Intermittent crackle on landline

[#1]

Up till Jan 2021 our landline worked fine. On 8 January Plusnet/OpenReach upgraded my broadband package from 10Mbit to 30Mbit. On the same day, my phone developed an almost continuous crackle, so loud at times as to make calls impossible.

Within a few days, apparently an engineer was sent out, and the problem was fixed.  The engineer did not call at my house.

A couple of weeks later, the crackle re-appeared intermittently. It got so bad that I contacted PlusNet who arranged for an OpenReach engineer (#2) to call. That was mid March. The engineer confirmed that there was nothing wrong inside my home, found a minor fault outside my home, and deemed the problem fixed.

A week later the intermittent noise returned. Another engineer (#3) was dispatched - who knew nothing about the fault, and claimed there was no way for him to look up what previous engineers had done. He changed certain things, and deemed the problem fixed.

The problem returned intermittently a couple of weeks later, and engineer #4 arrived, equally unaware of previous efforts on my line. After making certain pronouncements, and tweaking various settings, he too deemed the problem fixed.

Engineer #5 in late May was a senior, who had full notes of all the work done to date. He changed lots of things, and declared that it was now truly fixed, and in the remote chance that there was any more trouble, he would personally come out and repair it.

After the problem returned in July, needless to say engineer #6 was a different person. He found nothing wrong and went home.

After a call with a medical consultant earlier this week became impossible because of the noise, today engineer #7 visited.

After each visit by an engineer, usually that evening, a cheery PlusNet support person calls to ask if my problem is fixed. I could scream!

Any suggestions?

[#2]

Thanks for your post @breslaw

I'm really sorry to see you've had intermittent noise on your phone for so long despite many engineers efforts to fix.

I've looked through this for you and from reading the engineers notes, I can see they've carried out a fair amount of work between the exchange and the cabinet, and then between the cabinet and the exchange, but based on what you've said that you've had this problem since upgrading to fibre, I suspect there may be an issue with the fibre port at the cabinet.

I'd like to arrange a broadband engineer next and escalate this with our suppliers to try to get it sorted once and for all. Could you reply to the support ticket on your account Here with when you'd be available for another engineer visit? As I'm sure you already know, the timeslots are weekdays 8am while 1pm, or 1pm while 6pm. 

I'm also taking this on personally moving forward, so I'll stick with it until it is sorted and the noise has gone for good.

[#3]

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@Gandalf wrote:

...I can see they've carried out a fair amount of work between the exchange and the cabinet, and then between the cabinet and the exchange...

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[#4]

Thanks for your input @Gandalf .

Regarding the fibre port in the cabinet up my road, that has already been exchanged by Engineer #3 (I think). He had to get authorisation from his bosses to do it.

Engineer #7 who came yesterday (15.9) was very conscientious, although he was unable to discover everything that had previously been done to try to fix things. He did check the joints in the small street level aluminium (?) junction boxes which he said often get invaded by ants. He also said he would personally keep an eye on the line quality.

I appreciate your offer of another engineer, but in the absence of symptoms most of the time, it's hard to know what s/he might do. I have pointed out to every engineer who has visited, that there is an OpenReach service channel under our street which carries the phone and fibre. In the same period that we have had this crackly line, there have been numerous network companies laying cable in this service channel. This causes quite a lot of disturbance to the existing cables. I've asked a couple of the OpenReach engineers who have visited (including #7 yesterday) if this disturbance could be the cause of my problem. They have answered "possibly".

Hmm ...

[#5]

Ah thanks for getting back to me @breslaw

Engineer notes we receive, in my experience are very succinct so I appreciate the extra info you've given.

I'm glad to see the thorough investigation and time they've put in although disappointing the cause of the problem seems to continually elude them.

Let me know if you'd want another engineer round and I'll see what I can do to try to get the problem sorted for you.