Noise on line - Broadband not working since 29 February

My brother moved into his new house in February and arranged for his phone line and broadband to be transferred from his old address. The line at the new house always had a dial tone, but he couldn't dial out, and he didn't know the number either to try dialling in.

His phone line is with BT, this was moved on the 28 February, and he could now make and receive calls.

His broadband, which is with Plus Net was scheduled to move on the 29 February, but it did not work, after waiting a day or so as advised I suggested he checked his line (he always uses his mobile) and it was dead, no dial tone.

He then realised he'd seen a BT engineer up his distribution pole the day before. He contacted BT and they came out to investigate the fault. The engineer confirmed his line had been physically disconnected on the pole, and said that he was now on a Dacs.

Ever since then we've been in a battle with Plus Net, and they in turn with BT to get the Dacs removed, apparently there were no spare lines.

The Dacs has now apparently been removed, but it still does not work, and today he was supposed to have an engineer visit, but needless to say said engineer never arrived.

Now I'm 100% certain there is no fault in the house unless it's the NTE5 - we've tested the router in the test point, and I've tested the router at my house, so I know the routers OK

When the router is plugged in there is a noise on the line, best described as tick, tick, tick, ssssh, then it repeats. Unplug the router and the lines crystal clear.

This noise has been there ever since the line was reconnected, I've uploaded a recording to http://www.manser.plus.com/Various/Noise_on_line.mp3

Would anybody recognise this as a sign that a Dacs is still fitted?

I'm going to fire off an email to Ian Livingston tomorrow, as this saga is getting ridiculous, especially as it was BT OR that caused the problem in the first place, I suspect the engineer unknowingly nicked his line, it had been dormant/unused for months until the day before it was disconnected.

Edited by R0NSKI (Tue 24-Apr-12 22:53:21)

DACs come in two parts, one at property end, and another closer to the exchange.
One part may still be on the line.

I thought DACs had been reduced to almost emergency only use. DACs are not meant to be placed on a telephone line that has an ADSL service on it, and unless Plusnet had not placed the order yet, the active order should have shown up when the engineer checked which line to use.

If Openreach insists no lines, and refuses to install a new one, time to find out who is close enough and does not mind a DACs on their line, e.g. someone who hates the internet or does not want it.

Thanks for the reply, there's nothing on his property that I'm aware of and never has been.

Apparently there are no free lines left on his DP, we counted 24 cables coming off it.

Seeing what BT's record keeping is like, it would't surpise me if it it didn't show up on their records. His line connection was intiated on the 22, and connected on the 29, then disconnected on the 1 March, the engineer's job may have been booked prior to my brothers reconnection.

I suppose he could knock on all the doors and ask if anyone doesn't have internet, may be a way forward.

This was posted to his PN support ticket, it was in table format so hopefully it's still legible, does anything look wrong?

Profile Info: WBC 160K - 288K Medium delay (INP 8) 6dB Downstream, 448 Medium delay (INP 2) 6dB Upstream (ADSL2+)
xDSL Status Test Summary
Sync Status: Circuit Not In Sync
General Information
NTE Status: NTE Power Status: Unknown Bypass Status:

Upstream DSL Link Information Downstream DSL Link Information
Loop Loss: 0.0 0.0
SNR Margin: 0 0
Errored Seconds: 0 0
HEC Errors: 0
Cell Count: 0 0
Speed: 0 0

Maximum Stable Rate (KBPS): 576 Fault Threshold Rate (KBPS): 576
Mean Time Between Retrains (Seconds): 0 Mean Time Between Errors Upstream (Seconds): 0
Indicative Line Quality: S Mean Time Between Errors Downstream (Seconds): 0



Circuit ID: CBUK86518718 Service ID: BBEU06653760
Telephone NO.: N.A. Test Executed On:
Status: Pass MFL: OK OR Test ID: rds00556app02:84579078
Test Outcome: Line Test OK - End User Equipment detected DTR: DS08
Copper Test Details
A to E B to E
Capacitance:
DP Line Length Estimate: 1854 Metres DN Line Length Estimate: 1888 Metres
Celerity: 43 dB Line Loss:
Line Stability: Stable
Fault Report Advised: N
Service Level: 2

* Circuit not in sync

* Copper line test passing

* TAM Test also passing

* Raising

* Pushing for SFI

Edited by R0NSKI (Wed 25-Apr-12 10:10:53)

The test results show there is no dacs on the line. If the router is killing dial tone, the router or filter is faulty imho.

I've tested the router and filter at my house, and it worked fine, I did not however check if there was any noise on the line.

Can't see it being the filter as we have a filtered face plate, which when removed and plug the modem in via a micro filter I'm sure we still get the noise.

However I will recheck both tonight, to be sure.

The report I posted above didn't show a phone number, just N/A, is that normal?

PS The phone still works when the router is plugged in, you just have that background noise.

Edit: He's just plugged the modem, a phone and the micro filter into the test point and he still has the noise, so that rules out the faceplate filter being faulty. I'll pick the lot up tonight and try it at my house.

Edited by R0NSKI (Wed 25-Apr-12 14:17:37)

@partial or any other BT engineers.

Just to double check things following partials post above, we have done the following today.

1. Plugged his router, micro filter and phone into the test socket on the NTE5 . Result - No broadband and we still had the noise on the phone.
2. I took his router, micro filter and phone, plugged all of this into my test socket on my NTE5. Result - No noise on the phone, and I can access the internet from my laptop connected to his router, no alteration done to his router as we are both with Plus Net, so his login details will work on my line.

I have done all the above previously with the same results, so the problem either lies in his NTE5 or somewhere prior to the NTE5 on BT's network, his router and micro filter are not causing the problem.

So the big question is, what else can cause the problem?

Edited by R0NSKI (Wed 25-Apr-12 18:27:55)

A DAC's line with no dial tone coming through it will just have 'blow' on it, this is not what you have recorded.

It sounds more like an HR, or one leg dis to me.

DACs come in two parts, one at property end, and another closer to the exchange.

One near the property, and the rest is just a card in the exchange.

If the remote unit (customer end) has been left on the line, and 'normal' PSTN pushed towards it, the result will be a loop fault. Plenty of other options with mucked up exchange jumpering.

Ta - corrects that brain cell to be a line card in the exchange

[pedant] DACS card, not a line card.[/pedant] Soz.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

A DAC's line with no dial tone coming through it will just have 'blow' on it, this is not what you have recorded.

It sounds more like an HR, or one leg dis to me.

I've just realised I may of confused the issue, the recording is from my mobile phone voice mail, I got my brother to phone it but not say anything so we could record the noise, that is why there is no dial tone. He can phone out perfectly and has a dial tone, it just has the background noise which we recorded during a call.

I presume HR stands for High Resistance, but what does 'one leg dis' mean?

One leg dis

A voice service needs two wires to work. Each wire is called a leg, and the dis means disconnected. In short one of the two wires coming to the property is not connected.

In this situation if ADSL was on the line and the line was a medium to short one the ADSL would probably still work but slowly

I've just realised I may of confused the issue, the recording is from my mobile phone voice mail, I got my brother to phone it but not say anything so we could record the noise, that is why there is no dial tone. He can phone out perfectly and has a dial tone, it just has the background noise which we recorded during a call.

Ah, so that's a different kettle of ballparks.

There might be any number of reasons why your brother's line has no sync. Simplest guess, based on the engineer mentioning DACS on the line. the exchange work has not yet been completed.

Thanks Zarjaz, I asked Plus Net to get BT to physically check if the exchange work has been completed.

I sent that email to Ian Livingston on Sunday, two minute's later I had a reply from him.

10am yesterday Plus Net complaints department was on the phone, had many phone calls yesterday, and today, at last things are happening quickly.

Today an engineer visited the exchange to check things, found some jumpers wrong and a dis fault.

A further engineer investigated the dis fault this afternoon and found a Dacs unit at the bottom of the chamber by my brothers DP, with his line and another still connected through it.

Back where we started, but this time I feel it will get sorted quickly, hopefully.

Edited by R0NSKI (Wed 02-May-12 06:39:57)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If Openreach insists no lines, and refuses to install a new one, time to find out who is close enough and does not mind a DACs on their line, e.g. someone who hates the internet or does not want it.

That's up to Openreach, not the end user as in this case.

Your post may have meant that. Just to clarify it, in case the OP gets the wrong end of the stick.

Eventually up to Openreach, but a bit of assistance, as in have spoke to Joe at no 21 and they don't mind the DACS so long as phone works...might help grease the wheels.

Well, it's finally good news.

After the engineer on Tuesday declared no spare lines, and the Dacs was still present it was passed to BT Openreach provisions for them to come up with a solution.

But today, my brother got a call from another engineer, he didn't know what he was investigating, and no one, not even Plus Net knew he was coming.

Anyway he soon got to work and discovered that my brothers broadband was fed down one phone line, which just went to the top of the pole, and his phone was fed down another line via the Dacs.

He switched the drop line from the house over to the broadband pair, and I presume made some changes at the exchange and it all sprang to life, although at a measly 0.115Mbs Speedtest.net result (with various updates downloading).

One SNR reset later and he's now connected at 10Mbs

The engineer said that this should have been picked up before, and that the Dacs removal had only partially been done, we're just glad we got an engineer who was on the ball (perhaps he's the one who half finished the job previously and remembered he hadn't finished it??), it's only taken just over two months and an email to the CEO.

Edited by R0NSKI (Thu 03-May-12 20:31:34)

That sounds like a real result

It was, the quality of service since Monday from both Plusnet and the various BT departments that PN dealt with has been amazing. Just wish it was like that all the time.

PS. Spoke to PN this morning, and he still can't find out who sent that last engineer, perhaps he was the BT wizard!

Edited by R0NSKI (Fri 04-May-12 13:37:28)