Crackling line, ADSL okay. Must be exchange?

For the past month I've been having increasing problems with crackling on my telephone line. It isn't constant and seems to start half a minute into a call. What is a little puzzling is that I can be asking the caller to repeat themselves because the crackling drowned them out while my modem is synced at 14Mb (33db atten.).

Last night took the biscuit.

A friend has been having ISP issues so I spent an hour comparing speed tests results. At one point I tried to tell him that TBB had reported a speed of 11.4Mb but I couldn't hear his reply for crackling.

I have an old engineer install so presumably I know that the crackling is either from my own wiring or the exchange. It can't be on the line itself otherwise I wouldn't get such good performance from the ADSL would I?

I also know that switching off the router doesn't cure the crackling and if I make another call immediately the crackling is there right from the off. If I wait half an hour the crackling isn't there at first but appears within half a minute.

My guess is that the voice card at the exchange is faulty. My ADSL is LLU so presumably it's quite possible for the voice side to be suffering issues without any impact on the ADSL.

Last time I had this it turned out to be water in a junction box but at the time BT faults detected it immediately and sent an engineer. This time despite several attempts they claim to be unable to detect a fault.

Thoughts?

Edited by Andrue (Fri 13-Mar-09 13:44:17)

When you reported the fault, did you use the online fault report or speak to an operator?

If you spoke to an operator, did he/she hear the noise?

Do you get the same noise if the phone is plugged into the engineer's socket with and without the modem connected?

I'm sure that you will have checked all these things, but I hope that you won't mind a prompt.

Regards,

Felix

So far none of the BT operators I've spoken to have heard it (basically Sod's law - it didn't crackle for me when talking to them either). Unfortunately the engineer I spoke to was in the Indian call centre and the line was just bad in the first place (how stupid is that?). Friends and family have heard it though.

I've heard the noise from the test socket once but admittedly not as bad as it can be. I'm going to do some more thorough tests tonight to try and confirm that it does occur on that socket. Unfortunately it can take time to appear (and never appears with the quiet line test) so that means finding someone who is happy to hang on to the line for minutes.

Edited by Andrue (Fri 13-Mar-09 14:44:59)

Have you got moe than one telephone and if so does it happen on all of them?

Yeah, I have several phones. One is cordless the others not and they have all exhibited crackling.

If I could get it to definately crackle on the test socket within a few minutes I could get BT out but I'm concerned that the engineer will turn up, listen for ten seconds say "no fault" and charge me £99.

Meh. Got home today, tried everything. Line is stubburnly crystal clear and perfect no matter what I do.

Hey ho.

Hmm, intermittent crackle, that only comes on after a period of time in the call, and the broadband is not affected ......
You implied that its just the DSL thats LLU, the voice is still from BT Wholesale ?

My guess would be the fuse on the EET in the exchange (the 'port' where your voice line appears on the MDF) before it is jumpered through the DSL equipment.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

My guess would be the fuse on the EET in the exchange (the 'port' where your voice line appears on the MDF) before it is jumpered through the DSL equipment.

I don't know the technology but that fits with my guess as well. Unfortunately BT faults can't find anything wrong and I don't fancy getting an engineer out in case I end up paying £100 for nothing.

..or worse still an engineer tweaking my line and ruining my ADSL.

Edited by Andrue (Sun 15-Mar-09 11:59:47)

Remote tests will find nothing, its the nature of the beast. If the crackle comes on, with nothing else but a corded phone connected to the test jack, I'd be brave and report it.