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
Back to ADSL with trusty W8960 >5kms to exchange
VDSL to cab did not work, to far!