DSL weirdness

After a heated exchange with one of Bulldog's customer service managers, my line has started to see a lot of downtime. It might be a coincidence but perhaps someone can figure this out.

The line would drop all of a sudden and there would be no sync at all. However, if any phone in the household is picked up, the line syncs again. Put the phone down and after a minute or so, the line loses sync... and so on. After a while, the line would sync again with no activity. If I try to access the net, the line goes down after a few minutes. This occurs often a night and occasionally during the day.

You might suspect it could be a microfilter, so I've already changed all three in the household with new ones, and before you suspect a possible faulty one out of the three new ones, I've also tried replacing these three with another set of new ones (yes, I've got lots of microfilters as I have a bunch of faulty SpeedTouch routers in my storeroom). This rules out the microfilters.

You could suspect the cable from my router to be faulty, I've replaced it with two different ones including an expensive Belkin gold gimmick. This rules out the cable.

You could suspect the router, I get the same result on two different SpeedTouch 580s, even my old frog modem has the same problem. This rules out the modem/router.

You might suspect the BT line in my house, this has been replaced about half a year ago by BT themselves, new wires, new socket due to a different DSL fault.

The SNR margins do fluctuate a lot before the line goes down. I'm only using a basic 2Mb connection with Bulldog (Alltime 2000 for nearly 3 years), BT still supplies my phone services. It is the first time I've encountered this problem which started a little over a week ago.

There are also lots of errors on the line as the stats below show:

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 2,272

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 19.5

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 18.0 / 30.0

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 12.0 / 11.0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 218 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0

CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 577

HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 113

NB The SN Margin Down fluctuates from 5 to 31dB, it is usually in the high 20s.

Bulldog has no idea but blames BT (probably because I'm leaving them). BT blames Bulldog. Fascinating eh? Any ideas?

Edited by aktsang (Sun 17-Sep-06 02:19:55)

Chances are, the new copper run to your house is either in itself faulty or has an external malign influence - that is to say mice or moisture in the first instance and parallel power lines, proximity of electrically "noisy" equipent and so on in the second (not ghosts)...

Your best bet is to call BT direct and tell them that your phone calls keep randomly cutting out - it's good bet that they'll switch the copper almost immediately, thne you can [censored] at them directly if they've "broken" your DSL.

Edited by YuppieScum (Sun 17-Sep-06 02:15:26)

Sorry for misunderstanding, the wiring and master socket inside my house was replaced, not the outside one

On the face of it sounds like a classic line fault if you have tested from the master test socket if you have one. The relevent bit of info that it works when a handset is picked up.
If bulldog pass that info onto BT wholesale they should recognise the symtoms imediately.

You're right - I read it as being the "last mile" copper rather than interior wiring - my bad.

However, the same remedy still applies - BT are responsible for the wire up-to-and-including the master socket. Phone them directly and say your voice service randomly cuts out...

Thanks for the feedback, I'll see who BT will try to blame this time

Just make sure you frame the problem in terms of the voice service - that way they're responsible for the entire thing - they can't shuck it to anyone.

Sounds like a fault called a HR or high resistance fault. This is where a fault in the line is due to a bad connection such as corrosion or similar and not enough current can normally flow for your ADSL service. But when you pick up the phone the higher current flow temporarily enables the connection by 'burning' through the fault so that both the phone service and ADSL now work. If the fault is marginal then the ADSL service can continue for some time afterwards but in your case it sounds as if it is on the limit as you lose ADSL almost immediately you put down the phone. It sounds like BD can't be bothered to chase up BT to fix it as you are leaving them. The only real option is to perseve, but if there is any noise or crackles on the phone line when you use it you can simply report it to BT as a voice fault and fixing it should fix it for ADSL as well.

EDIT: typo.

Edited by deleted (Sun 17-Sep-06 09:21:41)

I would not advise that unless the OP really is having problems with the voice (PSTN) service.
There is the risk of being charged for a wasted visit, or no action being taken in which case the OP struggles on.
The OP should persue this with Bulldog if only the broadband service is disconnected.

In reply to:

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Your best bet is to call BT direct and tell them that your phone calls keep randomly cutting out - it's good bet that they'll switch the copper almost immediately, thne you can [censored] at them directly if they've "broken" your DSL.

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Very poor advice. Report it direct via BT, they will send a non-ADSL trained engineer who will deem the line OK, and charge you.
The fault must be reported via your ISP, so the attending engineer has the correct skills and tools to fault your line.