Trees fouling BT line

[#1]

No activity on the ticket yet so looking like no visit from a BT engineer until tomorrow PM at the earliest. Please can you give the faults guys a nudge to arrange this please?

[#2]

It's being worked on as I type. Sorry about the delay.

[#3]

Fourth BT engineer lucky (I'm hoping)!
Looks like I might have been wrong about the trees after all - today's engineer replaced the wire between the GPO distribution board and the green box. The short time it took him to do this makes me think the wire was underground all the way rather than using the overhead wires down the street. I'm hoping this is finally sorted now. Just leaving this message as there are so many threads on this board that just sizzle out without any resolution.

[#4]

OK,    has the noise gone on the phone line?
how is your broadband?  can you put up a BT speedtest result, and some routerstats?

[#5]

The noise seems to be gone - even the low level hiss - but I'll need to monitor this over the weekend as it was always intermittent. My speeds look good - up to the current BT IP profile of 12000 kbps but I'm syncing at a lower speed than I have been recently - 16639 kbps rather than the usual 20000ish kbps. Might just be because I plugged the router back in at about 6.30pm. The SNR seems quite high but stable - 6-7 dB, no disconnections yet but I have picked up some errors in the hour I've been connected. Again, this could just be because it is the noisy evening period. I'm going to resync tomorrow morning to see if I can improve my IP profile. Think it might be a good idea to request a retraining period as my connection was changed to ADSL2+ during the period I've been trying to resolve the noise problems and the connection has been up and down like a bride's nightie!

[#6]

I think I would leave it to simmer for three days, 24/7 connected to give the BT systems time to get used to the "quiet" version of your line, then see how a re-boot reacts...
do it during daylight hours between 10:30 and 15:00
Glad the phone line has improved (for now ! ! ! ! )

[#7]

Sadly I'm still getting noise on the line. This is manifesting itself as intermittent noise (loud crackling) on voice calls and multiple losses of connection/sync on the ADSL2+ connection. The problems occur at all different sync rates and SNRs - looks like the BT system has been desperately trying different combinations to make the broadband connection stable but nothing has worked. I've updated the open ticket with this info so hopefully something will be done about this.
One issue I have with BT is that the engineers who came to look at my line had no information about the previous visits - is this normal for BT? Seems like a very backwards way to go about finding a problem. If I wasn't able to explain what the previous engineers had done, they would each be starting from scratch...

[#8]

I've passed the ticket back to our faults team, looks like we'll need to re-raise this for you.

[#9]

My girlfriend is staying in all day today as agreed with your CS agent but still no news as to when the BT engineer will be visiting. Please can you give someone a prod?

[#10]

We need to arrange a specific appointment time, there aren't any available today unfortunately, when are you available the rest of this week? (just needs someone to be at the property to give the engineer access).

[#11]

I can arrange access any afternoon this week. Is it totally necessary though? The 4 BT engineers who have taken a look at the problem so far seem to have narrowed it down the the "E line" between the green box and the exchange or something at the exchange. The last engineer said he had changed the "D line" between the block of flats and the green box and the previous engineers supposedly ruled out any problems with the wiring within the block of flats. So, does an engineer really need to visit the flat again?

[#12]

Unfortunately we have to arrange access at the premises in case the engineers need it. We've booked an appointment for you now, and one of our faults agents will be calling you soon.

[#13]

I'm very disappointed that the engineer did not visit today - that's two days wasted waiting in for a BT engineer. I didn't even receive a call letting me know the engineer couldn't make his appointment.
Please can someone arrange an engineer visit for tomorrow afternoon before this becomes more of a farce than it already is?

[#14]

re: your comment about the engineer replacing the cable very quickly.
Normally they don't actually replace the cable as such... what they do is shift you to a different pair of conductors in the bundle at each end of the run (normally to a spare pair available in the bundle, but I have heard of BT guys occasionally swapping your pair with a neighbours pair... thereby just shifting the problem to a different customer!!! EEEK!).
Of course if that whole bundle is damaged, then that clearly won't help you one bit. Equally if the fault lies in a completely different run of cable than the segment swapped, then it won't help either.
Sadly as you've experienced, the lack of joined up thinking of BT engineers seems to waste a phenomenal amount of time, and needlessly frustrate customers for longer than necessary. I've read plenty of stories here about people waiting in for BT guys, who come and then seemingly do the same repair that has already been done again and again, and no notes are taken notice of!
BT should be made accountable for the delays in the time taken to repair the problem from first reporting to final fix.... if the compensation was steep enough, then they might suddenly find that working more efficiently and in the benefit of a speedy resolution for the customer became a much higher priority.
Sadly these days, a BT fault is likely to cause much hair pulling for the customer before being resolved... and there is not a lot anyone can do about it. ISPs can only keep pestering BT for you.... and you have to hope you get a good BT guy who'll get to the bottom of it sooner rather than later.
I hope it gets sorted for you soon.
Mike

[#15]

re: your comment about the engineer replacing the cable very quickly.
That was my suspicion as I'm still of the belief that the line travels overhead on its way to the green box and there is no way the engineer could have physically changed the wire in the time he spent if this is actually the case.
I've not read any similar stories to mine on this forum - are there any happy endings? If so, please can you point me to those threads - they might give me some hope and some ideas of how to tackle this with BT & PN.
Here's hoping they'll solve it today...