BT Phone Line Crackling..

Legacy_user

Hi there - I'm having a problem with by BT connection at the moment. Have a crackling line, which is very bad. Spoke to them yesterday and did all the tests they asked me to do, including unscrewing the main BT line box and plugging directly into there. No faults found. Looked at the line outside and it's all loose and dangling about and blowing in the wind. I told BT this and they will send someone out but said someone needs to be home even though the tests within the house seemed to be fine, therefore suggesting the fault is outside?? They said someone needs to be home in case the engineer needs access to look at line inside which I guess is fair...

The cracking is very bad and they could also hear it when I called BT.

Has anyone else had these problems previously and did they get it fixed ok without too much hassle?

System

Does anyone know if this could this be due to water getting into the line outside please

macman

Yes it sounds like it's external, but they will need to have access from there up to the master socket which is inside your house, and to test the line from inside. Could be water, loose connection, or numerous other faults, but as long as it's their side of the master socket it's BT's problem not yours and they will fix it at their expense.

basmic

I'm with Virgin Media, and it took them 3 years to find out what was making my phone line crackle. It would only ever crackle after a good rain, and for a few days too.

After God knows how many visits, they eventually found the cause of the problem. The brown thing against the wall which houses the cable, was letting water in. If that wasn't bad enough, there were two pairs of twisted wire un-insulated. Meaning the rain would come in from behind the fitting, and into the wire...hence the crackling!

Just make sure you're not using any extensions when it happens - unplug them when an engineer comes, and point this out to him when it crackles. Insist he insepcts every centimetre of wire for a fault, or exposure to the elements.

He'll hate you for it, but never mind!

Farway

I had similar, the reason for inside access is they may need to run new cable from the telegraph pole to the master socket

They did this in my case, due to age of cable, the sunlight & wind eventually destroying the insulation and allowing water ingress to outside cabling

Fixed without hassle once new cable fitted [had a few false diagnoses & "fixes" prior to this, [without charge]

dragon47

If it's crackling all the time they should be able to fix it in one visit.

I had an intermitant problem and it took several engineer visits to fix...

System

Hi, just to update really. Borrowed a handset from a neighbour and plugged that in, still crackling.. So knew it's not out handset. Phoned BT who made me do several test things for them and then they sent an engineer out who fixed the wiring on the outside - it was loose and faulty.... Thanks for all your advise... appreciated !

Moneymaker

When I had crackling I traced it to a nest of spiders in the socket on the garage wall! (Yuk!)