BT Phone Problem

Not sure whether this is the correct place to post this, apologies if I've git it wrong.

Our BT land line gets to house underground emerging into a fairly standard BT external connection box. Out of there come a cable totalling perhaps 0.6 metre to the one and only connection box in the house. The cable and internal box was fitted by BT about 3 years ago.

Yesterday lunch time went to make a phone call, no dialling tone. Broadband (Eclipse on 21CN) working fine. It's a DECT cordless phone so I powered the base station down and up. Still no dial tone. Tried ringing from my mobile, got Number Busy.

So I went next door, their BT land line working fine. Borrowed a corded phone, still no joy. Took the front cover off the socket and connected corded phone to test socket, no dial tone.

Went back next door and rang BT faults, during the initial automated stuff it does a line test. In due course I got through to a helpful human. After a few moments he arranges an engineer visit for Thursday morning, having warned me that if it is my equipment then I pay - I knew that hence the testing.

Went back home to find the land line now working. As if the automated line test had somehow 'rebooted' the voice side of the line (non-technical description ). Ring BT to cancel the engineer visit but ask them to hold the fault open for 48 hours "just in case".

Happened to notice that broadband was up and down all afternoon and seemed slow. Tried the phone again and noticed considerable crackling over the dial tone, no need to do a quiet line test. Tried again with the corded phone and using the test socket. Still crackling.

Rang BT again this morning and have an engineer visit now on Friday morning.

At no stage during any of the calls to BT did I mention broadband, it seems clear that it's a straightforward line fault.

Checking my router found the downstream connection speed was around 2000-4000 kbps compared to the usual 8000+ kbps. Presumably degraded by the noise. Also the connection only seems to be lasting 1-2 hours before dropping and reconnecting.

Is this all symptomatic of an HR Fault?

Hopefully they'll find the fault on Friday and resolve it.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

Not sure whether this is the correct place to post this, apologies if I've git it wrong.

Our BT land line gets to house underground emerging into a fairly standard BT external connection box. Out of there come a cable totalling perhaps 0.6 metre to the one and only connection box in the house. The cable and internal box was fitted by BT about 3 years ago.

Yesterday lunch time went to make a phone call, no dialling tone. Broadband (Eclipse on 21CN) working fine. It's a DECT cordless phone so I powered the base station down and up. Still no dial tone. Tried ringing from my mobile, got Number Busy.

So I went next door, their BT land line working fine. Borrowed a corded phone, still no joy. Took the front cover off the socket and connected corded phone to test socket, no dial tone.

Went back next door and rang BT faults, during the initial automated stuff it does a line test. In due course I got through to a helpful human. After a few moments he arranges an engineer visit for Thursday morning, having warned me that if it is my equipment then I pay - I knew that hence the testing.

Went back home to find the land line now working. As if the automated line test had somehow 'rebooted' the voice side of the line (non-technical description ). Ring BT to cancel the engineer visit but ask them to hold the fault open for 48 hours "just in case".

Happened to notice that broadband was up and down all afternoon and seemed slow. Tried the phone again and noticed considerable crackling over the dial tone, no need to do a quiet line test. Tried again with the corded phone and using the test socket. Still crackling.

Rang BT again this morning and have an engineer visit now on Friday morning.

At no stage during any of the calls to BT did I mention broadband, it seems clear that it's a straightforward line fault.

Checking my router found the downstream connection speed was around 2000-4000 kbps compared to the usual 8000+ kbps. Presumably degraded by the noise. Also the connection only seems to be lasting 1-2 hours before dropping and reconnecting.

Is this all symptomatic of an HR Fault?

Hopefully they'll find the fault on Friday and resolve it.

Sounds like it,I f the adsl is wholesale based then their DLM will of increased the target snr which will result in a lower sync rate as well as perhaps lowering their stupid profiling system as well, these you will most probably have to get your isp to reset to resume your previous sync speeds once the fault/s been fixed

ADSL will work over just one wire, but slower, so probably one of the two wires become disconnected, e.g. HR fault, bad joint.

Then something changed and it was re-made so phone works, but the issue is on the verge of breaking again. Unplug all the ADSL kit and filters and if still noisy then I'd suggest leaving the ADSL kit unplugged while the engineer is there. This avoids it being 'blamed'

It was still crackly when the corded phone was plugged in the test socket, and no ADSL or anything else connected.

But good suggestion to ensure PC et al is all powered down.

It's on a 21CN line, don't know whether DLM works the same way.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

Is this all symptomatic of an HR Fault?

More likely to be a loop/rectified loop, as you also say

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

Tried ringing from my mobile, got Number Busy.

If it were dis/HR dis, you would probably have got ringing tone - even if the telephone didn't actually ring.

My guess is a wet joint somewhere.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

It's on a 21CN line, don't know whether DLM works the same way.

I guess you will find you soon enough, hopefully it will re ajust it's self within a very short time frame back to what it was previously, or better ,without the need of intervention by the isp

The nice man from Openreach came this morning.

Although I couldn't hear crackling yesterday he could hear it after doing a ring back test. Their automated testing indicated a loop rectifier problem which can be caused by damp given a partial short. Anyway he checked the crimps in the outside box and found they looked a little strange and remade them all - slightly intermittently as we had a hail storm at the time so a warming cup of coffee was welcomed .

Ran all sorts of further tests but could no longer get any noise on the line and all the tests from the exchange were showing good. After about 45 minutes he left pretty confident he'd cleared the fault, he admitted though he couldn't be absolutely certain.

Ultimately time will tell.