It is quite clear to us that BT's 21CN network simply cannot cope with demand at present. We would not make such a statement without evidence, obviously. We send an LCP echo to every line every second and plot the results. We have clear evidence of a significant portion (around half) of BT 21CN lines that we have showing serious loss and latency problems within BT.
The problems are high latency and some packet loss, mostly during the day where there are any high levels of streaming media. This has a major effect on the performance of internet access generally and is very serious for anyone using interactive terminal sessions and VoIP. The issues relate to specific BRAS/metro-nodes within BT and so are clearly not our end or the link from us to BT.
Sadly BT still do not provide any guarantee or even target for loss and latency on their service. The problems are within BT and so we cannot do much to work around them. Where we get peaks in traffic (e.g. during some of the major football matches) we have been able to prioritise VoIP and customers paying for premium lines - but this only helps on our link to BT. BT have recently admitted that the premium option does not help with congestion within BT between us and the BRAS, so even paying BT for a better service does not help this situation.
We have been chasing BT for this for weeks now, and are getting nowhere. Hopefully this posting will prompt BT to make some formal response to their apparent capacity issues. Either admitting they can't cope, claiming the service is working as designed (i.e. designed not to cope) or if we are very lucky - giving a clear timescale for when it will be fixed.
We challenge BT to actually make a statement on this matter now...
Where we had major issues like this in December, and where BT did not take prompt action then, we were able to report thousands of faults - i.e. each line with high latency was reported as a valid fault and rejected back to BT until fixed. BT have (yesterday) changed their system so that doing this now means having to call them for every fault every time they fail retest as they are now insisting we buy their investigation service (a service which does not investigate back-haul issues) before we can reject a fault back to them. So, instead of fixing the actual problem, they have made it harder for all ISPs to manage faults. It is, in my opinion, very much like putting your fingers in your ears and chanting loudly "No BTW fault" so that they cannot hear us.
In spite of us chasing via the proper channels for weeks we heard recently that the person in charge of 21CN WBC was unaware of any problems. Let's hope he is aware now.
I really hate to have to resort to this sort of public humiliation as a way to get BT to do the right thing. We, as a company, really want to work with BT to resolve issues quickly and professionally. We have tried. We continue to try.
We hope BT can be professional and stop messing about and get these apparent major capacity issues fixed now.
Over to you BT...
By the way - if we do get a sensible response from BT I'll be happy to post details on here. This is not a "BT hate site" by any means and I want to be fair.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/01/aa_bt/
This afternoon a spokesman told The Register: "BT's 21CN offers more than adequate capacity, using the latest technologies."
We are pleased to hear it. This must mean that the high latency and packet loss we are seeing can't possibly be a simple matter of lack of capacity then can it? It must be a FAULT.
Maybe the next step is to report several thousands faults?
I can report that we are working with our BT account team and senior BT management to ensure that they fully understand the issues. We hope to have more detailed updates in a few days.
As I said, it is always regrettable when issues get to this stage and we a keen to work closely with BT in future to provide a smoothly running service to all of our customers.
We're still working with BT at a high level on this. I feel they are starting to understand the issues better. Hopefully we'll have some news to report next week on this for both the current congestion issues and the longer term.