Intermittent Line Noise

Over the last couple of weeks, we've started getting intermittent crackling on the phone line, also causing DSL resync's.

I have a feeling that this is going to be a pain to troubleshoot as it's intermittent. Running an online line test kills the internet connection, so I never see the result, but weirdly seems to fix it for a bit.

Any ideas on how to approach this with BT, and not get a useless engineer visit that we have to pay for?

Here's an audio file of the crackling (sorry for the traffic noise in the background): http://www.filedropper.com/linenoise

Nothing changed internally etc.

Cheers,
AP

I had this once and reported it to BT as intermittent noise fault. The operator I spoke to could hear it at the time but when the engineer came it had gone. This was before the charge for no fault callouts was introduced. Engineers had to make several visits before they heard it and fixed the joint.

Not sure how you stand with the callout charges of today.

I had this on my line, every 30 mins or so the noise margin would drop to zero and cause a disconnect and resync. Turns out it was a dodgy filter

Tried another filter, phone etc. This started around the time our fibre cab (still not working) went up. I'm wondering if it's anything to do with the tie cables between the boxes?

It could be that the existing joints and wiring in the existing PCP were disturbed by it having to be opened up, to bring in the double link wires from the FTTC cabinet, although they apparently just "hang about" in the PCP until an individual subscribes to VDSL, when the PCP has to be opened again, and the necessary splitting and joining is carried out.

I have line crackles intermittently for over a year on the line I took over on moving house.

Had the BT/OR Engineer come to investigate, but sods-law intervened and he could find no problem on the day he came.

Now reluctant to try again in case I get billed £100+ for the trouble, so I live with it even though some calls are hard to hear over the crackles. Seems to be worse a day or so after heavy rain, but with no overhead wires in the area, I'm a loss for an explanation.

Fortunately, there seems to be no problem with my Infinity 2 connection.

Wish you luck...

A look in the Enta forum will show I have had exactly the same problem since my cab was wired to the adjacent fibre cab three months ago. Nightmare and can't wait for fibre switch on to get away from it. The same up here 400 miles north on our other line after fibre work. Others have suffered too.

Thanks for the replies. BT coming out today to look at it...but of course there won't be crackles when he/she turns up.

I recorded a noisy quiet line test in a bid to avoid the charge...!

Well he came, ran a bunch of tests that apparently showed there were no issues on the line.

He only heard the noise once, with the faceplate on, so started mentioning the extension wiring. Could that really be a cause, given that it's filtered with the faceplate? Would noise come back to a master socket from extension wiring?

I had unplugged all the extensions etc.

I had tried that test socket, but hadn't heard the noise to be honest - like I say, it is intermittent though.

He mentioned some AC voltage on the line, but apparently that's normal?!

Here comes the bill.....

I had an intermittent crackling on the phone line and also causing the router to reboot; this was back in October 2012 whilst still with O2. On the first engineer visit he could not find a fault as on that occasion there was no noise on the line. After O2 insisted that a second BT engineer visited, he checked all the various places such as the connection box outside the building, pole, cabinet and finally the exchange where he found a loose connection, the fault was rectified. So it is a matter of luck if the engineer you get does all the necessary diagnostics at all the places where the fault could occur! Best of luck.