Telephone calls affecting broadband

Can anyone suggest a way to resolve my problem with telephone calls affecting my broadband connection, please? This issue has been going on through numerous ISP's & phone providers yet none will take ownership.

To set the scene, I have no extension wiring active on my phone line, I have replaced filters numerous times in case one was faulty. I have changed routers and I have changed my phone handset. I have also changed ISP numerous times in that period.

Different routers and phone (wireless & corded) have been plugged directly into the NTE 5 test socket via filters for the last 18 months.

The problem is and has been that whenever I receive or make a telephone call, my broadband connection is affected by noise (you can hear it on the line. It is the sound of the router dropping connection and re syncing) causing the BB to drop. The BB will re sync during the first minute or two of the call at a substantially slower speed, typically 1.5meg down from aroun 6 meg before the call.

When I complained to my phone provider (IDnet) they says BT find no fault. They suggest I disconnect the router to see if the noise disappears! They totally dont grasp the telephone call affects the BB in some way causing the router to drop the connection then re establish it which is what I can hear. In other words, the noise is a symptom of the connection dropping not the cause.

When I complain to the various ISP's I have had, they all say it is a phone line issue and nothing to do with them. both parties say BT will charge me £200 if they check the line \ broadband and find no fault. IDnet said BT would disconnect the router and if the phone line was clear, I'd be charged!

Im completely chuffed off with this problem and am giving serious thought to having a second telephone only line installed but this will be expensive leading to double rental costs etc.

What on earth can I do!?

Sounds like a fault on the DSLAM/MSAN line card to me. In which case no amount of migration will help unless you go to LLU, which would cure it immediately.

I'm not suggesting you do that just yet, but which exchange are you on? The link to what samkows says would help.

Has any ISP mentioned a "lift and shift"?

When I complained to my phone provider (IDnet) they says BT find no fault.

Are they your ISP or not? If not, who is?

I am LLU and it still persists.

My exchange is LCCLV

I recently migrated to BE and the line speed and stability has increased significantly. But the BB dropping due to telephone calls and re sync at lower speed is still very much apparent.

No. IDnet are the phone line provider.

Ah, and the problem was there when AAISP were the ISP, from what you say? But which AAISP service was it, as they resell Be?

On the face of it my statement about LLU would cure it was wrong, but that was based on my thinking IDNet were now the ISP - hence my question when I realised.

IDNet are right I'm afraid, there is nothing they can do as it isn't a phone problem. They cannot get the broadband dropping investigated. They can only get the line tested for a working phone connection without the router connected.

All phone providers would say the same unless they were also the broadband provider.

It is Be who have to get this sorted out. Which ISPs have you been with while this has been happening?

Having said that, you mentioned different routers; filters; and a different handset. What about the phone base station, with its power supply? When you swapped routers, did you also swap their power supplies?

My other thought is a High Resistance (HR) fault. We haven't seen many of those recently and I had forgotten about them. It needs a bright and committed (Openreach broadband) engineer to find these. Many will not find it and you always do have that risk of a charge . You certainly need to cover the power supply bit above.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Ah, and the problem was there when AAISP were the ISP, from what you say? But which AAISP service was it, as they resell Be?

On the face of it my statement about LLU would cure it was wrong, but that was based on my thinking IDNet were now the ISP - hence my question when I realised.

IDNet are right I'm afraid, there is nothing they can do as it isn't a phone problem. They cannot get the broadband dropping investigated. They can only get the line tested for a working phone connection without the router connected.

All phone providers would say the same unless they were also the broadband provider.

It is Be who have to get this sorted out. Which ISPs have you been with while this has been happening?

Having said that, you mentioned different routers; filters; and a different handset. What about the phone base station, with its power supply? When you swapped routers, did you also swap their power supplies?

My other thought is a High Resistance (HR) fault. We haven't seen many of those recently and I had forgotten about them. It needs a bright and committed (Openreach broadband) engineer to find these. Many will not find it and you always do have that risk of a charge . You certainly need to cover the power supply bit above.

ISP's used

IDnet
ADSL24 reselling entanet service and cable&wireless
AAISP (there own service as far as Im aware)
Xilo reselling entanet service and now reselling BE 16

The BE services are both LLU.

My current phone is corded ie not cordless so has no separate power supply.

Each router has used its own dedicated supply (I have gone over and above what every ISP has recommended). I have even used different cables from the NTE 5 test socket to the routers to eliminate there being some fault with the cable.

Thanks for you help though!

I suggest you pursue the HR fault route with Be support. Good luck though, it is a nasty one. Let us know how things go.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I suggest you pursue the HR fault route with Be support.

Any help?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

My other thought is a High Resistance (HR) fault. We haven't seen many of those recently and I had forgotten about them. It needs a bright and committed (Openreach broadband) engineer to find these. Many will not find it and you always do have that risk of a charge . You certainly need to cover the power supply bit above.

I had exactly the same problem just over a year ago. Turned out to be a HR fault, I didn't involve my ISP at all, I reported via BT 151 a noisy line. Very fortunately a very experienced and competent BT engineer came to investigate. His test kit showed a fault about 80 metres away, he remade the connection in that manhole, (in fact he remade a couple of other joints in there that also looked dodgy). The problem was fixed, just as well because a month later I switched to FTTC.

My advice is report it as a voice (not ADSL) fault.

Edited by broadbandjockey (Fri 02-Dec-11 22:24:45)

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I suggest you pursue the HR fault route with Be support.

Any help?

I was very unhappy about that write-up by Andrew when I first read it, but other things intervened and I forgot to follow it up .

He describes the opposite of what I believe an HR fault to be. As I understand it an HR fault causes disconnections when the phone rings, but he says it improves things.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

As I understand it an HR fault causes disconnections when the phone rings, but he says it improves things.

An HR fault can cause almost anything, depending exactly how it occurs... but an improvement is certainly possible, maybe even likely. If the resistance is high enough to cause a disconnect it will probably prevent the phone ringing!

If the fault isn't bad enough to stop the phone ringing completely, the high current at the ringing stage can temporarily "weld" the poor connection to make a good one- when the ring current stops the line goes poor again.

Have seen both, so went for the one that seemed most common to me.

Brain does fail me at times and do rely on people reading stuff and correcting me if can be shown to have missed the important bits

So the conclusion is an HR fault can improve a poor broadband connection/speed, but can also break a decent one? You have seen more of the first, and I have seen more of the second.

So what does the OP do now? Follow my advice, or ignore it? His certainly breaks when the phone rings, and he seems to have eliminated everything else but that. Has clearly changed from BT Wholesale to LLU, so probably eliminating the exchange end.

Does he chase Be about it or IDNet? I have to say I'm surprised at what broadbandjockey says, but no reason to doubt him.

Chase Be as it appears to be something affecting broadband, mentioning HR as a possible cause

I have also seen many more cases where a HR fault results in lost sync when the phone is in use or rings. However in some cases the reverse is true, using the phone can sometimes make a line sync that otherwise wouldn't.

The main reason is that a HR fault usually results in harmonics being generated on the line. That is to say the bad joint causes frequencies to be modified or reflections created. The change of load on the line will alter the harmonic frequencies generated. In the case of a line that gets worse when the phone is in use the interference created is shifted into the bands used by DSL and where the line improves when the phone is used the interference is shifted out of the range used by DSL.

Often you will notice in the situation where the line improves when the phone is in use that there is audible noise on the line, this is because the interference frequencies have changed from being mangled DSL frequencies to being in the audible range.

Thanks all for the comments.

I have chased IDnet and to be frank, they just keep saying 'disconnect the router and see if the line is noisey'! I find it very frustrating that they either dont or wont grasp the router or routers are not the problem. I will migrate my line from then soon as the BE reseller does phone lines or I decide to migrate both BB & phone to BE themselves.

I have reported the issue to the BE reseller (not for the first time either) and fully expect them to come back with 'change your filter, router, phone, try the test socket blah, blah, blah'!

As someone has already sugested, I think the fault is the 'BT' side of the test socket to the nearest cabinet \ to the exchange. Getting BT or whoever is responsible to do that without charging is nigh on impossible though.

Disconnecting the router is a pointless task.

When there is no router connected to the line there is no DSL signal, the DSLAM at the exchange does not continually broadcast a DSL signal, it waits for a handshake with the router before the two of them start transmitting to each other. Unplugging the router therefore does nothing more than confirm that the noise you hear is a result of having the DSL signal on the line rather than a general voice fault.

It is almost certainly a HR fault, and requires a broadband trained engineer not a regular voice line engineer to find it as a non broadband trained engineer will just put a test handset in the test socket on the NTE-5 and conclude that there is no fault. This means you will need a visit booked as a broadband fault via the ISP not via the BT domestic voice faults line.

HR faults are far more common on BT's lines than they would like you to believe, with their current line test technology them telling you there is no fault is like the water company telling you that water is coming out of your taps when quite obviously there is none.

Don't let the warnings scare you off, there is a clear fault that is not with your equipment as you have replaced all the equipment that you are responsible for. It is now up to BT to find the cause of the fault that can easily and clearly be demonstrated to the engineer by lifting the phone off hook.

In reply to a post by Going_Digital:

HR faults are far more common on BT's lines than they would like you to believe, with their current line test technology them telling you there is no fault is like the water company telling you that water is coming out of your taps when quite obviously there is none.

I'd concur. We've seen many times where the user has no dial tone yet BT state the line is in perfect working order.

Matt

Having carefully read through every post in this thread, I am satisfied that all the symptoms point to a HR fault somewhere in the pair.

wobblyheed, the OP, needs to be insistent with his ISP -- point them to this thread, if necessary -- that the fault requires the attention of an Openreach SFI (broadband) engineer (not a telephony network engineer) with the correct equipment and has been appropriately trained in the usage of that equipment.

In reply to a post by wobblyheed:

Thanks all for the comments.

I have chased IDnet and to be frank, they just keep saying 'disconnect the router and see if the line is noisey'! I find it very frustrating that they either dont or wont grasp the router or routers are not the problem. I will migrate my line from then soon as the BE reseller does phone lines or I decide to migrate both BB & phone to BE themselves.

I hope this doesn't come across as though I'm getting at you, I'm not, but I repeat they can't even ask BT to look at your problem. Contrary to what you believe it is the router, or more correctly the broadband presence on the line, in that without it the phone works perfectly. They are only responsible for the phone working when no other equipment is connected to the line, and the only fault they can report to BT is that a line with nothing but a phone connected is faulty. Yours isn't.

As the others have said, it needs a well-trained broadband engineer, (some newer ones are less well-trained), and IDNet cannot report a broadband-related fault for you. They just aren't allowed to. Neither could BT themselves if your line was with them, nor any other phone provider. All of them would tell you that you have to report it to your broadband provider. IDNet should have told you that, and if they haven't then they should have.

Similarly, all providers are going to warn you that if Openreach find no fault they are likely to charge the provider, and the provider will have to charge you. They have to, in case there is a charge, but in most cases such as yours there should not be.

Re Be themselves, in this post you say for the first time it isn't BE (Retail), but a reseller of Be Wholesale. If you say who the reseller is you stand a chance of the boss spotting it here and getting on the case. At the moment none have cause to, as they don't know they have a customer with a problem that their support hasn't sorted. And in the same way as IDNet can't do anything, Be themselves can't either until your reseller gets onto them. Chasing IDNet is a waste of your time and energy. Not because of them, but because there is nothing at all they can do to help.

In reply to a post by Going_Digital:

Disconnecting the router is a pointless task.

When there is no router connected to the line there is no DSL signal, the DSLAM at the exchange does not continually broadcast a DSL signal, it waits for a handshake with the router before the two of them start transmitting to each other. Unplugging the router therefore does nothing more than confirm that the noise you hear is a result of having the DSL signal on the line rather than a general voice fault.

It is almost certainly a HR fault, and requires a broadband trained engineer not a regular voice line engineer to find it as a non broadband trained engineer will just put a test handset in the test socket on the NTE-5 and conclude that there is no fault. This means you will need a visit booked as a broadband fault via the ISP not via the BT domestic voice faults line.

HR faults are far more common on BT's lines than they would like you to believe, with their current line test technology them telling you there is no fault is like the water company telling you that water is coming out of your taps when quite obviously there is none.

Don't let the warnings scare you off, there is a clear fault that is not with your equipment as you have replaced all the equipment that you are responsible for. It is now up to BT to find the cause of the fault that can easily and clearly be demonstrated to the engineer by lifting the phone off hook.

Thank you (and everyone else) for your comments. What you suggest is what I'd have expected idnet to say rather than disconnect the router which to me doesnt get to the root of the problem.

I now need to convince my current ISP to book a broadband engineer. Should I tell them all the evidence points to an HR (high resistance?) fault or just say get a BB engineer out?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by wobblyheed:

Thanks all for the comments.

I have chased IDnet and to be frank, they just keep saying 'disconnect the router and see if the line is noisey'! I find it very frustrating that they either dont or wont grasp the router or routers are not the problem. I will migrate my line from then soon as the BE reseller does phone lines or I decide to migrate both BB & phone to BE themselves.

I hope this doesn't come across as though I'm getting at you, I'm not, but I repeat they can't even ask BT to look at your problem. Contrary to what you believe it is the router, or more correctly the broadband presence on the line, in that without it the phone works perfectly. They are only responsible for the phone working when no other equipment is connected to the line, and the only fault they can report to BT is that a line with nothing but a phone connected is faulty. Yours isn't.

As the others have said, it needs a well-trained broadband engineer, (some newer ones are less well-trained), and IDNet cannot report a broadband-related fault for you. They just aren't allowed to. Neither could BT themselves if your line was with them, nor any other phone provider. All of them would tell you that you have to report it to your broadband provider. IDNet should have told you that, and if they haven't then they should have.

Similarly, all providers are going to warn you that if Openreach find no fault they are likely to charge the provider, and the provider will have to charge you. They have to, in case there is a charge, but in most cases such as yours there should not be.

Re Be themselves, in this post you say for the first time it isn't BE (Retail), but a reseller of Be Wholesale. If you say who the reseller is you stand a chance of the boss spotting it here and getting on the case. At the moment none have cause to, as they don't know they have a customer with a problem that their support hasn't sorted. And in the same way as IDNet can't do anything, Be themselves can't either until your reseller gets onto them. Chasing IDNet is a waste of your time and energy. Not because of them, but because there is nothing at all they can do to help.

No problem. My 'beef' with idnet is that they could not grasp what my issue was. They supply BB as well as telephony so I would have expected them to say 'it's your broadband that needs investigating.'

I referred to my current ISP provider in a previous post but just to re iterate

My telephone provider is IDnet (BT line)
My ISP is Xilo re selling BE broadband 24 Meg (not 16 as I previously stated)

Edited by deleted (Sat 03-Dec-11 10:38:08)

Thanks for taking it as intended.

Yes, IDNet should have said that.

Re xilo, you probably know, but may not, that uno and xilo are effectively the same. So to save time I suggest you PM your xilo username and phone number to uno, as those are what he will ask for when he next sees this thread. I hope that helps. Also, if you haven't already, you should raise a support ticket with them.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 03-Dec-11 10:54:04)

In reply to a post by wobblyheed:

I now need to convince my current ISP to book a broadband engineer. Should I tell them all the evidence points to an HR (high resistance?) fault or just say get a BB engineer out?

It doesn't matter what you say to them as they are just a reseller. They will have to ask the wholesale ISP - Daisy? - to report the fault to BE who will report the fault to Openreach.

It's not a case of trying to convince us, we're happy to book them as and when requested but as Bob says, we have to warn you of potential charges.

This is no different than any ISP, we have to do this as if the engineer finds no fault, we get charged and this is passed on to you. We can dispute this, which is explained prior to booking the SFI and also in the confirmation email.

You just need to let us know (or give me an existing ticket ID) and i'll send you a message on it.

Matt

Call centre staff are largely just that, i.e. not technical experts on broadband. They will be following structured question/wizard templates invariably.

You might be interested in my story:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/aaisp/t/4009184-aai...

I left IDNet for AAISP in April- something I'd never imagined having to do. My new provider got BT moving. Unfortunately, the problem began all over again in September but AAISP got behind BT. An SFI engineer spent 4-5 hours between my property the cabinet and the exchange. I have not been charged a penny by AA or BT.

Good luck

Right, as an update to this.

I got onto idnet and was met with the usual stuff about charges and what a BT line engineer would do or rather what they wouldnt do. IDnet said the line engineer would just disconnect the router and see if there was any noise on the line. If there wasnt, BT would say the router was the issue (despite it being changed) and charge.

Now, as previously mentioned, the router is symptomatic of the line not the cause so Im not going down that route.

Instead I got onto Xilo \ Uno who are now reselling BE There service. So go on the trial for BE's broadband. Well that went ok for the first 30 days then the broadband was suddenly cut off. Had to contact them on the monday and suggested they \ BE had done something as it was funny the trial BB was cut after 30 days.

Of course they said it was a coincidence and that a 'fault' had been found in the exchange but they would not re imburse me for the lost weekend of broadband!

Anyway, the connection got progressively worse so I said enough is enough, get an special broadband engineer out.

He comes along and does his tests. He says he cannot find any fault but, he said the outside BT grey box had pinched the cable so freed this. he also replaced two wired from the external BT grey box to the back of the NTE 5. He also fitted a new BT filtered face plate.

All of a sudden, my line speed is 7.1meg!! It had gone up from 4 meg despite him finding no fault and making changes. I asked him would I be charged. He said he didnt see why I should be.

Next day I got a mail from Xilo \ Uno saying BT were charging for the visit. I told them no way was I paying and gave them all the facts and line stats pre and post visit to show a 'fault' had been corrected. Still waiting for BT's response.

But, it gets worse. On friday we had our first frost. Call it co incidence or not but the line speed dropped from 7meg to 5.1meg. Its monday now and the speed hasnt got over 5.7meg.

I've also just made a landline call and the speed has dropped to 3.3meg!! What is going on!?

I cant afford to be billed another 200 quid by rip off BT to investigate the phone line and have them tell me there's no fault. There is clearly still a fault if my speed has dropped from 7meg to 3! my router also shows the noise margin has shot up to 18.1db AFTER making that earlier call.

Im at my wits ends. I'd have a new line put in and pay all the cease charges but know if the new line is routed through the same cabinet to exchange, it is unlikely to make a difference.

Why is it BT just rip you off? What can I do now!?

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Jan-12 15:52:17)

How you get the underlying problem sorted I can't think right now, but in the short term you should find that just power-cycling the router should get (some or all of) the speed back until the next phone call.

Yes, thanks Roberto. TBH I try not to re cycle the router unless it blocks all wireless and wired connection to it as the speed doesnt recover that quickly.

I was under the impression LLU service (which I was on as a Xilo \ Uno customer before moving to there BE reseller product) should not suffer from BT's DSLAM(?) profiling.

Well, it doesnt seem to work that way for me. In the past I have recycled the router only for it to synch at a lower speed.

And because my speed has suddenlt dropped from the vastly improved 7 meg to 3.2meg, Im reluctant to recycle right now in case it goes lower.

I just wish my area had of been cabled as I would jack BT's rubbish off pronto.

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Jan-12 16:00:00)

In reply to a post by ARD:

You might be interested in my story:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/aaisp/t/4009184-aai...

I left IDNet for AAISP in April- something I'd never imagined having to do. My new provider got BT moving. Unfortunately, the problem began all over again in September but AAISP got behind BT. An SFI engineer spent 4-5 hours between my property the cabinet and the exchange. I have not been charged a penny by AA or BT.

Good luck

Hi mate. AAISP were one of the isp's I used but I found them very expensive. I was drawn to their promise to resolve problems other isp's dont but imo, they didnt resolve my issues either.

LLU does not have profiling, but when a modem resyncs to a low speed due to noise it will stay at low speed until you do something about it, i.e. power cycle the router

OK I'll recycle and see what happens.

Re synched at 6.9meg thankfully!! Noise margin down to 3.3db