Getting a BT Engineer

I have an open Question currently being looked in to by Plusnet who have passed it to BT. I was asked to give three dates that they would try and get some to my home and they cannot actually get someone out on the dates given.

I cannot just take a day off in the hope that the engineer will call as i have heard that even if it is booked, sometimes they don't appear.

How do I actually arrange a suitable date?!

Hi,

Normally if the dates aren't available we'll ask for an alternate set of dates or we'll try and a time when we can book an engineer (if you had said for example any morning would be fine we'll try and get the earliest morning).

If you reply back with some more times then we can try them for you, or we can try the earlist available date for you if that would be better.

Thanks Dave, But it still comes to the point where if i were to book a morning appointment i would have to take time off work.

I have updated my ticket with some other dates when my wife will be at home but the first isn't till the 29th June.

I have been trying to work out which box in the house is the main box.

Box 1
Box 2

Can anyone tell from these which might be the master box?

Box 1 - the black cable is the one from outside.

What is the problem you are having we maybe able to give you some advice.

The black cable goes to a phone port in the kitchen!

The problem im having is that my connection is losing synch all day everyday.

I have tried removing all devices from the line, plugged in the router to all boxes i can find. I have replaced the microfilters.

These are my current line stats:

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 6400 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 47 db 15 db
Noise Margin 3 db 25 db

Not sure what other info you need.

Box 1 still looks like the master to me.

Where are they in relation to position in the house?

How confident are you?

I agree it looks like the master to me...mainly because I can only see 1 phone socket on it but there are 2 cables in there.

To the OP... are there any other sockets in the house other than the 2 you have provided pictures of?

There is one in the bedroom upstairs and one in the kitchen. But as i said before the black lead in one of the pics goes to the kitchen.

I wasn't basing my opinion on the colour of the cable tbh, just that I could see 2 cables and only 1 obvious socket in pic 1 but 2 cables and 2 sockets in pic2. Do the sockets of these other 2 sockets look like either of the 2 you have already provided (including number of cables)?

The box with the black wire is in the front hall and the other is in the room next door. The one on the hall is mounted on the outside wall of the house and the other is mounted on the other side of a wall on the stairs. The one in the kitchen is in direct line with the hall.

 -----------------------------------------------

 |            ^        |           |   y                       |

 |----------   -------------     -----------------|

 |                   x     |        

^ denotes the box with the black wire
X is the other box and y is the box in the kitchen.
As i said before the other box is upstairs the wire goes up the stairs through the attic and into the bedroom.

three of the boxes are like this,

http://www.conorandlucy.co.uk/pictures/box.jpg
The fourth is a double socketed box.

I must say that this looks odd to me. If I am correct Box 1 has three wires attached, a black one, a thicker white one and a thinner white (cream 1). [There is also a thin black lead which goes though the wall but doesn't appear to be attached to the socket directly]. Box 2 has has two white cables. Now I'm assuming that the socket in the bedroom and kitchen only have one wire going to each. In that case you have one of two arrangements.

A)

BT------Box 1---------Box 2----------Ext 2

          |

          +------------Ext 1

i.e. Lines comes in from BT to Box 1, 1 wire runs to an extension (Kitchen or Bedroom) and second runs to Box 2, then second wire from Box 2 goes to other extension

or B)

BT------Box 2---------Box 1----------Ext 2

                        |

                        +------------Ext 1

i.e. Lines comes in from BT to Box 2 and other wire runs to an Box 1, from here two other wires run to the extensions in Kitchen and Bedroom.

There really isn't a way to tell which of these is for real. Except that the colour of the cables in the extensions should help. As the cable from box 1 to box 2 is cream (there aren't any black ones in box 2) then the black cable in box 1 must either go to one of the extension sockets or to BT. (Unless of course there is a joint in the cable somewhere and it changes colour at the joint!)

However this is all using old style cabling - there is no NTE5 socket, so you can't easily disconnect the extension sockets. This is the real point of connecting the modem to the master socket - if you have an NTE5 you can unplug the extension wiring and eliminate that from the equation. As you don't have an NTE5 you can't unplug it, so even if you plug into the master socket you still have the extension cabling attached and a fault in it could still cause the problem. You could remove the extension cables from the back of the master socket - but of course you are then tampering with BT's wiring and they don't like that.

The other thing of note is that both Box 1 and Box 2 have bell capacitors in them, i.e. they are both master style sockets. There should only be one master style socket in any wiring arrangement. The question is then - who added these extensions? It certainly doesn't seem to have been done correctly.

My suggestion is that really you should get all this mess sorted out - unfortunately if the extensions weren't done by BT (and my guess is that they weren't) then they may charge you for sorting it out.

The thin cream wire you mentioned is draped around the side of the house, i.e. its stuck wherever there is something that will hold it. And its worn away so that the inner wires are loose.

Have you tried following the route of the cable from the outside and see which socket it goes to first as that should be the master socket. Whilst there could easily be a number of things causing the problem internal wiring could easily be the cause especially with several sockets like this.

If you have bare wires this could be the problem. If they touch at any point then there will be a short. This could cause all sorts of problems with the link.

Dave

The black comes from box one to the box in the kitchen through the outside wall and back through the wall again.. From box 1 there is a cable that goes under the carpet to box 2 and then from box 2 to the box in the bedroom. The thin white wire goes from box 1 to the kitchen via the front of the house, around the side. This is the one that's badly worn.

Can you please find out for me what the earliest appointment would be as we need to get this sorted?

Unless I'm mistaken, anything after the first box is your responsibility. Be wise to check that before getting an engineer out, as they may well charge you.

The last owners left it in a right state and we need someone to sort this out. If i can get an engineer to disconnect all extensions and leave just the two boxes then it will be worth it to have a connection that's not dying every 30 seconds like it is. And if that is the case it might as well be a BT engineer.

There is one very important thing to remember though from this.

To get what your after from a BT Engineer, we will need to request an SFI (Special Fault Investigation) appointment.

If as a result of this, the problem is due to internal cabling which is not BTs direct responsibility, the most they will normally offer is to disconnect the cabling. Some may do some for of replacement, though this can often be length dependant.

The end result, will be the charge of

Is it perhaps too simple to ask BT to fit a NTE5 socket because you do not have one. The joy of having one of those is that it is the master, you have the option of trying your modem in the hidden test socket, the socket that eliminates any internal wiring, so if things work there you know it is internal, or if it doesn't you can legitimately report it to the ISP.

Not sure how receptive BT are to fitting a box but when you report a noise fault they insist you try using the test socket, so perhaps if you claim you have noise (intermittent cos we all have them ) and tell them you have no NTE5 so cannot tell if it is internal or external they may fit one for you, hopefully no charge.

With a NTE5 fitted you have a certain method of establishing where the fault is, upside or downside of the box, and you can the get your internal stuff sorted out.

As suggested a local sparks or whatever can be far cheaper than BT.