Incidentally, can any of you advise me as to whether BT are likely to bill me for their call-out a couple of days ago? I'd contacted their 151 Faultlline, reporting that not only was my landline phone ringing strangely, with no real incoming call there, but also I was randomly losing access to the Web. There was no evidence to me that any of my internal wiring was the cause. Indeed, the phone still rang wildly (and a spare one too) when plugged into the internal test socket on the NTE5 (via a filter).

A BT engineer accordingly turned up the following day but said he knew nothing about ADSL and he merely proceeded to test the line for voice operation. The fault, though, was affecting both the telephone and my ADSL. He tested in the usual way by unplugging my faceplate filter and using the test socket. He of course found nothing amiss (isn't it always the case?!). He tested none of my extension wiring (not that I needed him to). Thus, he departed having found apparently nothing wrong with my line to the exchange. He advised me to get the problem further investigated via my ISP, which I've now done. As you'll be aware, the non-access problems are continuing, being random. The phone peculiarities haven't recurred.

So, where do I stand as regards any sort of call-out bill from BT? They were called out because of a genuine problem but the engineer failed to find anything amiss with the line back to the exchange. So, is BT likely to bill me for the visit, and if so for how much?

In reply to a post by meditator:

In fact, my ISP has turned out to be correct about that "break apart ..." issue

That doesn't prove anything as you had not used that setting before your tests and those deleted items were as a result of your tests.

The way it works is:

You send a large message under "Break-apart". Your client breaks it up as instructed but only stores the complete msg. in Sent Folder.

It arrives on recipient's server broken into parts, like:

From: Subject: Date: Size:
Me Test Mail Break RadioDatabase4.db3 {10/1... Apr 27 2012, 01:23 AM 35.3 kb
Me Test Mail Break RadioDatabase4.db3 {08/1... Apr 27 2012, 01:23 AM 60.9 kb
Me Test Mail Break RadioDatabase4.db3 {09/1... Apr 27 2012, 01:23 AM 60.9 kb
Me Test Mail Break RadioDatabase4.db3 {07/1... Apr 27 2012, 01:23 AM 60.9 kb
Me Test Mail Break RadioDatabase4.db3 {06/1... Apr 27 2012, 01:23 AM 60.9 kb
Me Test Mail Break RadioDatabase4.db3 {04/1... Apr 27 2012, 01:23 AM 60.9 kb
Me Test Mail Break RadioDatabase4.db3 {05/1... Apr 27 2012, 01:23 AM 60.9 kb
Me Test Mail Break RadioDatabase4.db3 {03/1... Apr 27 2012, 01:23 AM 60.9 kb
Me Test Mail Break RadioDatabase4.db3 {02/1... Apr 27 2012, 01:23 AM 60.9 kb
Me Test Mail Break RadioDatabase4.db3 {01/1... Apr 27 2012, 01:23 AM 60.8 kb

The recipient (you) POPs his mail and these parts 1st arrive in his client Inbox where they are recombined to the complete msg and the parts discarded to the Deleted folder.

BT has no involvement/responsibility in your BB. Their responsibility ends at the test socket. It would have been wiser to not mention BB to BT and to concentrate on the phantom ringing.

I would think they will charge you about £120 as no voice fault was found.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Fri 27-Apr-12 01:56:02)

I was under the impression that BT Wholesale owned the phone terminating kit and the ADSL DSLAM in their exchanges. Therefore, if either or both of those are suspected of having faults, isn't it BT's responsibility to investigate them? I guess you're right, though.

In the past when the aforementioned kit has been put under suspicion, my ISP has instructed an engineer to investigate both at the exchange and at my end. From what you're saying, though, it sounds as though that engineer was NOT a BT or Openreach engineer.

Perhaps this is why my ISP has not yet suggested that an ADSL engineer go to the exchange? (cost!).

This morning I've replaced the faceplate filter with the Clarity version. It made no difference. I then deleted the e-mail account in the client and then re-created it, very carefully reconfiguring everything. I'll now have to wait and see how access to that ubiquitous server goes over the next few hours. If there's still no change, then the only thing left to swap out will be my router. I may or may not be able to borrow one. And it certainly won't be the same brand/model.

Am of course gutted at the prospect of having to pay BT £120. If I'd known that they weren't going to investigate the line ADSL-wise and the kit at the exchange end of it, I'd have never called up the BT Faultline. But then, you see, the problem all started with the phone going crazy and remaining so for the rest of that day. So, the problem's been a mix of phone and ADSL. I wasn't to know that the next day, when the BT fella turned up, that the phone side of it had gone away. An expensive lesson for me. What would happen, though, if it turns out that the problem HAS been at the exchange end, all along? Could BT/Openreach still charge me the £120?

Different bits of BT own different bits of the hardware, and they are setup with firewalls between them, so that they cannot just go talk to an engineer in another division, they have to report it and use the same systems as TalkTalk and Sky would

In reply to a post by meditator:

I was under the impression that BT Wholesale owned the phone terminating kit and the ADSL DSLAM in their exchanges.

They do, but they have no contract with you for BB. It's up to your ISP to call them (it will be an OR eng) out and it's up to you to call only your ISP for all BB issues.

Even if it eventually turns out to be a fault at exchange, you still called your voice provider (BT Retail not BT Wholesale) out for a BB issue.

The piper only plays the tunes for which he is paid.

Point taken. And it's a hard lesson learnt by me. But anyone around me at the time would have found the peculiar phone-ringing bizarre. And the fact that my access to the Internet then started to become difficult, indeed impossible, meant that I needed to call Openreach in to investigate the line. Once the phone rang, it was hard to stop it, even with the receiver picked up. (A duplicate phone did the same). So there was most certainly a fault on the line, as I can't see that my ADSL filter or any of my ultra-simple extension for my ADSL connection could have caused that. It's just unfortunate that, by the next day when the OR guy turned up, the phone problem had mysteriously gone away, although I still had the Internet access problem.

You never call Openreach.

Well, you know what I mean. I called BT Faultline.