Router Lifespan?

scottishminnie

I've had a Netgear router for about 6 years now and had no problems. Over the last few days I've lost connectivity on numerous occasions.
I have reported the phone line already to BT as it is horrendously crackly and I know there are tree branches which are fouling the line about a mile from my house.

I'm half expecting BT to claim it's not a line problem and I have begun to wonder how long it would be reasonable for a router to last?

It is used pretty much daily for at least 3 hours and if I work from home (at least once a week) it is on for perhaps 12 hours straight.

I appreciate it's a bit of how long is a piece of string question - just wondered other people's thoughts.

I won't know until 29th what the line "fault" investigation reveals - when I call the update line that's the date for the next update.

As you can tell it is working right now but it could drop any minute:)

Ximian

It's hard to say with electronics, I don't think you can predict their failure. I've had a router for 6 years with no problems but had to replace the power supply after 5 years, I used the router pretty much 24 hours a day.

Regarding the issue you have described, it sounds very similar to an issue that I had a few years back. I would get the occasional disconnection now and again but would always get disconnected when it rained. I raised a fault with BT and was warned that BT could charge me a fee (I think it was £85) if no fault was found which I was willing to accept as I was sure it was a physical fault. BT sent an engineer and it turned out that the line from the house to the pole was corroded and the wires were exposed which explains the reason for the disconnects when it rained. The wire was replaced and I never had an issue again.

BT will usually do a simple line test and sometimes close the fault without even confirming with the customer if the fault is resolved, this happened to me and then I reopened the call and complained and requested a visit.
I now have fibre and I'm much happier.

scottishminnie

Fingers crossed BT own up if the fault is theirs! They have admitted before that the tree branches are an issue but don't see why they should fix them as we live in a rural area so it doesn't affect masses of people.

If only fibre was an option it would be nice but we are too remote for anything fancy like that! The last engineer said we should be extremely grateful we had broadband given that we lived on "grubby farm roads"!

flossy_splodge

Have you tried the self initiated fault checker via BT's website?
It gave me a different answer to that which BT were saying and hence I pushed the issue and it was 'discovered' that the external line WAS in fact the problem.
BT seem to use this 'but we may have to charge you' line to frighten people off!
Don't give up.:o

epninety

scottishminnie wrote: »

I have reported the phone line already to BT as it is horrendously crackly

The phrase to casually mention is 'quiet line test'. If a BT guy turns out, it will/should be one of the first tests he does. (He simply dials a special number and gets a silent line to the exchange, so he can gauge how noisy the line is.) If it's crackly, they have to fix that before they (or you) can tell if there's a more subtle problem.

Also worth noting if it's worse after rain, it often is, and if it's been dry for a few days when the guy turns up, it will be worth mentioning that too.

(Also beware the skiving git who logs the fault as fixed without even visiting your house. Also, that I hadn't answered when they phoned to confirm - mainly because my phone line wasn't working.)

Norman_Castle

Quiet line test No 17070

It is used pretty much daily for at least 3 hours and if I work from home (at least once a week) it is on for perhaps 12 hours straight.

Your router should be on permanently. If the above times refer to being in use, its unlikely that would affect its lifespan.

ChiefGrasscutter

scottishminnie wrote: »

Fingers crossed BT own up if the fault is theirs! They have admitted before that the tree branches are an issue but don't see why they should fix them as we live in a rural area so it doesn't affect masses of people.

If only fibre was an option it would be nice but we are too remote for anything fancy like that! The last engineer said we should be extremely grateful we had broadband given that we lived on "grubby farm roads"!

Standard BT black dropwire has a VERY hard outside sheath - quite unlike that found on domestic mains cable for instance.
Tree branches are unlikely IMO to cause a problem - unless you are talking of decades of the line rubbing against them. Round here dropwire is threaded through trees.
A much more likely issue is squirrels chewing at the line - accessed of course from those branches - indeed this is a major cause of line failures in rural areas.
As regards the trees - BT are not responsible for maintaining them.
The owner of the tree is responsible for ensuring that by their growth or lack of maintenance they do not damage BT equipment.
So for example if a branch falls off your tree and takes out your dropwire, BT would be quite correct if they were to send you the bill for repairing it.......usually they don't.

The Quiet line test:
Ring 17070 and choose option 2 the quite line test - do in on a wired phone NOT a cordless DECT one.
The line should be silent - listen out in particular for crackles or pop which are a clear sign of a faulty line or a faulty joint somewhere back to the exchange.
another option in the menu is ring back which when chosen and you put the phone down will ring it so that you can test the ringing part.
The other use for the 17070 facility in a house with multiple lines is to find out which sodding phone point is connected to which line as it tells you when you use it which is the number.

tyllwyd

We had a lot of trouble with a noisy phone line and internet dropping. We reported to the problem to BT and insisted that we wanted an engineer out even if it cost us - the engineer didn't find anything wrong, but he did replace the master socket and didn't charge us. A few days later the line was noisy again, I did a line test via the BT website and it magically cured the problem!

Also, once the line is reasonable, if you still have problems with internet, report a fault to your ISP, there are some things they might be able to do to help. Also, are you using a netgear DG834 router? If so, our ISP suggested updating the firmware on it.

scottishminnie

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Standard BT black dropwire has a VERY hard outside sheath - quite unlike that found on domestic mains cable for instance.
Tree branches are unlikely IMO to cause a problem - unless you are talking of decades of the line rubbing against them. Round here dropwire is threaded through trees.
A much more likely issue is squirrels chewing at the line - accessed of course from those branches - indeed this is a major cause of line failures in rural areas.
As regards the trees - BT are not responsible for maintaining them.
The owner of the tree is responsible for ensuring that by their growth or lack of maintenance they do not damage BT equipment.
So for example if a branch falls off your tree and takes out your dropwire, BT would be quite correct if they were to send you the bill for repairing it.......usually they don't.

The Quiet line test:
Ring 17070 and choose option 2 the quite line test - do in on a wired phone NOT a cordless DECT one.
The line should be silent - listen out in particular for crackles or pop which are a clear sign of a faulty line or a faulty joint somewhere back to the exchange.
another option in the menu is ring back which when chosen and you put the phone down will ring it so that you can test the ringing part.
The other use for the 17070 facility in a house with multiple lines is to find out which sodding phone point is connected to which line as it tells you when you use it which is the number.

Checked the "quiet line" - thanks for that as I'd never heard of it. The crackling is deafening on this so hopefully that confirms I'm not "at it".

The trees are on the road (council owned) and a previous engineer advised they simply won't have discussions with the council as it isn't worth doing. He did also say our line had been "patched" to bits in the past.
There are no trees between where the line leaves the road and enters my house.

BT are also my ISP - much as I dislike them intensely it means they can't just point to the ISP to avoid dealing with problems.

I'll see what happens - I've just tracked the fault online and although it still shows open it states that they didn't find any fault when they ran the tests. The recorded message on 151 last night stated they were sending an engineer but would not need access to the premises so goodness only knows the reality.

Can't imagine it will be resolved easily - nothing has ever been with BT.

ChiefGrasscutter

The general 'rule of attack' is you need to fix/report the voice phone faults then look at the broadband.
Often fixing the voice situation will result in the BB improving of its own accord as the telephone exchange BB system will recognise the line as now "stable". In other words there is no broadband 'fault' as such - merely the system reacting quite correctly to an impossibly bad line.
It is a total waste of time registering a BB fault with a phone line in a dodgy condition....you just get passed back and fro.

The standard lineOK test run by the call centre will not find these dodgy noisy lines. All they seem to manage is to confirm when the line is actually broken.
If the line is as bad as you say any engineer will recognise it as such by doing the same simple 17070 and by putting on their decent test/locating equipment on will be able to find the spot causing the problem easily.

The difficult ones are the intermittants where the fault comes and goes - and it's never 'on' when the engineer visits. Sometime though the testing equipment can find these by highighting a suspect area in the line's length even if the fault is not 'hard on' at the time.

If it's not squirrels then usually these faults are corrosion/water in a joint somewhere - called high resistance faults (HR faults)

bmewsd

the other thing you might want to consider is that over time chipsets inside a router will change and these will normally provide greater improvements than those provided purely by firmware updates.