Lousy joints and cables hanging in water.

I live on a marina and have a landline to a waterproof outside socket.

I have at least five joints within 200 yards and for the second time in a month one of the waterproof housings has fallen apart. This time the joint remained intact so I pulled it out of the water and normal services resumed although at a slower speed than 48 hours ago.

My cable hangs in and out of the water until the point where the telephone lines leave the marina. Some of the cable is not even BT. (I've been told it is railway signalling cable!)

My cable is about 1.5 Km from my cabinet and there are more local cabinets. My connection is about 10 Meg at the moment but was 12 a couple of days ago.

My contract is with EE.

Is that anything I can do to get this installation improved?

This has to be a PSTN fault and not broadband.

Call you line provider and tell them you keep losing service, then when the technician arrives ensure the problem joint is submerged. Then insist on the line being fully replaced without joints - or if there are, in locations where they will not get wet. Keep complaining until it is done properly

Do I have any rights to insist the cable is brought up to a reasonable standard and that the non-BT cable is replaced? Or do I have to put up with it in a working condition no matter how lousy that is? Can I insist the cable is lifted out of the water?

You have a right to have a cable that is fit for purpose. It can be in water - if the cable is suitable for immersion, although unless they use full immersion proof joints it should be a single run. Non-BT cable - most BT Techs will see that and replace it. It will be down to luck as to who arrives. When they do, tell them how bad it is, how many drop outs, loss of service &c.

Could this be expensive though?

Hi

I think all you can insist on is a working service rather than asking for a particular type of fix, and always better to push voice issues as advised rather than broadband when it's a physical problem with the wire.

A good engineer is going to replace everything and bring it up to standard, one that wants in and out ASAP will do the minimum. It isn't in Openreach's interest not to bring it up to a reliable standard as of course they will just have to keep coming back, but really much is on the individual engineer on the day.

Regards

Phil

Spending an extra hour to run 200m of cable along a known route will be a lot cheaper than being called out for another fault every few weeks.


The Technician could go along and check/remake every joint and seal them ... how long would that take? Re-run from cabinet to socket is possibly the simplest and overall quickest solution.

Not Caversham marina perchance ?

Penarth

I had my underground cable down my 30m drive replaced as it was overhead cable put in in the 80s. I got an engineer to measure the loss at each end of the cable and he agreed to get it replaced. They had to dig my drive up for new ducting and cable but it gave me quite a boost in speed. So it can be done if you get the right engineer.

I wasn't referring to the direct time an Openreach engineer would take. More to the fact that from the OP's description of the wiring, in particular the actual cabling specification, the whole job could be marked as faulty end user equipment.

It could not possibly be an Openeach (or one of its predecessors) installation. It sounds more like a DIY setup from a land-based "Openreach" termination.

If it is DIY then there will be problems, although I read it as though the OP believes it is OR/BT/telco installed.

Perhaps he needs to find out and confirm who owns or installed it and if not BT then run his own external Cat5e back to te demarcation point.

If it�s anything like Caversham marina, the cables are strung along the sides of the floating pontoons people moor to. So these, and associated joints are often being hit by the boats, as these move up and down on their moorings.
The joints are there to provide flexibility in the network when other lines are needed.
The cables aren�t left along the tops of the pontoons as these would be a trip hazard.

In reply to a post by MarinaResident:

Some of the cable is not even BT. (I've been told it is railway signalling cable!)

I did see that , however I read as though the OP believes the whole run is BT/OR responsibility. And iff you see some of te cable I have seen on BTGPO installs at times, nothing would be a surprise. I recently removed some "figure 8, 18/16 gauge solid conductor" from one location.

Mine was a new installation and the engineer used the existing cable on the pontoons with a new short bridge. This includes the non-BT cable.

In reply to a post by MHC:

I did see that , however I read as though the OP believes the whole run is BT/OR responsibility. And iff you see some of te cable I have seen on BTGPO installs at times, nothing would be a surprise. I recently removed some "figure 8, 18/16 gauge solid conductor" from one location.

Back in the day gray coloured copper clad steel figure 8 drop wires where standard GPO install. Admittedly they stop using it a long time ago and most of it will have been replaced by now but it's not a bodge of any description.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

In reply to a post by MHC:

I did see that , however I read as though the OP believes the whole run is BT/OR responsibility. And iff you see some of te cable I have seen on BTGPO installs at times, nothing would be a surprise. I recently removed some "figure 8, 18/16 gauge solid conductor" from one location.

Back in the day gray coloured copper clad steel figure 8 drop wires where standard GPO install. Admittedly they stop using it a long time ago and most of it will have been replaced by now but it's not a bodge of any description.

In looking at 3 drops of that cable going to neighbours houses from my window right now.

Another 2 have newer black drop cables run in parallel to the old grey, they didn't remove the old one when they put the new on.

Openreach were here yesterday and I had three operatives initially.

The fault was in the non-BT cable. A short length had been sitting behind a fender which wore the insulation through. The recent repairs had dislodged this part of the cable and it had fallen into the water. This cable has been replaced along with another so I have one less joint. I also now have a waterproof master socket which is waterproof.

The only problem after the line was reinstated was there was an exchange fault and there was 50 volts on the line but no dial tone and the diagnostics wouldn't work. I'm just waiting for the 10 Meg broadband limit to be removed.

That's for your comments which were useful but the engineers realised for themselves that it needed to be sorted out properly this time.

A short length had been sitting behind a fender which wore the insulation through.

...........

the cables are strung along the sides of the floating pontoons people moor to. So these, and associated joints are often being hit by the boats, as these move up and down on their moorings.

Aww, come on, cause of fault accurately identified before the Openreach visit

Glad it�s got sorted.

In reply to a post by MHC:

This has to be a PSTN fault and not broadband.

Call you line provider and tell them you keep losing service, then when the technician arrives ensure the problem joint is submerged. Then insist on the line being fully replaced without joints - or if there are, in locations where they will not get wet. Keep complaining until it is done properly

Come on! Highly unlikely the engineers would have removed all of the joints. That�s a massive job, and if the joints are fitted correctly they are all waterproof anyway.

Joints are unavoidable in the Openreach network and as Zarjaz has said, there�s reasons for them to be there.