How do I report congestion?

[Bludger]

Hi,

For the last 6 weeks now I have been getting around 50% packet loss on my 2MB connection, but only on Friday afternoons! The rest of the week my connection is perfect. Sometimes the problem only lasts half an hour, othertimes it lasts for 2, 3 or 4 hours.

I've just got off the phone to the helpdesk and I just go through all the same rigmarole every time. They always seem really shocked when they say "can you access the internet" and I say "yes". Well, that's fine then they say. They don't seem to have a clue about intermittent packet loss :-(

I've come to my own conclusion that this can only be congestion on my UBR. Trace route shows packet loss even on the first hop, IP address is 10.28.12.1 which I assume is some kit in the green cabinet in the street.

Do I really have to put up with this? Ok, it's only on Fridays but I'd like my connection to be useable at any time. I phone up every time and they just add a bit more to my call log (I hope) and fob me off. I've already had 2 engineers round (when it's working perfectly) and I've had my modem replaced with a ntl:250. I said to the engineer then that I suspected that wouldn't solve the packet loss problem but he assured me it would because he said my old Motorola SB4100 was an antique.

Do NTL monitor the UBR's at all. Can they tell when they are congested or do they rely on customers pestering them for months before they decide to add more capacity. I wish I knew who it was in my road that feels the need to do some large upload (probably) every Friday. Not that I can do anything about it, surely they are perfectly entitled to do that.

I just wish I knew what the solution was. Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks

NTL do monitor their UBRs but it's very doubtful most of the people you might talk to when you phone up would know anything about it. Still, pestering helps.