In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

..... How can a Customer Engineer fault be external?

Easily is the answer to that one!

Whch is a perfectly deadbeat answer to a genuine question.

The words Customer Engineer seem to explicitly rule out anything external as a Customer would not be touching anything external. Nor do retail customers have engineers.

I think I'll stick with Zarjaz's answer until something helpful is posted to show him wrong.

In the specific case, ignoring that diagnosis, do you agree the problem is probably customer end?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

..... would not be touching...

Should not be touching...
I've lost count of the cut/moved/"jointed" dropwires and tampered with NTE's etc that I've seen.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

..... In the specific case, ignoring that diagnosis, do you agree the problem is probably customer end?

I'd put a few pennies on it!

Quite. We seem to agree on all points. If "CE = Customer Engineer" in the official Openreach manuals, then just another example of the illiteracy of the people who produced them. I could just about accept "Customer misEngineering" .

Yes, well maybe my original posting's title using the words 'messed up' were maybe slightly misleading, indeed, those words were chosen as to be slightly 'tongue in cheek' to add a little levity to the post, as is quite common whilst fault-finding...

To reiterate, the fault developed before i even checked the landlords wiring. The sudden lack of ADSL and phone service *then* prompted me to check the master socket,
and then subsequently, to remove the non standard addition .. I'm reasonably aware of BT's policy on customers *actually* messing with their side of things, thats why i removed it before they called - it wasn't working in any case, and was unneeded.

Being, as i was, involved in electronics professionally, i felt it was not beyond me to remove a simple 'pound shop extension' as of course it isn't, and wouldn't be for 90% of folks on this forum.

What puzzled me was, i saw the BT guys actually putting the line in, several years ago,
and so immediately discounted the possibility that it would have gone wrong again, so soon.
and wondered if BT were usng some fancy sensing technology i wasn't yet aware of.
old tales of REN, Buzby, frazzeled engineers, CB'ers using the lines as transmitting aerials sprang to mind..

Turns out the Engineer told me, it looks like some contractors may have been working near the pole and pulled some connections out. And there are scaffolders working around there, maybe one had accidentally hit a wire or something..
maybe i need to stop eating those blue smarties .. i think there's something in them ..|

i was always told that CE = Customer Equipment.

I have just had a look at clear code doc that i have.

And yes i do need to get out more ! LOL