Undisclosed upload/upstream issues

[dmart]

After experiencing some problems for more than a week, I've discovered that my upload is running at negligible levels of less than 10 kbps rather than 384, or it stops after a few seconds. Download (10MB) is fine. Telewest have now admitted there is an upload problem in my area (Gillingham) but they did not post it on the status page, even though it was recognised by them more than a week ago, and haven't given a fix time.

Not being an online gamer, it is not a showstopper but it was hard to detect and can be quite debilitating. With the benefit of hindsight, for example, it is the source of my problems getting into websites where to gain access my registration/access details have to be passed upwards to gain access. It looks like slow/busy sites but it isn't. And obviously I can't really send attachments to emails.

There are lessons here. Upload problems are not as obvious as download problems. They may not be so serious - at least that is the Telewest view. It seems to me that I've probably suffered them before - wasted time looking for solutions in vain and subsequently it has been fixed. So it is worth considering upload problems as distinct from the more obvious download problems.

It would be helpful if Telewest put such problems on the status page, and they should. But they would have to admit that it has a low priority and may take weeks to fix. I am still waiting.

[threluja]

After experiencing pretty much the same I complained to Telewest. I spent an hour on the phone in total before finally getting through to someone that I eventually managed to look at the network rather than tell me to phone a premium rate phone number to check my PC was setup correctly :rolleyes:

Anyway, the next day a nice network engineer called back and confirmed that they had in fact found an upload problem on one of the eight links in Gillingham (sorry can't remember what term he called them). It is currently under investigation pending a fix, I have been promised that they will call me next week to give me an update and will discuss compensation after that.

Problem is they say that they don't usually diagnose upload problems so they don't consider it an outage. I think its a pretty poor service to be honest not to even give out an ETA when they have diagnosed a problem.

To most people they will convince them that its their PC at the first line of support even though upload will affect all, especially with email and browsing. Not very good at all :td:

---------- Post added at 19:53 ---------- Previous post was at 19:44 ----------

If anyone else wants to test upload the easiest way is to go to www.adslguide.org.uk and use their speed test which tests upload as well as download. If you are getting timeouts on upload or exceptionally low numbers (I was getting 10-20 kbps on a 4mb link - should be getting towards 384 kbps) then complain, maybe the more that do, the more they may actually be interested in customer service.

[threluja]

As of today (1/10/06) things appear to be back to normal...3829kbps down and 356kbps up :)

[dmart]

Yes - late on 1 October my upload is back to normal. It has taken them a while to fix.

It pays to check uploads. Test sites include Speedtest.net or Dan Elwell's (but you have to pay on the latter if you want to test upload)

David M