+1 for a developing HR dis fault on your line.

Calls affecting DSL synch and actually hearing the modem "chatter" as you put it in another post are absolutely typical symptoms. As is seeing a temporary improvement in service after a line test is performed.

Not always the easiest of faults for an engineer to identify or resolve. Quite often the automated line tests used do not pick them up leading to a "nothing wrong with it mate".

Usual cause is a corroding joint somewhere on the line. Left long enough it will fail altogether at which point it becomes very easy to locate! That can take years though.

Best of luck.

Quick update - Openreach engineer came around yesterday, lovely chap. Did the full range of line tests. Managed to get a better downstream speed than I'd been getting out of his test equipment, but mentioned that it's often a side effect of doing the tone tests.

Tests revealed that the power values on the downstream were low, and that out of 3 copper line tests, two revealed intermittent errors. So he swapped the copper line back to the exchange (which seems to have lead to an immediate improvement in speed, currently synced at 5696), and has requested that Zen authorise the swapping of the line card, which will have to be done as a separate job, apparently..

In reply to a post by mrbiggs:

Quick update - Openreach engineer came around yesterday, lovely chap. Did the full range of line tests. Managed to get a better downstream speed than I'd been getting out of his test equipment, but mentioned that it's often a side effect of doing the tone tests.

Tests revealed that the power values on the downstream were low, and that out of 3 copper line tests, two revealed intermittent errors. So he swapped the copper line back to the exchange (which seems to have lead to an immediate improvement in speed, currently synced at 5696), and has requested that Zen authorise the swapping of the line card, which will have to be done as a separate job, apparently..

Looking good.

Let us know how it all goes

An update.. Zen monitored the line over the weekend, and again there were sync drops and my router froze up again. Support called me yesterday to organise another Openreach engineer visit to perform the lift & shift. I'd misunderstood thinking that the previous chap swapped the line. Luckily a slot was available this morning.

OR chap (a different guy, nowhere near as chatty as the previous one) showed up and didn't have a clue about the fault case, had to explain it all from scratch. Did the usual round of line tests and then left to swap the line at the exchange. Took him about half an hour, called me up to tell me he'd done it, and then called me 10 minutes later saying there were some tests he'd forgot to perform, so it'd be another 10 minutes before it was stable.

Since then - no improvement in sync speed from before, and sync has dropped three times. Downstream power is still rated at 0.0dBm. The router did manage to sync in ADSL2+ mode briefly, but then this dropped and it resynced with ADSL2 as before. Zen say they're monitoring overnight and will bounce the case back to Openreach if need be. Top marks to Zen support for being proactive and on the ball here.

Current stats (10pm in the evening) are: current sync 5295, max possible sync 5672, attn 47.5dB, SNR 3.1dB, down from 6.2dB this afternoon. Voice line clear so far.

I may now be clutching at straws, thinking that I should be getting better speeds (in the 6500 region) and better stability even on this longish line, but this is now becoming an obsession!

I've been looking at the drop wire coming in from the pole. None of the OR engineers have done this. Mine is an old property (1930s) and the poles, etc on my road all look original, presumably 1950s. From the pole, the wire terminates on a bracket at the corner of the house, goes into a junction box, and there's a grey, flat figure-of-eight wire that runs down from there and across the front of the house before terminating at a junction box just inside the front door. Looks pretty weather-beaten and brittle.

I opened this box just to have a peek, and was surprised to see only two wires coming in, connected up to some modern-looking twisted-pair which leads to the NTE5. So it looks like the drop wire is fairly old, non-twisted pair stuff which could be picking up all sorts of extraneous noise from outside! Hmm.. I've mentioned this to Zen, hoping that there's a case for Openreach to replace this.

Edited by deleted (Tue 23-Aug-11 22:32:40)

A quick update - sync drops and speed fluctuations continued in the week after this and Zen kept the fault open. They requested Openreach go through their 'quality gates' process and an engineer came out on Friday.

I mentioned the drop wire, he took one look at it and said "that's your problem, mate, that'll be 40 years old". He replaced it with nice new twisted pair. Since then, my router's held a solid sync at 5600 and hasn't dropped once in three days. Zen have now closed the fault.

Providing the line stays stable, I'm happy that the line is now probably the best it can be until the fibre cab that was installed next to my local PCP last month is made live. No sign yet, and the RFS date I had (end of this month) has disappeared from the BT checker. Who knows what's going on - but that's another story!

Great news.

Had exactly the same issue myself a couple of years back. The piece of cable that you describe, in my case was old lead cable, probably from the original installation. My house dates back to the late 1700's, so God only knows how old the original installation was!!! (when were phones invented?) Cracked in places and damp was getting in, hence why an intermittent fault that only got really bad in driving rain. Took them ages to spot it, they looked absolutely everywhere else. Only when I got a ladder out and poked around, did I spot it. So opened the junction box and you could see how corroded the wires were, One light touch with my little finger and one of the cores broke off. So with line now dead, BT finally (3 engineers turned up) spotted fault and replaced said cable. With the comment that they were surprised no one had spotted it before. You've got to laugh.

Edited by MrBeeline (Mon 26-Sep-11 15:50:44)