Exchange Only - What Hope

I am currently one of the unlucky people to have an exchange only telephone line. To top off my stream of bad luck in this area the line is almost 3KM long, I actualy have my suspicions that it does a victory lap of the town before it reaches the exchange.

My speed was slightly over 4mb for some time, originaly the speed was <1mb however I persisted like a dog with a bone and had multiple Openreach Engineer visits (over 10 so far). As a result almost everything replaceable was (so they say!) and my speed was finaly at 4mb. Then after a few months it dropped again to 3mb, not much of a drop but it is still 1/4 the speed, so for me a massive drop. I am now approaching the 3rd visit in 28 days (to allow an escalation). I have to say the engineers are somewhat useless. I enquired about network re-arrangement and was laughed at and told if i want faster speeds I should move house. This seems to be the party line.

I have to say my ISP has been pretty good (sky), I dont see changing ISP as an option as I am a heavy user.

So to my point, there are 2 Fibre cabinets in differing locations under 100 meters from my house ( I swear they were put there to tease me ). From everything I have read so far it would appear I have no hope, cant get Fibre on Demand as I am not connected to a cabinet and even if I was to pay to get connected I would be looking at a small fortune.

I currently live in the "KA1 3" postcode area of Kilmarnock, Scotland which has been identified as the number 2 broadband blackspot for towns with over 44k residents.

I can almmost feel the value of my house drop with the influx of fibre availability and my current [censored] speeds.

What hope do I have?
Is there anything I can do ? (I have contacted my MP regarding, and await her response).

Sounds like you need to contact your local council to see if you are in the footprint of the BDUK project and if so what phase you might be in. It does sound like Openreach have spent a lot of money trying to fix your issue - a lot more than they are likely to make back from you anytime soon.

3km long and should be able to do 7 Mbps - what is your downstream attenuation?

Sky is sometimes a little conservative with its DLM, but it can be good, 3.5km from exchange here and sync is just under 9 Mbps.

As for the exchange only issue, 12 cabinets still without FTTC at the exchange so until they are done then unlikely that EO will be addressed. Remember Scotland has a 85% connected to fibre solution target by 2015, would you bet a months salary on a 85% chance? The higher 95% for 2017 is actually less than the rest of the UK, as most of the UK is aiming at 95% superfast, but Scotland is taking the 95% fibre based target instead.

There looks to be several clusters of EO across Kilmarnock,
Dundonald Road/Mount Ave
Bank St, Sandbed St
Parts of Bonnyton Road
Bowmore Road
Southcraig Drive

Around 1,500 premises in total, but with 19,000 premises on the exchange, they could be ignored and targets met.

I shall do that today ian72, thanks. I was pondering the words to use and you have provided them

I had spoken with the Lord Provost over this matter however I feel that I was talking to a brick wall on that one.

Indeed Openreach must have exceeded normal amounts of funding for my issues. They will no doubt be back again in the next week, I shall speak with my ISP tonight.

The telephone pole is situated in my garden, a visual reminder of how guff my service is. I own an axe

Just to add, for the five years we have lived their the telephone has never worked correctly, at night we hear other talking on the line, anytime the phone is used the internet drops out and trains for ages. But the telephone line is really only their for the broadband for us. It is gauling though.

I pay line rental for [censored] that barely works (perhaps im renting the mammoth cable!)
People a stonesthrow away pay the exact same for a working line and broadband 20x faster.

It really doesnt figure.

If you hear other people talking when the broadband hardware is unplugged then keep the pressure on to get the telephone line brought up to standard

I suggest that if you have not done so, try the Quiet Line Test, particularly when you hear other conversations.

17070

Option 2

Have you heard of any complaints from neighbours?

If you do the QLT several times over some days, any neighbours hearing the responses such as the initial statement of your Phone Number, may stimulate them to report faults to their phone providers.

I think if i were to use the home phone line for calls more then I may do better at pin pointing the issues ie. call the ISP when they happen. Unfortunately though we tend to rely more on mobile phones for calls now so the telephone tends to be like an unliked relative sitting in the corner gathering dust.

There have been occasions when I have went to use it and it sounds like an old spectrum game loading (ohh memories lol).

I am on router number 3. Telephone number 3. Countless new adsl filters. No extensions, Openreach fitted noise filters (fitted on Saturday).

Stranglly though the last engineer to visit (a broadband engineer) on Saturday came back after the visit a couple of hours later to inform me that he has replaced the entire line and that they do not normally do that. Whether that is true I will never know but I would imagine replacing 3KM of phone line wouldnt be that easy, so could just have been lip service.

I will persist trying the quiet line test.

Any time I have spoke with neighbours about broadband they are actualy suffering slower speeds than I am, obviously I have been vigilant in persuing faster speeds though. Their speeds range from 1mb - 2 mb. I have only spoken with a small handful of neighbours. It is a reallyt quiet area and I tend to keep myself to myself.

Thanks for all the input folks it is really appreciated.

Fast reply!

Generally from observation and experience, I would recommend that the QLT should be the first resort if line problems (including internal wiring) are suspected.

It costs nothing (apart from some minutes); and can reveal a lot.

Try to get (some of) your neighbours to do so also, including offering to do it for them.

Hopefully, they will co-operate.


Even if you never normally use the Land Line for Phone Calls, its condition is vital for good Broadband service, whether ADSL or VDSL.

I shall try the test when i get home

Line attenuation for down is 59db , up is 36db , noise margin is 7.1db

I am getting 3mb down and 1mb up (3027kbs and 1007kbs to be exact)

59dB is either 3.5km of aluminium or around 6km of copper.

Getting the voice sorted out, without any mention of broadband is the first step. The requirements for a voice line are well understood by the openreach engineers