What has happen to my connection

Hello friends.

I'm worried. I have a FTTC connection with Zen. I've had it since I moved into this house in 2015. Generally no problems what-so-ever other than Network wide outage very rarely.

However today. My internet went down. I did the usual. Gave it a little time assuming it was a DNS issue or perhaps an outage, I checked service status and saw a bunch of things listed and a large incident in Scotland.

However it is still not back hours later but worse it appears as though it is my line.. What could sudden cause my line to not be working? The white BT modem is constantly trying to train (i think that is the expression).

It connected twice but appeared to connect as ADSL speeds, almost as if it was not a FTTC connection and instead a classic old style connection.

I got this from Zen's customer portal of line data:
https://imgur.com/ITeiF7y

If I'm reading it right, it is slowly reducing in speed until it hits about 3.5Meg?

What could have happened here? Has a BT Engineer installed a new connection and messed with mine? Or could a line fault cause this, perhaps brought on by the hot weather or heavy rain?

Zen's support lines are closed, seems odd but is that Covid related? I'd expect 24 hour or at least until late phone support for an outage (but I might be a little used to business level support).

Could just be excess amounts of water causing problems with joints

It has not rained here since last night but that sounds more promising than panicked brain imagined. I'm a looooong time user here. I have been lucky to have a decent net connection since I moved but prior I had a lot of trouble with trying to ADSL in the days before VDSL.

Hope you are well MrSaffron, hoping a call to Zen will sort this in the morning.

Providing an update incase this helps anybody in future.

As MrSaffron suspected it is a line fault and they also suspect water in the joints. It has been raised as a fault with Open Reach who will hopefully resolve it by Monday.

Zen were really good as always. They have reduced opening hours on their support centre at the moment due to Covid-19.

I will post back when resolved. Hearing horror stories about what could have gone wrong got me worried.

I remember someone made a post yesterday regarding flooding in Edinburgh and Fife which had knocked out broadband.
https://digit.fyi/bt-internet-services-across-edinbu...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53748192

Could be something to do with that.

When should I worry that this still hasn't been fixed? Zen have raised a fault with BT but they have still not resolved the issue. It keeps being delayed.

If Zen has raised fault with Openreach, next step is usually an engineer visit, has Zen given any indication for that date?

Hi,

So the engineer visit slot came and went twice but then out of the blue today, having heard little from Zen they phoned to confirm a visit would happen today.

Sounds like Zen have been at the mercy of an over stretched Open Reach. They did come out this time and have managed to resolve the problem.

The engineer needed to check something on the line where it entered my property, I wore a face mask and offer them a drink but they had to refuse (I forgot about potential cup contamination) anyway, I spoke to the engineer for a few minutes and they suggested it was due to an error made in a recent unrelated engineer visit.

It seems like the fault has now been fixed. So thank you to MrSaffron and others as always for being here to give advice and insight.....

I suffer from anxiety and rely very heavily on my internet connection for work and to connect with the outside world. My paranoid brain had told me somebody had deliberately stolen my FTTC connection because the cabinet was oversubscribed. It is daft when I read it back but my condition means when an ISP or service provider doesn't communicate well, my brain will fill the gaps with paranoid theories.

For full context... In 2005 I bought a flat because I knew the area had ADSL (before FTTC) only to find that the line was poor and far from the exchange. I remember what was supposed to be the happiest day to be miserable and feeling like I'd thrown £120K down the drain on a flat I would not want to live in.

I tried everything, I pestered a company trialing WiMax in the area to give me a connection. It got me 3Meg with huge latency (better than the 0.2mb I was getting via phone) but they went bust months later.

Eventually FTTC came to the area and it improved my life. I have moved again since again to an area I was convinced had Fibre. I made it the sale contingent on solid proof it did. So you can see how vital (to me) this matter is. Big love for this site, it has many times helped me out.