Intermittant phone line noise

Up to 7 days ago, I had an excellent phone line, and a sync speed of 7616 on my BT Up to 8M broadband.
Since last Monday, I've had intermittant loud crackles on my phone line (which make conversations impossible), and frequent broadband disconnections. My download speed has halved.
Nothing has changed at my end, and I'm sure the problem lies in the line to the exchange, or at the exchange itself. I have no extensions, just the BT Hub and a single phone plugged into the BT master socket.
The BT Openreach man has just been, and of course did not find any fault with my line. He has declared the matter closed, because there was no noise when he tested.
My sync speed was just over 6m immediately after he left, but will drop again when the next noise burst comes along.
How do I go about progressing this with BT ? All I want is a reliable 24/7 usable phone, plus getting my 7616 sync speed back.
Oh, and I think I'll be charged £120 if I call them again and they still can't hear any noise !

If you plug just the phone into the test socket inside the master socket, on the wall at the back in this pic, do you get noise then?

Don't use a filter, don't connect any ADSL kit at all, and preferably try two different phones. A corded one is best, but if you only have cordless then you need to try an alternative base station, not just a handset.

Alternatively, if you disconnect the phone (or base station) from the filter does the broadband still have problems?

You can also record noise changes on the ADSL frequencies by downloading RouterStats Lite, which will graph the noise margin. Set it to keep a log file as well, which could be useful as evidence.

Thanks Bob, that's interesting.
Yes, I've removed the faceplate, and am using the test socket, but since I only have one socket (it's the master) and no extensions, I don't think the faceplate matters. I have DECT phones, and a BT Home Hub plugged into that socket, that's all,
I've tried it with JUST a corded phone plugged in, and still get the intermittant line noise, so I don't think there's any more I can physically do.
I honestly believe that the noise is from the exchange and/or their line, I just don't know how to progress it with them. I've spoken to BT BRoadband too, and as soon as I mentioned the line noise, they referred me to the BT Phone people.

I will certainly try the Routerstats software. Hopefully that will show graphically when the noise appears, and it's amplitude.

It's difficult to explain, but I feel that the line is inherently poorer than it used to be, hence I can't get the 7616 sync speed any more, and the intermittant noise is the final straw that breaks the line every so often (a few times a day, at least).

Unfortunately, there was no noise for the 30 minutes that the BT man was here !

Thanks for your help !

In reply to a post by blueberryman:

The BT Openreach man has just been, and of course did not find any fault with my line. He has declared the matter closed, because there was no noise when he tested.

How do I go about progressing this with BT ? All I want is a reliable 24/7 usable phone, plus getting my 7616 sync speed back.

Oh, and I think I'll be charged £120 if I call them again and they still can't hear any noise !

Call BT back and say it is still there. Request another engineer. They will advise that a charge will be made if no fault found... but do not let this put you off. Far too many people are worried of this and do not progress with faults, even when they have one!

Did the engineer check the line just from the house? Or did he say that he was checking the line in the street/up the pole? at the cab and so on? Did he also bring a black box with him? Normally has the word 'Hawk' written on it

Matt

Hi Matt,
He only checked inside the house. He did "quiet line" tests, and connected his laptop and ran some diagnostics. He reckoned everything was clean.
He did say that he would check at the exchange, and let me know if he found any problem there, but I've heard nothing in the 3 hours since he left here.
Current plan is to phone BT again, when the line is noisy, but in the meantime, I'll install the Routerstats software that Bob suggested.

Interesting, I had a similar a couple of years ago, except my sync speed dropped more dramatically, sometimes to even 160kbps. (a router reboot would normally bring the sync speed back up).

It always turned out not to be present when the engineer turned up, our phoneline and broadband was fine, always typical.

They did eventually find out it was a High Resistance fault a fair few metres down the phoneline, after they fixed that the problem was gone.

FYI, it did take 3 engineer visits before they found out the problem, luckily I wasn't charged for any of them.

Lite is far easier to set up than the full version of RouterStats in my experience, just in case you missed that was the one I suggested.

Hi Blueberryman,

This doesn't sound good. Sorry for the problems you're having with your Broadband. I'd be happy to have a look at this but would need you to confirm your account details. You can send this information to [email protected] and I'll run some tests on your line. Alternatively, this information can be sent in a PM.

All the best,

Robbie

This sounds all too familiar. I've been having the same issues; loss of sync; slow sync; audible noise. All intermittent. I think that the problem has finally been resolved after about 2 years and getting on for nearly a dozen engineer visits. Funnily enough, the only time I got charged was when I logged a voice fault with BT for the intermittent noise (which incidentally the call handler at BT could hear), and the visiting engineer couldn't find anything.

Since then, my broadband really got bad, never staying above 160kbps long enough to bring the IP profile up. Logged yet another fault with my ISP, who have really been on the ball this time (thankyou Timico!), and an engineer visit (the second for this ticket alone) last Friday resulted in repairs to my incoming cable directly behind the master socket, and the legendary "lift and shift" at the exchange. Since Friday, all is sweet.

Moral of the story is persistence will pay off in the end. All I need to do now is see if I can get my money back for that earlier "no fault found" charge.

Do your own Quiet Line Test to confirm eng's findings.

Dial 17070, press option 2 (quiet line test)

You should hear 'Quiet Line Test' and then silence, there should be no pops, clicks, whistles, buzzing etc. If there is noise on the line, make sure it's not your phones connection to the socket (wiggle it about a bit) and that you are using the master socket. If you are sure its the line making the noise then report it to BT as a Voice Fault.