Line fault or equipment

Hi
My Mother-in-Law switched phone and broadband over from Talktalk to Plusnet last week and everything was fine until today when the phone stopped working. Apparently there is no dial tone and lots of crackling BUT the broadband is still working.
I spoke to plusnet who have ordered an engineer for wednesday but I am concerned that she may be charged if the problem is with her own equipment. Apart from the obvious, which would be to try a different phone, is there anything else she could check. And does the fact that the broadband is still working suggest the line is ok.
Thanks

It's probably a stupid question, but if there was no dial tone and the line is dead then the broadband would not work, which suggests a definite fault with the equipment?

Not necessarily. Broadband may work at a reduced connection speed with one wire disconnected, but there would be dial tone and the phone would be dead.

Can she try the phone alone in the test socket behind the faceplate? If no dial tone there then it is definitely BT's responsibility and she cannot be charged.

Probably something gone wrong with phone transfer.

You need to plug a phone directly into the TEST socket. If your voice service is still no good then you should be safe from a call out bill as this proves it isn't your equipment. As long as the Master Socket has been correctly wired then all your internal extensions are disconnected when the face plate is removed - which is why it's so important to use the TEST socket and not just the Master Socket

As 'Ribble' says, ADSL only needs one wire to work (at a reduced rate) while voice needs two so perhaps you have a damaged line...

The problem is, she's 75, lives on her own, and about an hours drive from me, the chances of me getting her to try the test socket are pretty slim!!
Trying to get her to test her phone at a neighbours

Is her broadband extremely slow, even simple web pages? The posters earlier said "reduced rate", but it would be more like a crawl. It should be noticeable even to her if asked about it.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 23-Apr-12 17:22:58)

I'll admit that is a pain. My 87yo Dad lives nearly 200 miles from me but managed to get at the test socket so might still be worth a try... Or perhaps a friend/neighbour could spare 5 minutes?

Effect of a one leg connection, is that attenuation doubles, so resulting connection very much depends on the original link. Or to put it another way, some people may not really notice, if its mainly email and a bit of news/weather.

It is likely the problem is in the exchange, and is a failed migration to TalkTalk, i.e. they have removed the PSTN side, but left the ADSL side going to the BT Wholesale hardware, so speeds would be normal.

i.e. Openreach has messed up. If the line had moved to TalkTalk the broadband with Plusnet would have stopped working

Thanks Andrew. A number of useful tips there .