineer visits - yes 10!! I was not about to give up now. Even though quite laughably they sent me 1 engineer who did not even have a broadband fault diagnostic machine, instead they gave him an ancient ADSL speedtouch modem to test bb connections with!! and was complaining that his manager told him 'you dont need broadband fault training - just go out there and fix them' I did not know what else to do though, because the technical help centre in India was becoming a headache, I must have made about 40-50 phone calls in total to them over the last few months.  It really does seem as if its a complete dead end this whole thing.
But then I heard about bt.com/contact - now I didnt even know these guys existed until now - how many BT Broadband customers are out there who have made hundreds of phone calls to BT - or left BT because they are so fed up with the service they are recieving from India. Language barrier is one thing but the incompetence of the staff on the normal technical help line is simply something else - they have no idea what a HOT VP is. One woman in India told me 'your broadband equipment at the exchange has overheated and it needs to be cooled down' - I swear that is actually what she said!!!
Frankly I didnt care though, because now I had found a way of MAYBE getting something done about this nasty attrocious unbelievable nightmare of a fault. OK so I go onto bt.com/contact, tell them my frustrations and the fault etc. eventually they, the friendly helpful (perfect english speaking) Northern Ireland Tech help get back to me after contacting BT wholesale - 'BT wholesale have told us that there is nothing they can do to fix this just now - the earliest they can send an engineer to fix this will be April 2011'
Absolutely not acceptable - I told them I am not accepting this - and to go back to wholesale and keep trying - they were complaining about the language barrier - wholesale are impossible to work with. This might be why some customers complain of the 'BT Shunt' now I know exactly what this is. The advisor although sympathetic simply did not have anything to say to me other than 'BT wholesale do not understand - and are refusing to send an engineer out' - Id say this is probably true!
I am waiting for an answer on what the next step is going to be - I am not giving up now - I hate my broadband connection the way it is - unuseable
I wonder how much BT has spent trying to resolve my fault - thousands maybe - all those engineers and phone calls...
I will put further posts about what happens next...
Can anyone answer these questions for me, I couldnt get an answer over the phone:-
1) will completely disconnecting my line and reconnecting it back up resolve the problem?
I have been told that it is only my equipment that is effected so restarting may put me on another Stack
and this is true because my neighbours is perfect
2) will the ADSL2 upgrade in feb 2011 reolve the problem?
3) why would a package that costs £24.99 a month not have priority on the traffic at the exchange - whereas if you pay this kind of money with other companies eg plusnet - you get priority bandwidth.

Answer 1

Hi this may help no known hot vp's
Exchange Status Checker
Results: Ibrox
Code:
WSIBR
County:
Strathclyde
Enabled:
17 Nov 1999
Market:
3
Virtual paths: Green
There are currently no known capacity problems on your exchange. There may still be an exchange problem, however BT are not currently reporting that they are aware of it. Please contact Support if you are having speed problems, who can advise further.
Record last updated: 24 Dec 10
Historical information for this exchange:
Status
Date
17 Dec 10
10 Dec 10
03 Dec 10
26 Nov 10
19 Nov 10
Please note: This checker is not a generic fault tracker. It is updated weekly when updates are available and reflects a snapshot of speed capacity from each exchange. Results shown here should not lead you to conclusive proof of an issue.
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