Phone line problems - but modem still working

dogfish12

For the telephone engineers out there Kaths problem seems to suggest a voltage drop, to me, anyway.

spike7451

Kath,try this;

Noisy Line
You need to do a "Quiet Line Test" (Dial 17070 and select option 2).

The possible faults are;

HR Fault - One or both wires not making proper contact. Worn cable or oxidised joint.(corroded connection)

Earth Contact - Line is going to earth, possibly caused by tree branch rubbing through the cable.

Battery Contact - Line is in contact with another. Could be worn isolation or water on the line.

Rectified Loop - Phone rings once then line cuts out. Problem could be in the home or water on the circuit.

What it also could be is a fault in the cabinet beyond the 'switch'.Basically,when your phone line goes into the exchange,the broadband is split off from the phone,which is why if your phone is cut off,the broadband will still work.

You wont get a spark to officially come & have a look & if the fault is on your kit,you'll be charged for any repairs although my bet would be on the builder messing it up!If as you say the house was gutted,I'll bet the builder has done a repair job or trapped & damaged the cable somwhere.)where does the cable come into the house?(And I've came across this tons of times as a Service Tech for NTL/VM)

You can buy NTE5's off E-BAY & they are easy to install,all you have to connect is Blue-3 & White Blue to 5.
Kath,it would be a BT Openreach engineer who would come out,they do all the work for the ISP's.If you lived near me (Bangor NI) I'd be able to pop out & have a look...

dogfish12

Kath, I'll tell you what I would do if I was in your position. You could find a friendly bt openreach engineer and throw him/her a few quid.

What I would do if I did not have a test socket I can only suggest to myself as it is illegal. I would disconnect the front plate of my master socket. That is illegal.

In my house the incoming bt line has 4 cores of which, in my case, orange and white, actually do anything. By trial and error you can find which ones are live. connect the 2 wires onto a fresh plate onto terminals 2+5 then plug your phone into that plate without the filter. If the crackling still exists on a good phone then the problem must be outside. If it has gone then ust be internal.

kmmr

spike7451 wrote: »

Kath,try this;

Noisy Line
You need to do a "Quiet Line Test" (Dial 17070 and select option 2).

Nothing dials out. It's not a just a noisy line, it's a non functioning one. No calls in or out.

spike7451 wrote: »

The possible faults are;

HR Fault - One or both wires not making proper contact. Worn cable or oxidised joint.(corroded connection)

Earth Contact - Line is going to earth, possibly caused by tree branch rubbing through the cable.

Battery Contact - Line is in contact with another. Could be worn isolation or water on the line.

Rectified Loop - Phone rings once then line cuts out. Problem could be in the home or water on the circuit.

What it also could be is a fault in the cabinet beyond the 'switch'.Basically,when your phone line goes into the exchange,the broadband is split off from the phone,which is why if your phone is cut off,the broadband will still work.

You wont get a spark to officially come & have a look & if the fault is on your kit,you'll be charged for any repairs although my bet would be on the builder messing it up!If as you say the house was gutted,I'll bet the builder has done a repair job or trapped & damaged the cable somwhere.)where does the cable come into the house?(And I've came across this tons of times as a Service Tech for NTL/VM)

The internal wiring was all working, and has been working for about 4-5 months. Which makes me think it isn't the builder. The actual wires were all new (I saw them go in) so I don't think it's that.

I can trace the cable from the outside through a drilled hole in the front, and then to the socket. I can't see the wire for only about 1M, but I presume not too much can have gone on in that space!

The external wire coming into the building (block of flats) is an old white one. That wire wasn't replaced as part of the work, and the sparky did say that it was so old he wasn't really familiar with it. We had to go and check out the setup in another flat to understand the wiring. I don't think it had standard coloured wires. Sound plausible??

spike7451 wrote: »

You can buy NTE5's off E-BAY & they are easy to install,all you have to connect is Blue-3 & White Blue to 5.
Kath,it would be a BT Openreach engineer who would come out,they do all the work for the ISP's.If you lived near me (Bangor NI) I'd be able to pop out & have a look...

In London unfortunately!

kmmr

dogfish12 wrote: »

Kath, I'll tell you what I would do if I was in your position. You could find a friendly bt openreach engineer and throw him/her a few quid.

What I would do if I did not have a test socket I can only suggest to myself as it is illegal. I would disconnect the front plate of my master socket. That is illegal.

In my house the incoming bt line has 4 cores of which, in my case, orange and white, actually do anything. By trial and error you can find which ones are live. connect the 2 wires onto a fresh plate onto terminals 2+5 then plug your phone into that plate without the filter. If the crackling still exists on a good phone then the problem must be outside. If it has gone then ust be internal.

The woman at Sky tech support told me to unscrew the master socket!

I'll go through the various stages, but I think the first is to get a phone we know works, and then I'll take it from there.

spike7451

Did you try the QLT?

Sounds like it's the old GPO wiring coming in to the flats,do you have any extensions running off the socket?

ukcarper

have you tried a different phone, if not unplug phone and ring it does it still go straight to voicemail.

dogfish12

Yes, the woman at sky was probably alluding to the modern nte5 test socket which actually has a faceplate in two halves. You remove the bottom half which exposes the test socket into which you plug your phone isolating all extensions. Terminals for extension running are in the bottom half and that is fine. If you remove the top half you are technically breaking the law-or so they say.

Of course, you might run the risk even if the fault is outside of the home that the bt openreach engineer asking to come into the property and he notices this and that. But I doubt it.

kmmr

Do BT seriously remove your service and/or charge you with a criminal offence if you have messed with the master socket? Not that I have I don't think - the electrician did. Is an electrician allowed to?

spike7451

kmmr wrote: »

Do BT seriously remove your service and/or charge you with a criminal offence if you have messed with the master socket? Not that I have I don't think - the electrician did. Is an electrician allowed to?

More a threat than anything else & the electricians are only allowed to fit & wire extensions as well as install master sockets in new builds,they are'nt allowed to touch the wiring.