Intermittent disconnects

[#1]

Hi @aeneareid It looks like the engineer this evening recommended the job to be allocated to a senior engineer. I've emailed the escalation team at Openreach requesting this and that the fault report is handled at team manager level if possible.

The fault at the moment is still showing as in hand with Openreach so the next steps are unclear, but we should receive an update by Monday. I'll let you know as soon as I know more.

[#2]

Aha! You got in before me. I have just been composing a report for you on today's engineer's visit. Glad to hear that you have already received a report from the engineer that is consistent with my report. Here's my report . . .

Engineer groundhog day continues! Engineer #5 spent all afternoon on the job but; alas, was defeated. At the end of the afternoon, he left the job open, marking it as ‘out of time’ and made the recommendation to his manager that the job should be passed to a more senior engineer.

He appeared to do lots more tests than his predecessors, one of which entailed using his equipment to emulate a modem and during which he detected FEC faults. These faults appeared to be exacerbated when (using a mobile) we called and answered the landline. This, he said, was characteristic of an HR fault, however, the PQT passed with no HR detected and the TDR was unable to see the HR.

He then went down to the cabinet where the Internet arrives in the village and established that there are no faults between the exchange and the cabinet, indicating that the fault must lie in the copper wires between the cabinet and ourselves (~800m). But he was unable to detect the faults from there.

It’s worth noting that we are beginning to have intermittent troubles with our phone line. On several occasions there has been so much noise and crackle on the line when someone has phoned us that we have barely been able to hold a conversation. And yesterday, the internet went down twice at exactly the same time as we answered a phone call. But, of course problems are intermittent and there was no sign of any crackle on the line when the engineer was here, though, as mentioned above, calling the landline did appear to affect the frequency of FEC faults.

So, we await engineer #6.

[#3]

Cheers for the detailed reply, it's disappointing to see although it sounds like they've tried their best and hopefully the engineers efforts to get someone more experienced out there pays off.

We'll see what Monday brings us. 

[#4]

My fibre broadband also appears to disconnect when the landline phone rings and is answered. Sometimes it doesn't but most of the time it does. It reconnects fairly quickly. I was sent a new router, there is no noise on the line or errors so I've now given up trying to get it fixed (based on all the responses here). I can live with it, as long as it doesn't get worse, until the end of the contract.

[#5]

Hi @eric1917,

I'm sorry that your connection often drops when you receive a call and for any inconvenience that this has caused you.

If you've not done so already, I'd recommend that you try connecting your router and telephone handset to the test socket as per the guide here.

[#6]

Hi EmilyD

Already been through this some time ago (should be on the feed for this Q somewhere).

I don't have a test socket! Strange isn't it?

But I have been through practically all I can - hence the new router. I could have an engineer out, but to be honest it isn't such a big deal. When I answer the telephone I'm generally not using the broadband connection and vice versa.

[#7]

Hi @eric1917,

Thank you for confirming that you've already been through these checks and that you don't have a test socket. I'm sorry that this issue isn't yet resolved. Please get back in touch if you change your mind and would like another engineer visit so that this can be investigated further.

[#8]

Hi @aeneareid

Looks like an engineer went out on Saturday and passed the fault back to us advising no fault has been found.

If you can update your support ticket with further availability for an engineer to visit, I'll book it in and make sure it's escalated to the field operations manager.

[#9]

OK. That's an appointment arranged for a visit from engineer #6 on Thursday morning. I'm not holding my breath!

Interestingly, so far we've only had one disconnect (1 June at 00:19) since engineer #5 visited on 31 May. A similar short spell of uninterrupted connection followed previous engineers' visits.

[#10]

We've done everything we can from this side with regards to the escalation so fingers crossed it goes well!

[#11]

Engineer was supposed to come this morning between 8am and 1pm but it's now 12:54 and there's been no sign of an engineer and no message. (Previous engineer's have texted us to say when to expect them.) Are you able to chase this up quickly to find out whether anyone will be coming to day. We have made other plans for the afternoon but could stay in if engineer definitely coming.

[#12]

I'm chasing this up with Openreach, from what I can see the engineer signed the job off as no fault found at 11:36.

At this stage I wouldn't worry about staying in longer if you've got other plans. 

I'll let you know as soon as I know more about this. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[#13]

Thanks for the prompt reply. Very cross that engineer signed things off without ever coming to speak to us. I waited in specially, expecting him/her to call. We had a 13 minute outage this morning at 10:39. Perhaps this was the engineer doing something. If so - he should have warned us; if not - then it's evidence that there is still a fault. SInce last week's engineer, we've had a line drop every day bar one (the day after his visit). Here's the details:

2 June: no disconnects

3 June: 10:00, 4 June: 03:55, 5 June: 03:16, 6 June: 02:51, 10:39 (for 13 mins), 10:55

[#14]

No problem and I appreciate that. I actually noticed our suppliers closed the job off as no fault found before you posted and I've been discussing this with the escalation team via email, I'm sorry to say but we'll need to arrange engineer #7.

Once we've booked the appointment I've been assured that this will be escalated again to the operations manager.

Could you reply to your ticket with further availability? I'd start from next Tuesday as our suppliers always ask for 2 working days notice for them to be able to escalate a fault. 

Sorry again for the inconvenience.

[#15]

So engineer groundhog days continues

I have replied to the ticket with 3 slots next week when we are available.

I would be interested to know whether the 13 min outage we had this morning was caused by engineer testing or whether it was our elusive fault. Are you able to find out?