telewest appear unable to supply 4 meg in bristol but still charging for it

[sturitch]

hi all Just one question and a warning for new customers, I live in bristol whare the technical team tell me the service is at 95% saturation meaning alothough each month I pay for a 4meg service i recive less than a 257k service.
Why when telewest know this are the billing me for a service they do not provide and if you are new to telewest broadband check if the can deliver 256k never mind 4meg or 10meg unless you know how to check you are recieving the correct service they will happly take your money and give you nothing but flannel and excuses.
It is like ordering 4 pints of milk a day then they deliver half a pint but you still have to pay for 4 pints till the end of your contact but you can write to the head office about it in the mean time you are still only getting half a pint and yes we are still charging you for four .
When you ask about a refund it goes all quiet and you are told to right to the company head quarters, nice customer service that eh!

[Druchii]

Demand a refund for services that they cannot provide. Also, downgrade your package to the lowest you can. 95% saturation is a real problem, and until they upgrade their capacity it won't get any better.

Good Luck, and write a letter, sent by recorded delivery ;)

[Graham M]

Sturitch, can you do the speed test on the Navbar up above and paste your results here

[sturitch]

hi thanks for the replies I am not sure what speed test you would like me to do I cant see alink for it.
I can ping bbc if that any good?

---------- Post added at 16:36 ---------- Previous post was at 16:32 ----------

ok ran ping the average was 75ms with 25% packet loss (three times).I down loaded a microsoft file and the speed was 50 kb/sec if you want me to do another test please let me know but idiot proof instuctions please lol

[Druchii]

This is the speedtest hat was mentioned above...
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/speed.php

I get the following results from my 4Mb service...
Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:40:19 GMT

1st 512K took 4688 ms = 109.2 KB/sec, approx 900 Kbps, 0.88 Mbps
2nd 512K took 5392 ms = 95 KB/sec, approx 783 Kbps, 0.76 Mbps
3rd 512K took 5703 ms = 89.8 KB/sec, approx 740 Kbps, 0.72 Mbps
4th 512K took 4173 ms = 122.7 KB/sec, approx 1011 Kbps, 0.99 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 859 Kbps, 0.84 Mbps



To repeat this test from the source server click here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.marsden/newspeedtest.html?1143391240609).

[sturitch]

ok thank you for the dummy proof instuctions much appreciated here is the results better than usual

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:51:34 UTC

1st 512K took 13079 ms = 39.1 KB/sec, approx 322 Kbps, 0.31 Mbps
2nd 512K took 24875 ms = 20.6 KB/sec, approx 170 Kbps, 0.17 Mbps
3rd 512K took 18421 ms = 27.8 KB/sec, approx 229 Kbps, 0.22 Mbps
4th 512K took 27157 ms = 18.9 KB/sec, approx 156 Kbps, 0.15 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 219 Kbps, 0.21 Mbps

Thats the second fastest time i have ever seen it do.

[Druchii]

Have you heard about the little trick they're telling us to do ?
Open your main download, and a duff one. (One you don't want)
Leave it a minute or so, this should maximize your connection, then close the duff one.
Hopefully the other one will pick up due to the available bandwidth.

It worked for me earlier, i saw download speeds of 135kbps, which is amazing for this line at the moment.

[sturitch]

I will give it a try, cute idea making some elbow room If it does work it kind of prooves whats happening thank you for the tip.
I think telewest are playing on the ignorance of most people who if they havent learned any different (like myself till very recently) are assuming all is well.
I can understand the difficulties of providing a service of this magnitude and wouldnt mind the odd day or two of the mark , even more if they were to tell you and appologise amending the bill automatically.
It makes them appear iffy tho when you have find out for your self then wade through the eec excuse mountain before getting the truth and haveing to ask for a refund.
Ok thanks again for the help im off to give that a try