Phone line problems - but modem still working

spike7451

ukcarper wrote: »

Yes it does sound like it's the line or your internal wiring.
You have your own line so it wouldn’t effect neighbours phones. The trouble with calling out open reach is that if the fault turns out to be on your wiring they will charge you. That’s the advantage of the nte5 as you can isolate the line from the internal wiring.

The fault could be in the line card in the exchang

I agree with ukcarper,the fact that your BBand is working & the phone isn't suggests that it is after the switch,where the BBand splits off from the phone line.
If you call BTO out,insist they swap the phone socket for an NTE5,tell them it was like that when you moved in!
And because you don't have an NTE5,you cannot do a line test & to do so would be breaking the BT Terms & Conditions.

dogfish12

Don't worry about them taking your service away. They want your money. no service, no money.

ChiefGrasscutter

I've had the following fault which may have bearing on this disucssion: if not then it is useful information anyway for us all:

I'm with BT and my internal wiring is perfect.
One day I found that suddenly I was able to connect to the internet (but with much reduced speed) but had no dial tone on the phone.
I also found that ringing my number from my mobile produced the exchange generated ringing sound in the mobile's earpiece but no ring at my home phone.

Subsequenly found by BT that of the two actual wires within the single cable which comes into the property.....one of these was broken at the street box. The BT engineer confirm that is was indeed possible to have a broadband connection (albeit a rather bad one) and no dial tone - but it did depend on which of the two wires it was that had broken - had it been the other one nothing would have worked.

Hope this is of interest.

PS Sorting out the broadband afterwards took much longer as the exchange DSLAM had reacted to the "fault" by sharply reducing the IP setting and increasing the Default SNR margin!

ukcarper

When you lift the handset of your phone you put a resistive loop on the line this operates the line equipment in the exchange but doesn’t effect the broadband. If there is a fault loop on the line it will also operate the line circuit in the exchange, it might or might not affect the broadband depending on resistance of loop. If the line circuit in the exchange is operated because of the loop on the line the state of the line will not change when the number is rung. As spike says other faults could give a similar result i.e. a resistive earth on one wire.

kmmr

Hi,

Thanks all again for the help. I quite like learning a bit more about the process too. It is amazing how much we rely on things like the phone and have no real idea how it works. One day someone may be able to explain Wi-Fi for me. My boyfriend and I refer to it as 'magic dust', as despite explanations I'll never really get it!

I have sorted a phone to use to test when I get home tonight. If that doesn't work I (via Skytalk) will get BT out asap.

spike7451

Kmmr,

With regards to any charges BT/Sky may saddle you with,have a read of this thread;

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2855286

Do I have to pay for a fault repair?

We can repair many line faults at the exchange or on the network. Others require a visit by a BT engineer. There is no charge for these repairs. We will only charge you when one of our engineers visits your property and finds that the fault could have been fixed by you. For example, if your phone is broken or has been left unplugged.

https://www2.bt.com/static/i/microsite/help_and_tips/faults/faq/faults_faq2.html

Ergo you don't have a test socket or the ability to remove any extensions that are hard wired into the master socket without breaking BT's T&C's so you shouldn't be charged.

kmmr

Quick update. BT came today and fixed the master socket, but all the internals still don't work. He said there was a problem coming into the building (the wires he found help together with tape didn't help) but once the master socket was up and running, the internals still didn't work.

Says there must be a short in the system, but despite testing every socket he can't find where it is.

So he has detacted the wires going from the master to the rest of the house, and we just have one working socket.

So - next steps! Do you think it is possible for a phone engineer to work out where the problem may be, without ripping out all my wiring? The new wiring DID work, so does the basic explanation about sound plausible? What could cause it to go from working, to not working - with nothing else being changed in the house?

I am pretty frustrated by this. I have just got the place re-wired, and then replastered, redecorated etc, so I don't want to mess with the new decoration, but at the same time as it's all new, I don't want to run wires along the skirting boards!

The re-cabling has also made a complete mess of my Sky setup too. But I suppose that is another issue... salient lesson in getting the right experts in to do the job, and not relying on the builder claiming they know how it all works.

kmmr

p.s. They didn't charge me!

dogfish12

Hello KMMR, glad to hear that you now have at least one working socket. If I understand this correctly there has been two faults here, both externally and internally on the extensions. The fact that there was an external fault might save you from the call out fee. However beware because any fee would be placed on your next quarterly bill. The engineer has no authority on charging, he will put a report in and some bod in the office will decide whether that job is chargeable. These pages are replete with instances of people being ripped off by false billing. I know, its happened to me twice and I refused to pay. I cannot understand why the engineer cannot find the fault on the extensions. Simply by a process of elimination by pulling out of the master he could find which one was throwing the line without any specialist tools. They normally attach a laptop to the lines. What it does I dont know.

ukcarper

I’m not sure how many extension sockets you have but it should be possible to find out what socket or cable the problem is on but if the fault is in a cable it will be difficult to find where in the cable exactly.