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Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

grahamt
Rising Star
Posts: 599
Thanks: 37
Registered: ‎05-04-2008

Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

I'd had problems with my phone/FTTC line (DSL disconnections) last month. On 26th August an Openreach engineer did a really thorough line check and cleaned up various connections between my master socket and the fibre cabinet. Since then my line's been rock solid - until this morning. I noticed a disconnection and saw the DSL light on the Openreach modem flashing. I checked my router and saw that there had been no less than 20 disconnections between 01:24 and 10:19.
I've just opened a ticket (and had another two disconnections as I was writing the message), but I thought I'd report it here too in case the question can be picked up quicker and/or there's some more general known problem affecting my line (I looked at the Plusnet service status page and can't see anything obvious, though.)
No doubt the DLM will kick in soon and slow the line down drastically. Ho hum.
By the way, I tried to find the page that shows my current and expired questions (to make it easy for PN staff to look up my previous problem), but I couldn't locate it. Is it well hidden or have I just been looking in the wrong places? Can anyone give me a URL so I can bookmark it?
Graham
9 REPLIES 9
AndyH
Grafter
Posts: 6,824
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎27-10-2012

Re: Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

Do you have any issues on your phone line like noise or static?
grahamt
Rising Star
Posts: 599
Thanks: 37
Registered: ‎05-04-2008

Re: Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

A bit. When I had the problems in August there was a lot of noise, but typically it built up during the course of a phone call, so it was bad after about 5 mins - although to some extent it was intermittent.
AndyH
Grafter
Posts: 6,824
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎27-10-2012

Re: Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

Is Plusnet your phone provider also? If not, you need to raise it with your phone provider. You can also do a Quiet Line test (Dial 17070) and this will let you listen to the line without the dial tone.
grahamt
Rising Star
Posts: 599
Thanks: 37
Registered: ‎05-04-2008

Re: Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

Yes, Plusnet's also the phone provider, which is why I raised the ticket with them.
Thanks for the quiet line test number. The line's quiet at the moment, though I didn't hold on for very long.
grahamt
Rising Star
Posts: 599
Thanks: 37
Registered: ‎05-04-2008

Re: Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

OK - nobody from Plusnet picked this up. It's not compulsory, of course.
More worryingly, it's now been almost two days and no-one's replied to the ticket I opened. Maybe it will happen today.
Luckily, things seemed to have settled down again. After 24 disconnections on Monday morning, between 01:24 and 10:46, there were just two early on Tuesday morning (around 2am and 3am) and one so far today, around 7.30am, which I think can be a common time for connections to be reset.
Fingers crossed that Monday was some kind of anomaly. At the moment my profiles look OK (BT IP profile 56Mbps, which is about right for the distance to the cabinet; Plusnet profile 40Mbps as limited by my 40/20 package).
Graham
JTaylor
Grafter
Posts: 93
Registered: ‎18-08-2014

Re: Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

Hi Grahamt
Just looked over your account and it seems we've got a fault processing, although at present everything looks stable.
Keep an eye on it for us and let us know if anything changes!
grahamt
Rising Star
Posts: 599
Thanks: 37
Registered: ‎05-04-2008

Re: Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

Thanks Jack. Yes, I got a reply to my origial question on Wednesday afternoon which suggested I raise a fault ticket. I did that and am monitoring while PN's own tests go on. No disconnections on Thursday but (from my router log) there was one at 03:11 this morning. I wasn't awake at the time so I don't know if it was a DSL issue.
grahamt
Rising Star
Posts: 599
Thanks: 37
Registered: ‎05-04-2008

Re: Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

On Sunday morning just after 9am we got a call out of the blue from an Openreach engineer. Could he come and have a look at the fault even though no appointment had been booked? I wasn't going to turn this offer down, especially as there had been another barrage of disconnections overnight from Saturday (approx. 25 between Sat 9pm and Sunday 9am). Gratifyingly, there was another disconnection just after he arrived, so he could see the DSL light go out and then flash as the line reconnected.
He'd already done a remote test and got a puzzling result: a) modem not in sync, but b) speed 33/11. Normally when the modem's not in sync the speed is 0/0. That was never explained. The first test he did inside the house showed a speed of 59/16.
After several further tests he came to the conclusion that the line itself was OK. Turning his attention to the internal wiring in the house, and after lots of unplugging and replugging of phones, he said the wiring itself was OK. There were faults on two of our four phones (both of them BT-branded!) but that these faults should not have caused the broadband disconnects. One phone had a 'cap imbalance' and the other was causing a 'rectified loop'.
He decided to put in a new modem and faceplate. He noticed that the currently-installed modem was an ECI but it was being fed by a Huawei power supply. This had been the case since April when a previous engineer had also decided to change the modem and faceplate and had not thought it necessary to change the power supply. Anyway, the modem and the power supply now match and the faceplate is a Mk3.
The engineer left saying that he wasn't convinced he'd found the definitive cause of the problem - he hoped it was the modem's power supply - but he was intrigued and (against normal procedure) he would ring back in a few days to see how things are going. He'd ask the exchange to check for any faults at their end but didn't think they'd find any.
Later that day we replaced all our phones with a new cordless setup. I'm not convinced it will make any difference to the broadband but it's nice in other ways.
Now I'm waiting for PN's faults team to get back to me. Since the engineer left on Sunday there have been two disconnects, both in the early hours (2am and 5am), but they could be because of the new 10-day training period for the line. Sync speed when the engineer left was 56/16, which is about right for my distance from the cabinet.

Acassim
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 1,075
Registered: ‎11-06-2007

Re: Suddenly 20+ disconnections this morning

Hi grahamt,
Thanks for providing us with a comprehensive breakdown of the situation and the details surrounding the engineer visit.
It is very strange that the engineer called and attended so I wonder if the supplier had called him out to do some external testing/work and he found something that would indicate an internal so thought he would call and try his luck at catching someone so he could gain access. Either way it's nice to hear that some initiative was shown and you were able to accommodate the appointment.
From what I can see on your fault ticket, it seems that we had an update applied to it on the 29/09/14 where the engineer (probably the one who attended) passed the fault back to say that work had been carried out and the issue fixed so if you're still seeing issues, it would be best to update the support ticket to let the faults team know and then they can pick this back up for you.
Here's a link to get you to the support ticket a little quicker  Wink