How long should it take

for BT to resolve a connection fault?

I reported to Plusnet, 7 days ago, that my connection was failing to sync. They provided a free dial-up connection but I'm still without broadband.

Unfortunately I don't have a master socket that I can plug into - still have a GPO cover plate and hard wired extensions. I've obviously tried different routers and filters and have no reason to suppose that the fault is at my end.

Apart from obvious outages the only time I've lost sync was about 7.5 years ago with a badly fitted card at the exchange.

Time for some action. please, Plusnet !

Hi John,

I'm sorry that this has taken a fair time to get sorted. Your faults been passed back to BT a couple of times and they're now after engineer access times.

I'll pass the ticket back to you now, so you can tell us when you'er available and we'll get an engineer booked for you.

Hi James

Thanks for response.

I'll phone in to arrange something.

At least it was established that the fault was between my home and the exchange

Unfortunately the engineer ran out of time before completing the job - I hadn't realised that they were only allowed 2 hours.

Now awaiting Plusnet booking a second appointment.

Engineer thought he'd corrected fault towards the end of second visit, made yesterday.

Alas was not to be - connection failed again a few hours later and there's been no sign of a reconnection

Naturally I've checked a couple of routers in test socket of my nice new NTE5a

As yet have not been given a time for 3rd engineer visit

It is almost better to get a complete failure that an intermittent fault, you know where you are.

I had an up and down connection that would be wonderful for weeks then go through a bout of losing sinc, SNR jumping all about then stable for most of the day..... then off it went again....so frustrating.Thought it was sorted and many weeks of a good service...then it started all over. Had a lift and shift in the end.

This is when I lost all interest in what speeds I could achieve and my mantra was reliability.

I'm not noted for losing my patience with suppliers but ............. enough said

In reply to a post by Sadoldman:

It is almost better to get a complete failure that an intermittent fault, you know where you are.

...

This is when I lost all interest in what speeds I could achieve and my mantra was reliability.

Shouldn't this be in Free Chat?

I don't think this fault is intermittent, Don.

Engineer worked for 2 hours on Monday and, right towards the end, thought he'd found, and corrected, the fault.

When I came to use the connection it failed again and there's been no sign of a reconnection since then.

There's no doubt, in my mind, that the fault is at the exchange end - perhaps someone should give dslam a kick

Initially reported fault 2 weeks tomorrow.

>"There's no doubt, in my mind, that the fault is at the exchange end"

Looks like it...but wherever, I hope it gets sorted quickly....the world is watching.

Hi nadger,

Thanks for your time on the phone, hopefully it'll get sorted tomorrrow with the second SFI visit. Either way I'll check the notes from the engineer in the afternoon and we'll let you know.

Thanks for getting involved, Matthew.

Let's hope that the 3rd visit by BT engineer will resolve this fault.

Problem with using dial-up these days is that sites have more whistles and bells than they had seven and a half years ago and are, in consequence, much slower to load.

In reply to a post by nadger:

There's no doubt, in my mind, that the fault is at the exchange end - perhaps someone should give dslam a kick

Isn't it nice to be proved right

Connection was moved to another card within exchange and now seems fine - fingers crossed.

Just need to wait for connection to re-adapt etc

In reply to a post by nadger:

In reply to a post by nadger:

There's no doubt, in my mind, that the fault is at the exchange end - perhaps someone should give dslam a kick

Isn't it nice to be proved right

Connection was moved to another card within exchange and now seems fine - fingers crossed.

Just need to wait for connection to re-adapt etc

Unfortunately with a line card fault, it is the last to be checked and also assumed to be fine /last to fail. I hope your new line card and you are all ok now!

In reply to a post by Taras:

Unfortunately with a line card fault, it is the last to be checked and also assumed to be fine /last to fail. I hope your new line card and you are all ok now!

I had same engineer for all 3 visits and it took a bit of persuading to get him to consider suggesting a card move.

Keeping fingers crossed

Excellent. I must admit the repeat SFI team were very thorough when testing, either way it's very good to know that everything is now working for you again.

Give me a shout if it happens again or there's anything else we can do.

Many thanks Matthew

Let's hope that I now get a further 7 years of fairly trouble free broadband. Interestingly the last local fault, back in March 2002, was a card fault.

In reply to a post by nadger:

Many thanks Matthew

Let's hope that I now get a further 7 years of fairly trouble free broadband. Interestingly the last local fault, back in March 2002, was a card fault.

Oh dear .. I won't say "everything happens in .............."

In reply to a post by Taras:

Oh dear .. I won't say "everything happens in .............."

Connection was running at acceptable 5 meg over weekend but this morning it's gone to pot.

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 320 / 160
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [KB/KB]: 2.00 / 2.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 11.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31.5 / 56.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.0 / 12.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ALCB

Would normally have attenuation of 41dB and Bandwidth is weird.

Wonder what BT have done now!

Power is rubbish as well:-

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 11.5

Normally around the 19 mark on downstream.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Power is rubbish as well:-

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 11.5

Normally around the 19 mark on downstream.

Noise on phone line makes it virtually unusable so obviously BT have screwed something - line rental is with PN so guess a call to them is needed.

Edit - line is so bad can't hold call to Plusnet and keep losing adsl so difficult to raise ticket

Edited by deleted (Mon 10-Aug-09 10:55:31)

Hi Nadger,

I'll have a look now for you. Will update shortly.

EDIT: This is now with the home phone faults team and I've been assured that it'll get answered today.

Edited by deleted (Mon 10-Aug-09 14:27:03)

Thanks Matthew, they've been in touch

I'm totally puzzled in that I can get, albeit very slow, an adsl connection but not, now, get a phone connection. I've tried 2 corded phones and the modem, in my laptop, I used for dial-up. I've obviouly used NTE5 test socket.

I didn't think that this would be possible.

Perhaps you are being connected through here?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/image_galleri...

In reply to a post by Vorlon:

Perhaps you are being connected through here?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/image_galleri...

Nothing that modern, methinks

Broadband ( all 224kbps) has stayed connected for well over an hour with no dial-tone on phone line. That's something I thought was impossible but we live and learn.

Hopefully I'll get an explanation.

.......Hopefully I'll get an explanation.

It can happen so I have found out on these forums. ADSL can work on one wire apparently, so voice could be lost totally.

When a new line card was fitted did he give it that last extra push and wiggle? That thousandth of an inch can make all the difference. I found that was the issue for a graphics card many moons ago.

Plusnet have told me that it's not an uncommon fault. Let's see what BT come up with - adsl has been connected for two and half hours and is usable, albeit slow.

In reply to a post by Sadoldman:

.......Hopefully I'll get an explanation.

It can happen so I have found out on these forums. ADSL can work on one wire apparently, so voice could be lost totally.

When a new line card was fitted did he give it that last extra push and wiggle? That thousandth of an inch can make all the difference. I found that was the issue for a graphics card many moons ago.

Really (being genuine), I'd like to know how that is achieved. Seeing that most Routers are not earthed and/or have no electrical reference to a "common" hot or cold earth**, their only connection to the BT infrastructure is via a BT connection. I can only assume that there is still an "effective" connection ie two wires connected (albeit one high impedance - if that were the case). The only other explanation (I can think of) is that adsl routers have a high impedance input and they can interpret the high frequency part of the total bandwith (around say the 1Mhz area) i.e. as though the input was acting as an aerial. I'd be surprised if it were possible to work in a "aerial" fashion that it wasn't very crippled, ie the tones it could use/available were limited..

Edit:-
** Just thought of something and also the reason why some people get a tingling sensation from their laptop.
A lot of the Power Supplies (bricks) these days for Routers/laptops etc are "switch-mode" and those that aren't earthed often use an "Y" capacitor between hot and cold earth. With that in mind, our Mains neutral is effectively earth and there will no doubt be a reference to earth by the BT infrasructure. So in theory one BT wire connection could work if certain criteria were met. I would expect it to affect the adsl connection performance wise if it was working in that fashion - badly.

Edited by Vorlon (Mon 10-Aug-09 19:14:42)

As sadoldman says - although it needn't be the line card itself, it is quite common for one wire of the pair to get disconnected anywhere between you and the line card and give exactly what you are describing.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

As sadoldman says - although it needn't be the line card itself, it is quite common for one wire of the pair to get disconnected anywhere between you and the line card and give exactly what you are describing.

Now there's no actual noise on the line my 224kbps adsl connection has been up for 17 hours and internet connection for 10 hours.

Bearing in mind how noisy line was yesterday morning it does suggest a failing connection that's ultimately failed - all our lines are underground.

Due for engineer call this afternoon so Plusnet have acted quickly

As an aside broadband engineer told me that we should be getting " Fibre to Cabinet" next year.

In reply to a post by Vorlon:

In reply to a post by Sadoldman:

.......Hopefully I'll get an explanation.

It can happen so I have found out on these forums. ADSL can work on one wire apparently, so voice could be lost totally.

Really (being genuine), I'd like to know how that is achieved.

I stand to be corrected, but I think Don is exaggerating a bit to say that ADSL can work on one wire

What it can do is work on a two-wire connection with one wire broken- the high frequencies used by the ADSL signal can capacitively bridge a small gap that will stop the low frequency audio phone signals in their tracks.

>>>What it can do is work on a two-wire connection with one wire broken>>>

So I was wrong regarding one wire darn it.

It can work on 3 wires it seems. One complete from exchange to dwelling and two wires one from either end that don't quite meet.

In reply to a post by Sadoldman:

It can work on 3 wires it seems. One complete from exchange to dwelling and two wires one from either end that don't quite meet.

Pretty much, yes- a nice summation

In reply to a post by Sadoldman:

It can work on 3 wires it seems. One complete from exchange to dwelling and two wires one from either end that don't quite meet.

Ouch!

He actually means one from each end not "either", but he gets confused like that.

Looks like road will have to be excavated Openreach engineer found fault close to property but underground. Have temporary repair.

Oh 'eck as they may say in Yorkshire!

Surprising he couldn't use the other pair - or maybe that is duff as well.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Surprising he couldn't use the other pair - or maybe that is duff as well.

Just had a second engineer - perhaps they are related to buses

He confirmed that first guy would have used spare pair but that they'll have to replace both pairs at a later date.

Hows this for a speed test on line syncing at 6046kbps

Yesterday played havoc with IP profile which was 5000kbps

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/1...

Edited by deleted (Tue 11-Aug-09 15:42:06)

In reply to a post by nadger:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Surprising he couldn't use the other pair - or maybe that is duff as well.

Just had a second engineer - perhaps they are related to buses

He confirmed that first guy would have used spare pair but that they'll have to replace both pairs at a later date.

Hows this for a speed test on line syncing at 6046kbps

Yesterday played havoc with IP profile which was 5000kbps

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/1...

Sounds good.

My router used to Sync at 8128kbps with a profile of 7150kbps and that was on a run (which could be intermitent) that contained some aluminium cable. They finally replace the aluminium run with a 200 pair cable a couple of weeks ago, but now my line syncs anywhere between 7456 and 7616kbps in 32k increments, with a profile of 6500kbps. Good job BT/OR aren't responsible for the street lighting or we'd have gas lamps. The cab boxes around here are still poor.

I decided to upgrade the firmware on my TG585v7 just as an experiment as thomson haven't releases anything specifically for the UK since version 7.4.4.7. So i now have an English/German FW with the Austrian flag! lol Version 8.2.3.10 which seems ok. The lines still as it was as i assumed it would be. Also the software DMT still works in the main, aslong as you uncheck "get versions info"

If you used to sync at 8128 and now it tops at 7616 it is almost certain Interleaving has been turned on automatically by the system due to errors occurring while the cable was being messed around with.

It will not turn itself off, even on an auto setting - that just lets it turn on. If you are unhappy then contact your ISP support.

IPStream always syncs at a multiple of 32kbps.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

If you used to sync at 8128 and now it tops at 7616 it is almost certain Interleaving has been turned on automatically by the system due to errors occurring while the cable was being messed around with.

It will not turn itself off, even on an auto setting - that just lets it turn on. If you are unhappy then contact your ISP support.

IPStream always syncs at a multiple of 32kbps.

It's currently at 7488kbps and i opted out on the interleaving. In fact the Zen control panel says it's off and also DMT indicated I'm in Fast path mode.

Interleaving was always set to Auto and infact has been off for over 4 years. It's only recently since the gas board dug up the road (followed by BT's new cable) that interleaving was automatically switched on, which did change my sync speed to 7616kbps. However the Zen customer portal/control panel showed numerous entries of the same thing, ie just duplicates (exact same date & time), so it was hard to see what was going on.
After it was switched on whilst in Auto mode i opted out and the speed re-synced back at my 4+ year norm of 8128kbps. Now a few weeks on the line whilst still in Fast Path mode has dropped in Sync speed since BT changed the cable.