'High voltage' on phone line?

Can anyone throw any light on why there is a 'high voltage' on my TalkTalk line, please?

For some weeks now I have been complaining to TalkTalk via their members forum about the drop in line speed over what I used to be getting and the number of intermittent disconnects occurring.

Over this time they have had a Qube engineer and a BT OpenReach engineer visit my home to check my line. Both engineers found it to be fine.

Yesterday TalkTalk checked my line remotely with the ADSL faceplate removed from the master socket and nothing plugged into the test socket.

They reported that the line test showed high voltage and they need to book a Special Faults Investigation (SFI).

This involves a visit by a SFI engineer and, should he/she find that the problem is due to something that is my responsibility, I will be charged for this visit.

I'm keen therefore to ensure that I am not charged for this visit so need to understand;

a) what is causing the line voltage to be high,
b) whether this could be the cause of the speed drop and outages I have been experiencing recently and
c) whether it could it be due to something that is my responsibility (e.g. my mains wiring).

Regards,

Bryan

Sounds a bit strange.
The bottom line is if you have a modern style BT Master Socket and no one has tampered with the wiring behind it (coming in from the 'street') then you should be fine.
If your ISP wants to arrange an engineer when you have nothing plugged in then I can't see how you could be billed. (You might still get billed but you can argue this with your ISP!)

Perhaps get something in writing from TalkTalk if required?

EDIT: It might be worth posting your router stats if you want some advice from TBB members on the health of your line.

Edited by b4dger (Fri 20-Aug-10 16:46:17)

In reply to a post by b4dger:

Sounds a bit strange.
The bottom line is if you have a modern style BT Master Socket and no one has tampered with the wiring behind it (coming in from the 'street') then you should be fine.
If your ISP wants to arrange an engineer when you have nothing plugged in then I can't see how you could be billed. (You might still get billed but you can argue this with your ISP!)

That's my take on it too. I haven't touched the wiring up to the NTE and 2 engineers have checked it out as fine but stranger things have happened when dealing with TalkTalk.

EDIT: It might be worth posting your router stats if you want some advice from TBB members on the health of your line.

My line stats from 3/7/2010 to date may be found at here.
I'd appreciate members comments on these figures as they seem all over the place to me. TalkTalk have put my line on 6dB, 9dB and currently 15dB profiles. Currently my sync speed on 15dB is higher than I could get previously on 9dB and about the same as I was getting on 6dB. On TalkTalk's Speed Test Results page it clearly says at the top of the page that the Potential Sync. Speed for my line is 3000kbps. Until a few months ago this was what I was getting.

Option 3, talk talk are spouting rubbish ...... If there's high voltage on the line, then the OR engineer would have detected it, and fixed it.

In reply to a post by bacoms:

My line stats from 3/7/2010 to date may be found at here.
I'd appreciate members comments on these figures as they seem all over the place to me. TalkTalk have put my line on 6dB, 9dB and currently 15dB profiles. Currently my sync speed on 15dB is higher than I could get previously on 9dB and about the same as I was getting on 6dB. On TalkTalk's Speed Test Results page it clearly says at the top of the page that the Potential Sync. Speed for my line is 3000kbps. Until a few months ago this was what I was getting.

Your stats do seem rather unstable! You've had quite a few low syncs.

Have you done the normal tests from the TEST socket - perhaps you could post your stats from there?

With an attenuation of 57db(ish) somewhere around 4Mb sync would be the best you can expect on a 6db Target SNR.

In reply to a post by b4dger:

Your stats do seem rather unstable! You've had quite a few low syncs.
Have you done the normal tests from the TEST socket - perhaps you could post your stats from there?

I've re-posted my up-to-date stats here.
On the 22nd from around midnight to midday, I ran with my router connected via a filter to the test socket in the NTE5.
Sync. speed increased as did the Speed Test speed but didn't drop much when I reconnected the ADSL faceplate. Slowly dropping since then as has the stability.

In reply to a post by b4dger:

With an attenuation of 57db(ish) somewhere around 4Mb sync would be the best you can expect on a 6db Target SNR.

If only. I'd be happy with 3Mb with near 100% stability.

Hi Bacoms,

If you register on the TalkTalk Members Forum (http://www.talktalkmembers.com/forums) we can complete some line tests and raise this issue to our network as necessary for further investigation.

We can advise you further before arranging for an SFI engineer to be dispatched as to the potential cause of the issue. There are varied factors which could cause this issue so we would need to look at your specific line details in order to investigate further into this issue.

Regards

Mark

In reply to a post by TALKTALK_SUPPORT:

If you register on the TalkTalk Members Forum (http://www.talktalkmembers.com/forums) we can complete some line tests and raise this issue to our network as necessary for further investigation.

See thread.

In reply to a post by TALKTALK_SUPPORT:

We can advise you further before arranging for an SFI engineer to be dispatched as to the potential cause of the issue. There are varied factors which could cause this issue so we would need to look at your specific line details in order to investigate further into this issue.

SFI engineer is coming tomorrow am. The reason I posted here was to ensure that the problems I've been experiencing aren't due to something for which I am responsible and would therefore be charged for the SFI call.

Regards,

Bryan