Friday, 23 November 2018

More broadband blues

Yesterday lunchtime I officiated at the funeral at Thornhill crematorium of an 'ancient mariner', a man in his late eighties whose working life had been spent working on board ship, including his war years. His coffin was bedecked with the flag of the Merchant Marine, which was pleasing to see.

Over recent months our domestic broadband speed seems to have deteriorated significantly. It's most noticeable when Windows is updating or I'm uploading photos, which renders other networked attached devices almost unusable, as they're so slow. Running speed tests on Chromebook Windows and Linux devices, shows 1.4mbs download, and 0.7mbs upload speeds with an average seek time of 21-22mbs, occasionally much less. Is it a router fault, an incoming line problem or what? There are also times when the internet goes down altogether for 20 minutes, several times a week. A service which isn't as good as it used to be, and less than I pay for.

In addition, a while ago I tried attaching a storage device via USB and then a network port to the router, but couldn't see it on my computer network. I wondered why the router failed to recognise and attach the device, so tried accessing the router's software to check this detail, but the admin password printed on the router's label wouldn't let me in. I concluded this was a change in Talktalk policy to secure domestic devices, and gave up trying. Now, I'm starting to have doubts. 

This morning, I tweeted a complaint about speed to Talktalk, on by Blackbetter, form the attic, the only place where a reliable signal can be obtained direct from the mast, not from our internal phone signal via router device. It led to a diagnostic conversation via Direct Messaging, without resulting any improvement. I asked about password lockout but got no answer. An afternoon visit from an Open Reach line engineer was booked, but nobody showed up. Maybe an engineer overwhelmed by unresolved Friday calls on his services?

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