cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

harmsworth
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Registered: ‎16-04-2015

2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Moved  to Plusnet over 2.5 years ago.  No sync... 250 kps speed max and crackling telephone. Problem is broken and low copper line with junction box waving in wind between poles! Still no repair, but strangely Plusnet happy to bill me each month. Have lost time Openreach have attended, with same problems...
- do not have the right ticket
- have not been briefed about what to do
- sometimes claim that they cannot climb the poles to connect test equipment
- line engineer attends when BB engineer needed (and vice versa)
If I ran my business like this I would have been sued. Any suggestions of how to get any response?
31 REPLIES 31
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,920
Thanks: 9,537
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Hi Harmsworth,
Welcome to the forums.
Is PlusNET your phone service provider?  If not then the noise on the line and the dangling wires needs to be addressed by your phone provider.  Until the noise on the line is addresses, there is zero point chasing the broadband performance issue.
If PlusNET are your phone provider, then use the phone faults link below.  Is the noise persistent or intermittent?  Be sure to state which on the fault ticket.
Getting BTOR to do the right thing may continue to be a challenge as some engineers will duck difficult jobs - I've had engineers who refused to go up a pole and abandoned the job until a hoist could be made available - and on the same pole had a young female engineer skim up a ladder in hissing rain to do what's required.  By the time she'd finished the line was perfect.  Sadly such matters are not within Plusnet's ability to control, users are at the mercy of the dedication of the attending BTOR engineer.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Hi harmsworth.
As Townman says, welcome to the forum.This sounds pretty diabolical, shame you didn't come and post here before.
Do you have any open tickets at the moment?
I wouldn't worry too much about very old tickets at present, Plusnet staff can go back and look at these if needed, we need to move forward from now.
If Plusnet aren't your phone provider, then the thing to do is not to mention broadband to your phone provider, otherwise you will get the run around which sounds like it may have happened anyway with the engineers, but as Townman has explained, unless the noisy phone line is fixed, your broadband will be rubbish.
To be certain your installation is having no effect on things, can you please describe it briefly.
Do you have a Master Socket like the one on the left?
Do you have any extension phone sockets, and where are you currently plugged in?
Do all your Microfilters look like this?
Is anything connected to other sockets and are filters used at each socket that's in use?
There is a technique and procedure that you need to follow to give you solid ground, I dare say you've been through some or all of this in one way or another before, but if phone and broadband issues have been muddled up then that won't have helped the situation. But whichever it does sound like you've had some pretty disgusting support and poor advice from Plusnet on this.
Does the noise on the phone line appear all the time or only at certain times? If the latter can you briefly explain the conditions when it happens?
One check you will need to do - but because of your poor broadband you need to do it carefully so as not to jeopardise the broadband performance further. I'm assuming you have the TG582n modem/router. Log in to it, and in the box called Internet, you'll see a Button marked Disconnect. Click on it. This disconnects your PPP Internet session from Plusnet (not sync to the exchange). Wait about 30 seconds after it's disconnected and then pull the power plug for the modem/router. You can then unplug the modem/router from the phone line. With all that follows, leave your modem/router disconnected and in any event don't reconnect it for at least 10 minutes.
You need to plug a phone directly into the Test Socket (see Test Socket) behind the front plate. This ideally needs to be a corded phone rather than cordless. You should now be able to confirm that the line noise is still present (obviously little point in pursuing this method when the noise is not present.)
Ideally do this in daylight hours if possible as well.
At the end of the day you need to be able to state to your phone provider, that you plugged a corded phone into the test socket and the line noise is affecting your calls, but it's also intermittent (and not mention broadband). Ideally do this when the line is noisy and get the call-taker to confirm they can hear noise and tell them you want that logged, as well as the fact that it's intermittent, and you want that detail passed to the Openreach engineer.
Have you had any problems with incoming or outgoing calls other than line noise?
When you've done the phone check etc. plug the modem/router and filter back in and reconnect everything and power up the modem/router. When it has booted you may need to log into it and goto the Internet box and click Connect.
Finally to give us an idea of what sort of line you have, if you could copy and paste the TG582n Full DSL stats into your post (you'll get the login screen first, if not already logged into it).

harmsworth
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Registered: ‎16-04-2015

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Thanks very much to all replying. My telephony is also supplied by PN... so will take up the issue as you suggested. I have got an independent (ex-BT) engineer to advise and he says that definitely a fault with the drop-line..even though PN just keep saying that my problem is distance from exchange! Best, Peter
MatthewWheeler
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 8,896
Thanks: 1,506
Fixes: 480
Registered: ‎01-01-2012

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

I'm sorry to hear about the issues you've had.
I can see one of our faults agents is dealing with this for you personally.
As soon as he has a update from our suppliers he'll be in touch.
If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Matthew Wheeler
 Plusnet Help Team
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Well that's good news that Matthew is taking an interest and it's with one of the faults agents as a personal.
@harnsworth
If you can still post your TG582n Full DSL stats that will tell us a fair bit about your line.
harmsworth
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Registered: ‎16-04-2015

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Thanks for help from all at Forum. I have managed to stay in sync for quite a while now  Cheesy long enough to read the posts and take this screenshot. No idea what any of it means  Embarrassed
Friday: Now got people talking on the line as well as crackling!!!
Saturday: spent several minutes on my phone listening to a neighbour talking to someone on her phone. Could not get it all, but lots of swearing about the quality of the line!
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Hi harmsworth, the screenshot seems to have not got posted or has gone missing!
harmsworth
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Registered: ‎16-04-2015

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Thanks... for some reason will not upload the screenshot. This is from the longest period that I have had in sync:

Link Information
Uptime: 0 days, 1:55:26
DSL Type: ITU-T G.992.3
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 552 / 283
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 82,17 / 615,87
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12,7 / 0,0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 40,2 / 71,0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 7,8 / 6,3
System Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ----
Chipset Vendor ID (Local/Remote): BDCM / IFTN
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 85 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 138 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): -
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 4.694 / 2
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 471 / 125.529
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 3 / 284
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 3 / 230
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Hmm, oh dear, yes with that line attenuation getting any sync at all would be troublesome. But if there's a line fault then that attenuation could be artificially higher than it might otherwise be.
Apart from Plusnet getting Openreach to deal with the crackly line fault, they could also explore with Openreach whether your line routing is the optimum available, and that you are also on the best pairs available. There have been some cases where the routing takes and unnecessarily "round the houses" route.
harmsworth
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Registered: ‎16-04-2015

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Many thanks for making sense of this for me. The attenuation is clearly more than just the distance... my next door neighbour has good broadband, as does a the last house in the road (furthest from cabinet). There are no more pairs available Sad  I have considered an extra line as my business is really suffering because of this, but I guess that this is impossible as no more lines?
HPsauce
Pro
Posts: 6,998
Thanks: 146
Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎02-02-2008

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

It would be most informative to see router stats from those two premises.
Are you prepared to state your postcode here so we can do some general checks?
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Quote from: harmsworth
... my next door neighbour has good broadband, as does a the last house in the road (furthest from cabinet). There are no more pairs available Sad  I have considered an extra line as my business is really suffering because of this, but I guess that this is impossible as no more lines?

Firstly, who said there were no more pairs available and when was this said?
Approximately, how far are you from the cabinet?
Obviously the line near and to your premises is overhead but is it overhead all the way back to the cabinet?
Have you tried asking Plusnet for an additional phone line? The cost of a Business Line provide should be £50+vat, or Residental provide is £49.99 inc. VAT
harmsworth
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Registered: ‎16-04-2015

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Thanks.
Openreach engineer tried to find me another pair, but said that there were none that were working. I think that cabinet is about 1.5 km away, but goes underground for about 0.5Km before overhead. Apparently there is a huge problem in the area as the lines are crumbling and the engineers cant find any that work! The local residents association did a survey and found that it is the number one problem for residents. I am now taking it up with local MP... with election coming up it might get some publicity.
I need an extra line for my business, but it needs to work. At present, all I have is the Plusnet residential  line which allows me to listen to neighbours conversation and provides broadband so slow that even the Plusnet site fails to load much of the time. If it were not for helpful people on this Forum I think that I would have driven off the cliff by now.
HPsauce
Pro
Posts: 6,998
Thanks: 146
Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎02-02-2008

Re: 2.5 YEARS of failed broadband and phone. Still not working. A new record?

Quote from: harmsworth
I am now taking it up with local MP...
You'll struggle with that, you don't have one.  Wink
Well, not until after May 7th.  Cool Until then there are only candidates.  Cheesy