Phoneline from BT Pole to house

nado-gr4

Hi
I live in Elgin, Scotland and would like to know who is responsible for the upkeep of my telephone line from the BT telephone pole in the garden to my phone socket in my house..

My line rental is with TalkTalk not BT but the line is very old and i think it's starting to crackup..

I have 2 questions
1: Can i demand that they install a new line..

2: Who pays for it, BT, TalkTalk or more likely Muggings (me) as know doubt these 2 company's try to will wheedle out of paying. :rotfl:

thanks in advance :beer:

bengalknights

It would be BT Openreach that look after the pole and line.

If you wanted a new line you would have to ask talk talk to request a line check through openreach and then if a new one is required they would arrange for a new one to be fitted but would most likely charge you for it if they can still provide there service over your current line.

pcombo

You would need to pay for a new line to be installed regardless if the old one is starting to or will break in the future.

Noway BT will waive any charges, ( they didn't even waive a £60 reactivation fee for my broadband even though they ceased it by mistake.)

tuggy12

This is fairly straight forward.

If you ask TT to request a BTOR engineer to visit because you suspect a fault in the cable between your house and the garden pole, then are are two possibilities:

1) If the BTOR engineer finds a fault in that cable, or any other external cable, it will be replaced at no charge to you.

2) If no external fault is found then you will be charged by TT for the BTOR engineers visit (Don't know the exact current charge but it's in excess of £100). If you ask the engineer to change the cable anyway during his visit you would be quoted an extra charge for that too.

mttylad

My cable was in a poor state, I could see copper here & there.

Amazingly the cable snapped at on point (nudge nudge) so it soon got replaced for a nice new one that was a lot better

sickofusernames

Our BT cable just outside the house by the eves was in a bad way, not insulated as it seemed but our phone calls and broadband was still functioning.

After last years bad winter the phone line went completely dead but after a call to BT the engineer came out and just insulated the corroded line under the eves of our house - bingo, line back and my ADSL sync shot up from 2.5Mbps to 7.6Mps.

If your services are ok BT won't do a thing about it, I was dying to get my ladders out to insulate the wires myself but chose wisely not to.

DVardysShadow

pcombo wrote: »

You would need to pay for a new line to be installed regardless if the old one is starting to or will break in the future.

Noway BT will waive any charges, ( they didn't even waive a £60 reactivation fee for my broadband even though they ceased it by mistake.)

You have had a raw deal from BT and had you pursued it you would have won. But your advice is not correct.

Your phone company are responsible for everything through to the master socket - you pay line rental for this.

TalkTalk

Hello nado-gr4,

Technically anything from the exchange to the master socket is maintained by BT Openreach. My best advice is that if you don't have a fault, don't worry about it however if you do report a fault to us and we are unable to resolve remotely we will arrange for an Openreach engineer to attend.

If the root cause of the fault is that the drop cable is faulty then it should be replaced free of charge however even if the engineer visit did result in a charge the most we would charge is £99 which is a flat fee we pass on to the customer should we received any charges from Openreach.

Any questions let me know.

Stephen

nado-gr4

Hi again
Sorry for this being so long.

I’m still having trouble with my line, phone crackles & hisses but not all the time, my broadband drops the connection intermittently and time day or night. I have tried three different wireless routers; one of them is a brand new (TalkTalk D-Link DSL-2640R Wireless G ADSL2+ router). The annoying thing is that every time I phone TT which is over 6 times now in the past 2 weeks I get the same thing said to me, that they will escalate it to and senior engineer which will call me back the next day.

I have no complaints about the people I speak to as they are polite and do what the manual says they should do.. but jesus does anybody ever actually send a engineer to look at the state of ruddy cable..
I have even replaced/installed brand new BT cable + ADSL/Phone box in my house as the telephone box & cable which ran under my floor we very old... all connections have been checked by a telephone engineer. WHAT MORE CAN I DO.

The funny thing is that this ALL STARTED HAPPENING SINCE i got a letter from TalkTalk stating that they were moving me over to TalkTalk servers/system from Tiscali which I had been with for 4 YEARS with NO TROUBLE at all, until they got takenover by TalkTalk.

The only thing is now IT'S NOT SO FUNNY... as I cannot get into my account or email on TT webpage..
Now I also see that they changed my package without telling me, at the time of the changeover from Tiscali they said my package would stay exactly the same, but I see yesterday my download limit is only 40gb instead of Unlimited as it was with Tiscali.

If TalkTalk don't fix this PRONTO I will cancel my direct debit and go elsewhere.. as I can’t seem get anybody to fix the problem.

Thanks for listening

and a big THANKS to all who replied

TalkTalk

Hello,

The move from Tiscali to TalkTalk "systems" wouldn't cause this fault as the line and everything else is the same however clearly something isn't right.

When dealing with faults we always have to focus on any possible voice fault which take priority over any broadband fault this is because if the voice service isn't 100% then it will almost always be affecting the BB.

I will happily take ownership of your fault and see if we can get it sorted however with it being intermittent we will need some examples "date/time" when the line is hissing. I will also need you to confirm that ou have tested in your master socket and if you have one, the test socket. I know you said you had fitted a new one however from your description this sounds like an extension socket "i may be wrong"

If you want to email me your name, address, phone/account number and date of birth I will get some test ran on the line:

ttmfcontactus@talktalkgroup.com

Regards
Stephen

nado-gr4

Problem Update - sorry for being so long again.

This is to let you know how my line is now. I think i have found the cause of the problem, (which is not really anybody fault as i think it's just old cable all along) .

Anyway me being me (i build/repair computers and good at all thing diy) i decided to check the whole cable again and found that where the cable enters my house which then bends and goes through a hole at my window corner, it then bends down again and goes through another hole in my window sill and down to the phone socket in the wall. (i cut a hole in the wall to see the cable under my window sill) he he

Where it comes through these holes the line was badly cracked outside and in for about 10 inches especially at the first bend which is the one where it enters my window and also at the second bend inside my house.. So i have repaired it (temp) with new cable and a block connection's and then if all ok i will solder the wire connection's (permanently) and tape it up with electrical tape then cover it with silicon sealer which i have for fish tanks.. (very good stuff for keeping water at bay)

So now with the new cable i got put in, my phone socket is now on the proper wall beside my computer station..(new cable now runs under my floor to the socket.. I also have one of the new (bell & something) Telephone sockets which does away with that silly adsl filter (its inbuilt) so i will give it a try when i think the line is OK..

Since i have done this i now have the new (TalkTalk D-Link DSL-2640R Wireless G ADSL2+ router) connected and all the lights a steady green and have been for 2 days now and it's looking ok so far.. my phone seems ok too but i will give it 3days as the lady that phoned me today asked me to do.. I will then connect the new telephone socket and see how it goes as it's supposed to give me a bit more line speed ...

I have did speed checks and if i use the Aberdeen one it says my speed is 1-2meg which is rubbish, if i check with Maidenhead it's 6.4meg approx which i have been told that my line is only good for anyway.. Other line checks with diferent companies give mostly a reading of between 4-6.5 meg... Obviously it gets slower at peak times when it drops to between 2 -3 meg which is a pain,, ah! well technology

May i also state again the everybody i have talked to from TalkTalK every time i phoned has been very pleasant and understanding and have tried to fix this problem.. but in the end it looks to me that i was right and it was a line fault which i think came about because of 2 things.
1: cable from pole to my house is very very old.

2: the very severe cold weather we have had in Elgin this winter, -18% which is very odd for Elgin area...

again a Big Thanks to everybody who posted and tried to help.

sometimes in life it only takes somebody to actually go and look at something to find out whats wrong :rotfl::beer: ps: i dont drink:)
pps: the line is still working great.... the end.....