No Dial tone and Slow internet and Keeps dropping

[#1]

Normally, your internet connection, and very often the voice content of your landline, goes through through the OpenReach fibre optic network which is fairly recent.  Dialling tones and bell ringing tend to be connected through the old Post Office copper wire system which may be 50 years old.  A lot goes on in the green boxes at the roadside and under the mysterious steel and concrete covers in the pavement.  When there's severe weather, as much of England and Wales suffered over the past 2 days, the underground boxes fill with water and not all the joints down there can cope with being submerged.  That short-circuits the landline and causes a switch to trip at the exchange - so no landline phone.  If you don't have fibre internet, that tends to drop out as well.  Once the underground boxes are dry, OpenReach will rerun the short-circuited cables and probably make all the joints inside an above-ground green box.  However, problems are widespread so it will take a few days.

Now I can explain the codes in @zaywood27's message from Plusnet.  They have done a remote test to try to reach his phone line.  The fault is that the "live" cable is short-circuited to earth. LN means that it's somewhere between his premises and the telephone exchange.  I don't have a list of diagnosis codes, but I suspect T101 just means short circuit to earth  That's all that Plusnet can check remotely.  There are various reasons a short circuit can occur, but if there was heavy rain where @zaywood27 lives, a flooded box is the most likely candidate.  Unfortunately, Plusnet can't tell you any more - it's now down to OpenReach to fix it.

[#2]

Very nice explanation, all make sense now @jimrob233 , although we had much worse weather before, it’s the first time to face such a problem

[#3]

@jimrob233

Nice diagnosis of the code issue.

As I said before it's a shame that Plusnet didn't put that into the fault ticket. Would stop customers wondering what was happening and reduce support calls/messages/chat/phone.

They really must stop and consider that customer cannot be expected to know what this "Internal gobbledegook" means and ensure that they communicate in plain and concise English.

Indeed all these texts describing error codes could be copy/pasted from a Plusnet library so the staff don't even have to understand it. Just look up the error code and paste the answer into the fault ticket with the actual fault message.

[#4]

I qualified in electronics in the olden days and I had a brother who worked for BT, so I've an idea how things work and what the gobbledegook means.  It would be helpful for the less technically inclined if Plusnet could translate their fault tickets into English.  I'm still without a land line and I have had no response from Plusnet in any language.  Perhaps it's time to visit the telephone exchange with a bucket and plunger.

[#5]

@zaywood27 Sorry to hear your phone isn't working. I can see the fault is currently under investigation by our suppliers and the estimated response time is by the end of Wednesday. As soon as we know more we'll update your fault ticket.

@jimrob233 Similar to above I'm sorry to hear your landline isn't working. Our suppliers have advised that the issue is actually due to a common fault affecting multiple lines. We've been advised that ducting work is due to be carried out on the 14th which should fix the issue

[#6]

@MatthewWheeler many thanks for the clarification

[#7]

@MatthewWheeler no update provided till now about the problem am still with out a landline and very slow intermittent internet

[#8]

My landline is working again.  It now has an Italian dialling tone - but I can live with that.  The internet is a little slower than usual but that may just be local traffic.

[#9]

@zaywood27, from what I can see our suppliers have advised that the issue affecting your line is also affecting other lines in your area, and this is currently with 3rd party contractors for duct work. The estimated resolution date is the 17th November.

Apologies for the inconvenience caused.

@jimrob233, I'm glad to hear that your phone service is now working again and I'm sorry but I don't know what an Italian dial tone sounds like. Do you mean it's interrupted and sounds a bit like a siren? If that's the case you'll have unread messages on your line and I'd recommend dialling 1571 to listen to them.

Regarding your speeds, our tests aren't showing any issues, but I notice your connection hasn't dropped in 22 days. Could you try rebooting your router letting us know how it goes?

[#10]

And there I was thinking I was on holiday in Italy when it was just a junk voicemail.

The internet is now up to speed. (25.6Mb/s)  I think the apparent slowdown was caused by Windows, browser and antivirus updates all trying to download in background.

[#11]

Hi @jimrob233,

I'm glad to hear there's been some improvement on your end of things. The figure you quoted, 25.6Mbps, still seemed a little low so I've tested your line today and I can see that the Sync Speed going into your property is currently at 40Mbps, which is the best you can achieve on your current package.

The lower speed you're seeing could be due to a couple of things and doesn't necessarily indicate a fault, but I just want to make sure you aren't being affected by something we aren't detecting. When you've tested the line have you done this through a Wi-FI connection or an Ethernet connection and is the router plugged into the master socket?

[#12]

Using a desktop computer connected to the router by ethernet cable, the speed is 38.1 Mb/s which is probably as much as I can expect since the last few yards of my connection is via a telephone pole and dropwire.  The lower reading (today up to 28.6) is on my laptop connected via wifi.  For my usage (I don't download movies) that's fine.

[#13]

Ah cool. Yeah the speeds you're getting look good considering WiFi is always normally slower and unpredictable. Let us know if you ever need any further assistance.

[edit]

@zaywood27 While I'm here I've checked for an update regarding your fault and we've not received anything more yet. Fingers crossed tomorrow sees the issues resolved.

[#14]

@Gandalf thank you for updating me, yet the landline is not working the internet speed goes up to 15 mbps which is considered acceptable but it’s not steady and keeps disconnecting. Let’s hope it’s going to be sorted by the end of the day it has been a miserable week 😭

[#15]

Well that was a disastrous weekend:( no internet at all not even slow !!!! Come on guys that was more than a week ! I ve been told these normally would be sorted with in 3 working days 😂 , you should ve said .. get worse within 3 working days. But let be honest I managed to write this post . Thank you