Trees fouling BT line

[#1]

Hi there,
Sorry to hear about the problems with the engineer, I've got one of our faults guys chasing this now.

[#2]

There's an appointment booked for this afternoon for you, hopefully we can get this sorted once and for all.

[#3]

Thanks Mand.
I'll post an update here after the BT engineer has been.

[#4]

Just got off the phone with the BT engineer. He seems to have identified a problem with the line between the green box and the exchange - he could hear voices on the line indicating some kind of cross-over interference. Strange thing is, we've never heard this before, only had problems with crackling noises. He said he would change our line to the exchange to resolve this - hope this clears the crackling too.
I'll monitor the line for crackling over the next few days and see what effect the fix has on the broadband connection too. I really hope it's solved now as I originally raised this fault a month ago today (11/02/10).

[#5]

Glad to hear he fixed something.
Do you have any noise on the line now?

[#6]

I'll need to check it over a while as the crackling noise is (was?) intermittent. Fingers crossed though...
Am I right in thinking that if I have a quiet line and an attenuation somewhere between 18 and 20 dB that I should be able to get pretty much maximum speeds with ADSL2+ ?

[#7]

Shouldn't be too far off.

[#8]

Quote from: twentythree

he could hear voices on the line indicating some kind of cross-over interference. Strange thing is, we've never heard this before...

I know it sounds daft, but there's a tiny chance some neighbour complained about something else, the engineer dealing with them may have swapped some pair between one cabinet and another, and your line might have been one of those which was swapped.
Where I previously lived, all cables on the estate were below ground, coming up gardens in buried pipes and then into the house.  I had two analogue lines and ISDN (Home Highway) and they had pulled an extra wire through the pipe to my home so had plenty of choices for pairs to use from the duct in the pavement to my place.
When  I had a problem on my line one day, the engineer was scheduled to visit on the Saturday morning.  Came to me at about 9am and sort my line out within an hour (swapped a pair somewhere between my home and the exchange).  Saw him out in the street an hour later, and he was dealing with some other problem for some other property.  Half an hour later, I checked my phone for dial tone (and that noise had not returned) and had no dial tone.  Went out and he was there, swapping pairs around again.  Managed to get mine working before 1pm, no idea whether someone else had a dodgy connection as a result !

[#9]

I can't believe it - the noise on the line is still there! If anything it is worse than before. What on earth is going on that 5 visits from BT engineers can't fix? The next time I'll be able to arrange access to the flat is Monday afternoon (PM) - please can this be escalated with BT?

[#10]

Hi there,
I've got someone escalating this for you now.

[#11]

A BT engineer called today but as I'm not able to arrange access until Monday afternoon he did some work at the exchange. He told me he had changed the lightning protection units there as they can sometimes cause problems. I'll check the line over the weekend...
He said he would come back on Monday afternoon to check the line with a hawk quality pair test, which basically does every test the test system does, and all the digital tests. I did stress with him that this is an intermittent problem but he seems confident that even if the line is quiet at the time the pair quality test will pick up any problem.

[#12]

Here's hoping we can finally get this sorted for you.

[#13]

I really hope so. From what I've understood from the engineers and from research on-line, it seems there is a HR (high resistance) fault on the line. These are apparently the hardest problems to identify and fix.
I'm not sure if PN have approached BT with this problem as a voice problem or a broadband problem - would that make any difference? Would BT be more likely to find the problem if they were testing for a broadband issue?

[#14]

Generally speaking if it affects both broadband and voice, you are MUCH better off it being treated as a voice fault, as BT then need to find the fault in the cable, so it is a clear cut case (although it might take time to find the fault as you are experiencing!). As soon as it becomes listed as a broadband fault instead, then you need to do all sort of tests and jump through hoops, and it slows the fault finding considerably!!!
If you have crackles on the line, always report as a voice fault! I would think Plusnet have this as a voice fault since BT are visiting and playing with wires... if it was classed as a broadband fault, you'd be having to be faffing yourself with routers, and filters, and internal wiring and master sockets and checking speed testers etc etc etc LONG before BT even got involved.
Mike

[#15]

It's a voice fault from our point of view, as there's noise on the line. This has benefits, as the initial diagnostics are much simpler, and the response times are much better for a voice fault.