Broadband problems in the Brighton area?

[Superslacks]

Hello guys,

Since last Thursday I have had extremely slow/non-existent broadband connectivity 99% of the time. For the most part I get about a 50% reply to my pings to various websites. Sometimes it's better, sometimes I get no replies whatsoever. The ping reply time is about normal (I think) when I do get replies; about 10ms or so.

There doesn't seem to be any pattern with regards to when I use it. It does appear to be entirely random.

It seems to coincide with some maintenance work that was carried out Thurs morning between midnight and 6am (apparently).

To cut a very, very long and angry story short, ntl online tech support last night did some tests and said it was probably a problem with the line, and this morning an engineer was called round to have a look and confirmed it was indeed a problem with the line. I wasn't there at the time but my flatmate was.

Anyways, despite my large notice on my monitor for the engineer to call me before he left (inc. my contact numbers), and my flatmate telling him to do so, he turned up something on the line (the 'gain' I think) and then buggered off, saying that if I had any further problems to call ntl. If he'd have bothered to even load up a webpage he could have seen that there was still a whopping great problem in the form of an unusably slow broadband connection. And yes, he had full access to my computer as he asked my flatmate to get my password, which I duly gave.

Anyways, there is apparently some essential maintenance going on in Brighton including the Preston Park area (where I live), but nobody from ntl can tell me if it's gonna fix my problem or not, so I have to wait until this evening to see if the maintenance is in response to slow performance in the area of whether it's just routine stuff.

Are there any Brighton ntl users here who have experienced similar problems with their broadband?

(On a side-note, with the exception of the speediness of getting an engineer out, their customer service has been absolutely, positively shocking. If I wrote at length about it I'd get angry and have to go for another walk 'n' smoke, so I won't. But....grrrrrr!)