How long will it likely take for Openreach to fix this?

Hi guys,

After a few months of suffering from intermittent broadband issues and worsening cracking on our Telephone line, we (today) have had an engineer identify a High Resistance Fault on our underground line under the pavement which is not ducted. It must be very bad because our 17dB line is struggling to hold a 1Meg sync reliably (Even though the problem appears to be on the upstream side of things according to my RouterStats graphs).

Apparently fixing it is going to be messy according to the engineer we had (New Manhole, possibly a new cable from the new Manhole to the external box on our premises) so I am curious;

How long is it likely going to take Openreach to fully fix a fault like this? I can't imagine it being very pleasant bearing in mind the pavement was resurfaced about 8 months ago.

I'm just asking this question out of general curiosity as it's the first time I've seen this happen to person to someone I know (Let alone myself).

Any ideas?

Edited by chris6273 (Fri 31-Aug-12 23:19:40)

Probably depends on the local council, and granting permission for the work

In reply to a post by chris6273:

Hi guys,

After a few months of suffering from intermittent broadband issues and worsening cracking on our Telephone line, we (today) have had an engineer identify a High Resistance Fault on our underground line under the pavement which is not ducted. It must be very bad because our 17dB line is struggling to hold a 1Meg sync reliably (Even though the problem appears to be on the upstream side of things according to my RouterStats graphs).

Apparently fixing it is going to be messy according to the engineer we had (New Manhole, possibly a new cable from the new Manhole to the external box on our premises) so I am curious;

How long is it likely going to take Openreach to fully fix a fault like this? I can't imagine it being very pleasant bearing in mind the pavement was resurfaced about 8 months ago.

I'm just asking this question out of general curiosity as it's the first time I've seen this happen to person to someone I know (Let alone myself).

Any ideas?

Most of the Openreach line plant is usually within ducting , with regular access points along it's length(D'Sides) so they shouldn't really present much of an issue, even if the footway needed an excavation to access the cable damage, I have seen quite a few instances on my local councils web site, so why it would be problematic for them i don't know, it shouldn't be, could just be that the engineer didn't fancy doing the work

Edited by tommy45 (Fri 31-Aug-12 23:48:14)

The pavement where the fault is, is not ducted at all apparently according to him (And He showed me the closest Manhole with a DP in it. It wasn't ducted at all, just a load of dirt at the bottom with black cables and the DP inside it with its bracket).

Also the closest Manhole cover to where the fault is, is about 25 meters down the road.

Also where our External box is, the cable goes into the ground, not through a duct of any sort .

Edited by chris6273 (Fri 31-Aug-12 23:55:59)

So, sounds like the engineers has measured your fault to the buried frontage tee (house between 1965 and 1975 at a guess). Will now require a track and mark engineer. He will mark up for the maintenance dig. Contractors come dig the hole, an engineer comes and remakes the joint. If real unlucky, the lead in to your property is borked, and will require replacing.

At a guess, back in service by Thursday or Friday.

That sounds exactly what the engineer said when he came around.
He said another engineer (Who was away at the time) has this special piece of kit which can track cables (Which they don't make anymore apparently), so he will mark it up for contractors.

By the way, what is the buried frontage tee? Is it where the cores in the 'lead in' cable connect to the trunk cable going along the pavement to the DP?

The BT18 box we have is dated 1971 (Intel from Telephonesuk) so I'm guessing that the frontage tee could possibly be the problem.

At the moment the connection is so bad that when you pick up the phone, the whole line disconnects and you can hear tons of noise so Hopefully the problem will become permanent for the moment so they can easily track the fault (As it has been intermittent).

We have an engineer coming round tomorrow so hopefully he/she will be the one with the kit to track and mark it.

Edited by chris6273 (Sun 02-Sep-12 08:52:27)

By the way, what is the buried frontage tee?

It is the direct in ground joint where the buried cable comes from your house (1 or 2 pair) to meet the main buried cable running along in front of all the houses. This is called a running DP.
PITA to be honest.
But then it has lasted 40 years, you see, when exposed by the dig, it is most likely just a taped up 'submarine' closure. Rubberised 'tapes amalgamating' wound round to cover, and then insulating tape on top of that. Some were grease filled, but I suspect yours was not, as these tend still not to be faulty. Will most likely be the connectors, either the dreaded 'blue beans' or maybe a tip solder connection with the then bare wires covered in a little sheath.

this special piece of kit which can track cables

A cat and genny.

In reply to a post by chris6273:

That sounds exactly what the engineer said when he came around.
He said another engineer (Who was away at the time) has this special piece of kit which can track cables (Which they don't make anymore apparently)

Ordered myself a brand new Cat & Genny a few months ago... Its about £500 for the pair and the company likes to have experienced operators using them as digs in the wrong place are very expensive and cause long delays.

Thanks for the info. I'm betting it's probably the dreaded 'blue bean' connectors - I can remember the lead-in cable being connected with Blue Bean connectors in the external BT18 box we have before they were replaced by an engineer.

Whether it be a solder joint or the blue bean connectors, something is definitely going down the chute to be able to take out over 32.5dB of Noise Margin on my upload. I bet drinking water could conduct better than whatever is down there at the moment:

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/1245/wow30db.png


That Cat & Genny looks like quite a nice piece of kit

Edited by chris6273 (Sun 02-Sep-12 19:46:26)

Hopefully a submarine and not a resin joint!

Had an engineer out yesterday who sprayed in white the proposed new route of a new cable which will be going in.

One thing which we didn't understand was that the engineer sprayed a big box with B.T in the middle of it... about 10 feet up the road from where the cable goes back to the cabinet (It even goes past someone elses' driveway).

We have a very long stretch of wall going the correct way between our two driveways (where the old route still goes) so any ideas why the engineer would propose the cable to be joined to the frontage tea about 10 feet the other way than plotting it the other direction towards the cabinet?

Also he did not track the old cable, he just plotted the course for a new one (Which is good news I suppose).

The pavement behind the long wall doesn't have any existing manholes so there would be plenty of space.

Also how will the engineer attach the new cable to the existing pair in the Frontage Tee if the length of the existing pairs is shorter?

Edit: Here is a picture of what I mean: http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8892/croppedr.png . The current cable joins the frontage tee around where the white line starts to appear I believe. The frontage tee (cabinet end) goes the opposite way to where the white box is (Goes towards the background at the moment). When the engineer was looking in the DP I didn't see any spare pairs (The DP is literally right next to where the red car is parked in the photo).

I'm just curious as to how this is all going to fit together considering the facts .

Edited by chris6273 (Thu 13-Sep-12 18:44:00)

The 'big box' would normally indicate a JF4 foot way box to be built over the resulting joint. From the existing DP further up, does the cable then run down past your property to the cab ? If so, then makes sense, if not, and it is fed from the red car end of things, the engineer has done summat wrong....

The cable which we have at the moment joins the frontage tee at the end of the first wall, about 5 meters further up the road (Towards the red car) than the white box in the photo, we believe. The line goes from the end of the drive towards the red car and then to the cabinet, so it doesn't go past where the proposed box is at all in fact the frontage tee joins to the cable before the red wall in the photograph, on the opposite side to the new white box.

Here is an edited version of what I mean. The BLUE cable is the Frontage Tee and the RED cable is the current cable going into the property. The GREEN dot is where the fault is believed to be: http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/9923/croppededite... . The cabinet is further up the road than the Red car.

What will happen if the engineer has indeed done something wrong? Obviously we are in no place to tell the construction team as they are contracted by BT Openreach to carry out a job.

Edited by chris6273 (Thu 13-Sep-12 21:36:36)

Maybe there are extra tees in the cable and they plan to connect you to one further up and write off the existing connection as bad?

Fingers crossed that's the case if there are spare tees available. What will happen if there isn't? Will they simply come back and re-dig the trench the other way?

I must admit, the engineer didn't appear to check the closest DP for spare tees.

Edited by chris6273 (Fri 14-Sep-12 14:19:14)

Hmm, looks odd to me, the only theory might be that the engineer planned on using the second spare pair which is fed back up the wrong way on the cable ...... but I would doubt that.

I guess this is all just conjecture, I should have a little more faith, the three guys who do track and mark around here are mustard.

Sit tight, if nothing else you will be getting a new lead in cable, always a plus.

Keep us posted anyhow.

Okay, will do

Out of interest that "second spare pair" which you are talking about - If the engineers connect me to that, would it have the possibility in making my line a lot longer?

The only other route the line can take to the other closest cabinet is about 600 meters compared to the 100 meters or so for the current cabinet.

What is this second spare pair?

Just another pair of wires in the same cable that your current pair are in.

A quick update on the progress of the problem:

After missing 2 appointments over the past week, the contractors worked their socks off for about 5 hours today, from about 10am till 3pm.

They managed to get the grey duct in (Looks quite large in diameter) from the BT18 box at the top of our driveway to the new manhole (Which they also appear to have fitted):

http://imageshack.us/a/img696/8586/img0031js.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img694/4092/img0032vu.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img217/6037/img0033pn.jpg


I'll be interested in how they are going to get the cable around this tight bend into the BT18 box (Old one enters from the bottom):

http://imageshack.us/a/img688/2148/img0030ld.jpg


All in all certainly looks like good progress. Fingers crossed they have a spare pair in the frontage tee. Looking forward to seeing some brand spanking new (and hopefully better) line stats after this work is finished as well as a clean line.


One thing which I am interested in is how will they go about connecting the cable to the frontage tee? Will they put a new DP in the frontage tee? (All of this has got me interested )

Edited by chris6273 (Fri 21-Sep-12 18:57:41)

So, you have a new duct from the newly built box (JF2). The cable will easily come through the bend, the rope is to allow the engineer to draw the new cable through the duct. The joint put in the new box will a 'universal clip joint' of one type or another, so not a DP as such. Above the duct mouth will be fitted a BT66 closure, this will house the joint taking the feed and the lead in to your NTE.

Okay, Thanks for your explanation Zarjaz.

Fingers crossed all goes to plan and it's completed next week. I'll update the thread with pictures of the completed work and results when it is finished .

Are you by any chance an engineer Zarjaz ?

The great engineers left about an hour and a half ago and completed the wiring of the new cable coming up our drive.

They managed to luckily find a spare pair on the frontage tee cable and shared my confusion as to why the engineer who marked the new route a week ago 1. Didn't track the cable and 2. Put the Manhole Mark on the left side of the drive instead of the right side. There were definitely talks of getting another dig team out if there were no spare pairs.

So far, the connection stats haven't changed much but the SNR is a lot more stable and the line is almost silent (Touch wood the problem is fixed). One of the engineers did kindly reset the SNR and interleaving which has brought the line up to 20 meg with a 6.9dB Noise Margin.

They did exactly as you mentioned Zarjaz - They put a joint on the Frontage cable to connect the new cable (I think he put a really thin version of that black fiber manifold - without the fiber obviously on the cable to isolate it in the manhole) and also put a brand new shiny BT66 box above the duct mouth (Hence the question at the beginning of this post).

http://imageshack.us/a/img198/1215/img0036vg.jpg

Fingers crossed the problem is fixed permanently. Thanks for everyones' help in this thread!

I think he put a really thin version of that black fiber manifold - without the fiber obviously on the cable to isolate it in the manhole

?? Any chance of a sneaky picture of the closure in the new box out side ?

Not sure if I'll be able too because I'm guessing the cover is heavy and difficult to lift without the correct tool.

However, it looked similar to this:

http://i1026.photobucket.com/albums/y330/telephonene...

It just had more of a fiber manifold look (More bits of black plastic sticking out)

BT Fibre manifold looks very different

http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre-cornwall/images/f... one up a pole (the round bit to the left), same design is used for the underground manifolds too.

Can anybody please confirm 100% that the bt_test@startup_domain test user works on Fibre ?

Well off-topic! Need new thread!

Yes, probably poor advice.

The piccy you have linked is a dropwire (overhead) closure. I suspect it's just a clippy joint.