OR stopped repairing copper ?

I have a copper line with phone + ADSL BUT it is so bad they won't work together, use phone & ADSL is unusable (modem won't sync). This has been going on for months & my ISP is refunding me due to the fault still outstanding. As it happens I use my mobile for phone anyway as the ISP's call charges are high.

Interestingly OR are out further down the road installing a fibre backbone, no go live date as yet.

I noticed when they were surveying the junction chamber near my house it was almost full of water yet they took no interest (no pumping activity).

Is it possible OR no longer have any interest in fixing copper circuits as they hope to get the vast majority to pay for fibre, or are we going to be herded into fibre as they refuse to fix copper circuits ?

Any opinions ?

Just realised signature line is wrong, now back to ADSL >5kms from exchange with my trusty W8960

Edited by fourtytwo (Sat 03-Dec-22 18:40:16)

Flooded chambers aren't routinely pumped out here. It might be different elsewhere in the country. The connection boxes in the chambers are all sealed, waterproof housings.

Many areas aren't due to get FTTP for years while other areas aren't scheduled to get it at all.

They will certainly avoid doing any work they can get away with not doing but they still need to and still do make repairs to the copper network.

Individual copper lines are very much still being repaired where it is economically viable to do so. Some providers are better than others at pushing Openreach to get a successful repair.

It isn't unknown (though it's uncommon) for Openreach to just give up on some long rural lines and that's not necessarily down to a push for full fibre.
They can just let the provider/customer walk free from their contract because either they can't fix it (e.g due to the line length being at the limits of xDSL) or because any repair wouldn't be economical.

I'd blame your ISP for not managing the fault properly and not pushing back to Openreach when they've been unable to repair your line.

As far as pumping out a chamber goes, it's just going to fill up again when it rains, there's no point going around trying to dry them out. The joints are in waterproof enclosures (or should be) so it doesn't really cause any issues.

People surveying don’t pump chambers out.

I agree with the opinion given by JPM.

It would not surprise me to be honest if out of reach stops fixing copper lines where there is fibre.
It looks like you are with plusnet, they are normally pretty good, they got Out of reach up here a few times to try to sort out the problem, I have heard their customer service is not as good as it used to be.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

It would not surprise me to be honest if out of reach stops fixing copper lines* where there is fibre.
It looks like you are with plusnet, they are normally pretty good, they got Out of reach up here a few times to try to sort out the problem, I have heard their customer service is not as good as it used to be.

This is patently not true.

Just round here of late there has been several, well organised, E side cable thefts. These cost thousands to repair. Why would they bother if your theory were correct ?

Also, I’m 99% sure you are aware what I spend my working days doing*.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

This is patently not true.

Just round here of late there has been several, well organised, E side cable thefts. These cost thousands to repair. Why would they bother if your theory were correct ?

Also, I’m 99% sure you are aware what I spend my working days doing*.

I never said they did, I said It would not surprise me.

If you fix copper cables, can you fix mine to stop it hanging so low?

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

If you fix copper cables, can you fix mine to stop it hanging so low?

If it is that low and below the required minumum height, call your provider, report it and freom my experience they will be there either the same or next day. BT & OR will do everything they can to minimise risk to te public and any potential legal action.

In reply to a post by MHC:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

If you fix copper cables, can you fix mine to stop it hanging so low?

If it is that low and below the required minumum height, call your provider, report it and freom my experience they will be there either the same or next day. BT & OR will do everything they can to minimise risk to te public and any potential legal action.

Exactly that. If below 5.2m where it crosses the road, then a hoist will be required. It *should* be 5.9m or above across a road.

You don’t need to be a customer to report safety issues with Openreach equipment in public places. Anyone can report such issues directly, such as an overhead cable hanging too low over a public highway.

https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/damage-he...

Just so you are aware, persistently calling them "out of reach" - especially when they do actually serve you with FTTP - comes across as poorly as people who write "Micro$oft". I don't know what your particular issue with them is but you've also said you will soon have access to an FTTP network that has nothing to do with Openreach, so if you really dislike them that much you can vote with your wallet.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Just so you are aware, persistently calling them "out of reach" - especially when they do actually serve you with FTTP - comes across as poorly as people who write "Micro$oft".

At work we were advised doing this may be seen as libellous, no idea if that applies on a public forum.

In reply to a post by MHC:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

If you fix copper cables, can you fix mine to stop it hanging so low?

If it is that low and below the required minumum height, call your provider, report it and freom my experience they will be there either the same or next day. BT & OR will do everything they can to minimise risk to te public and any potential legal action.

It is not that low really, just lower than the most of the other coming from the same pole, my next door neighbour's is like mine. i

In reply to a post by jpm:

Just so you are aware, persistently calling them "out of reach" - especially when they do actually serve you with FTTP - comes across as poorly as people who write "Micro$oft". I don't know what your particular issue with them is but you've also said you will soon have access to an FTTP network that has nothing to do with Openreach, so if you really dislike them that much you can vote with your wallet.

They don't serve me with FTTP, it is available, but they don't me with it. They serve me with FTTC. As for calling them out of reach, I do so because they are. Try getting in touch with them directly, everything have to go through an ISP or phone provider, unless things have changed, but I doubt it.

In case you have not seen my posts on other threads, I don't want FTTP if I can help it, the reason I stay on OpenReach network is because that is the only network we have that offers me a service at the price I want to pay. If it was not for the fact that we need broadband these days, i would have got rid of it a few years ago.

My problem with Open reach is that it is yet another private company which made its money by being a monopoly and having the network handed to it at a cheap price. It is still part of BT and in opinion it should have been separated away from BT. Taking the BT name of their vans mean nothing. Still the same company. To be honest, the network should have been nationalised.

Sure, they have put a lot of money into the network now with Fibre, only because they have little choice

Back to the subject of the post! Thank you for your replies and I agree Pnet (ISP) have not pursued OR with sufficient vigor. This line has been a pita since we moved here in June, it was at first FTTC but beyond sensible distance and failed continuously. No fault was ever found or fixed but I decided there might be more chance for stability on ADSL even though this would nearly double the distance. On the whole it's not to bad providing you use snr spoofing the wrong way to force the sync rate down as there are large excursions of snr that look suspiciously like REIN (that were probably the reason for VDSL failures). Again OR have visited but NFF at least reported to me.

At least on ADSL I can use my own modem in conjunction with DSLSTATS & track whats going on.
Downlink attenuation is pretty stable at 41dB and I am told there is a substantial run of aluminum halfway to the exchange. This is a suburban line along a main road, not fully rural yet still a fair distance, lines are underground with exception of pole to house. Exchange is Gainsborough.

I had wondered about water ingress into joints as I have been subjected to that before in another location although here ringing doesn't seem to alter the situation much and the phone does work, QLT is fairly quiet with the occasional crackle but nothing serious like hum etc (OR have also told me balance is good).

Unfortunately the ISP provided VDSL modems provide no information at all and they refuse to hand over the passwords to be able to do more with them so they are unmaintainable and undiagnosable!

Any contact I have had with the ISP indicates to me they have been deskilled and just read from the prayer book, sadly there once excellent forum has been left to rot but apparently for those who like social media toys they are available there but to what purpose I do not know. What a state the world is getting into lols

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

My problem with Open reach is that it is yet another private company which made its money by being a monopoly and having the network handed to it at a cheap price. It is still part of BT and in opinion it should have been separated away from BT. Taking the BT name of their vans mean nothing. Still the same company. To be honest, the network should have been nationalised.

Openreach is NOT a private company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of a "Public Limited Company". It is NOT a monopoly and never has been. The network was not handed to a OR at a cheap price - the government sold BT along with subsidiaries and infrastructure to investors over several years.

Do you really think nationaising any part of BT would be beneficial? Just go back to the days of the GPO - 6-12 month waiting lists for a basic phone line for a start.

There should be no crackle on the line, keep pushing back to Plusnet until you get a resolution. Though I think as had been mentioned here, the resolution might be to release you from your contract and mark you down as non-serviceable.

In reply to a post by jpm:

There should be no crackle on the line, keep pushing back to Plusnet until you get a resolution. Though I think as had been mentioned here, the resolution might be to release you from your contract and mark you down as non-serviceable.

Most of what has been mentioned here has nothing to do with the subject of the thread unfortunately and certainly nothing about marking me down as non-serviceable! I have never heard anything about that before, can you elucidate please ?

In reply to a post by MHC:

Openreach is NOT a private company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of a "Public Limited Company". It is NOT a monopoly and never has been. The network was not handed to a OR at a cheap price - the government sold BT along with subsidiaries and infrastructure to investors over several years.

Do you really think nationaising any part of BT would be beneficial? Just go back to the days of the GPO - 6-12 month waiting lists for a basic phone line for a start.

Sorry, I meant public, no idea why I put private, but the rest still stands. I don't really remember much about the GPO, I do remember when it became BT and my parents had a problem with the phone line, and it took weeks for them to even have a look at it.

Oh yes, it was certainly sold cheap.

But there you go, nothing we can do about it now, it is what it is.

As for the OP, they need to keep on at their Broadband provider

Pumping out a manhole can take a while as often you are also pumping out adjacent manholes linked by ducts. If the job requires a pump they will use a pump. If it doesn't they won't.

It is a bit of a jump to link this to any abandonment of copper maintenance.

In my experience copper maintenance is increasing as all the different players install their kit by treading on and rope burning the existing copper.

I would imagine many shareholders in BT would dispute it was 'sold cheap' as they are sitting on heavy losses.

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

Pumping out a manhole can take a while as often you are also pumping out adjacent manholes linked by ducts. If the job requires a pump they will use a pump. If it doesn't they won't.

It is a bit of a jump to link this to any abandonment of copper maintenance.

In my experience copper maintenance is increasing as all the different players install their kit by treading on and rope burning the existing copper.

Pumping out manholes can certainly take some time, I remember a few years ago it being done by a mate's place as they got flooded, took a few hours,

Yeah, there have been a few problems since Zzoomm started digging around in the city with people losing their Openreach broadband, It has also happened the other way, Someone taking out Zzoomm, Zzoomm said another network provider, but since we only have two here. I suppose it could have been a mobile provider doing cables for their mast.
Anyway, since all this Fibre thing started, and they started to dig up the city as if the roads and pavements were not bad enough, a fair few people have complained about losing their broadband. Been ok here, but they only dug a small trench from one telegraph pole to another