Phone faults at weekends?

Tammykitty

icarusi wrote: »

And the fault is.....................at the *exchange* just as I suspected. So the engineer found there was a short, a least as far as the phone is concerned, from where the wire enters my house, and he then proceeded to check it back down the line and found it was at a position before the broadband kit in the exchange. So *that* was why my broadband was unaffected. I'll see if it improves in the future by whatever he replaced.

Apparently BT don't have a test which would show this upfront. The test the phone provider does wouldn't ID it either, but the test should be done with all kit disconnected from the master socket, which was never asked, and may explain why they said it was a fault my side of the master socket.

All in all pretty poor, especially from BT who apparently don't have a check (or suitable kit installed) at the exchange to detect basic faults on phone lines in the exchange.

PO phones support have so little capacity they effectively can only be contacted in the evening and don't give (or don't know?) the correct instructions prior to a line test.

Plusnet look like they may be a better bet, as they do have a genuine 0800 number for support, so you won't be burning mobile credit however long it takes to contact them. PO's number is only 'free' from a PO phoneline, so not much use in a dead line fault.

If I get FTTC broadband the new kit will be in the cabinet closest to my house but the phone line kit will remain the same. There's nothing else other than at the exchange providing voltage on the phone line.

You can request a call back if you phone them on your mobile

JJ_Egan

Problem is that 99% of these faults are handed over to the line provider .
Plusnet or any ISP may be better at listening to you but the work is passed to the Openreach system .

icarusi

Tammykitty wrote: »

You can request a call back if you phone them on your mobile

Only if you get through, and will they call back, and when?

icarusi

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Problem is that 99% of these faults are handed over to the line provider .
Plusnet or any ISP may be better at listening to you but the work is passed to the Openreach system .

Even so I'd have expected the exchange to be checked 1st, then my place and last all points in between. The engineer was about 10mins at my place, then headed off to check the nearest cab, and near 1hr later returned to do the final check and pick up the box he'd attached.

The troubling thing is landline phones are still basically analogue and have DC remote power and signalling (AC for the ringer, DC voltage drops quicker than AC the further it travels) to the handset, from premises to exchange. Everything else is digital, newer, and easier to upgrade, expand and extend. Every time the digital stuff gets changed the landline stuff gets disturbed, but unlikely upgraded, as landlines are dropped in favour of wire or fibre broadband + mobile phone.

Could be my landline part failed of natural causes, or it got disturbed enough during some work on the digital stuff to go into fault.

On the good side broadband download speed is up 2.74Mbps from 2.28, upload unchanged.

brewerdave

icarusi wrote: »

Even so I'd have expected the exchange to be checked 1st, then my place and last all points in between. The engineer was about 10mins at my place, then headed off to check the nearest cab, and near 1hr later returned to do the final check and pick up the box he'd attached.

...I spoke to an experienced Openreach guy (there are some left!!) a couple of years ago when I had a phone fault,and he told me that,unfortunately, the majority of phone faults are down to the user's equipment/premises -so you can perhaps understand why they start with you. Apparently much/many of the problems are due to home made, botches on extension installations or subsequent damage to the cabling - installation/replacement of double glazing where the cables run thru' the corner of a window frame are apparently a frequent source of issues.:)
When there were engineers based at the exchange I suspect that they would have checked at the exchange first,but as far as I'm aware, the BTO guys are now all mobile with no home base.

JJ_Egan

As above and many of them are subcontractors and not engineers just fitters .

icarusi

brewerdave wrote: »

When there were engineers based at the exchange I suspect that they would have checked at the exchange first,but as far as I'm aware, the BTO guys are now all mobile with no home base.

Also if the PO instigated 'test', with my phone kit still connected, gave the erroneous result that the fault was with my kit, they're likely to point him at my place expecting a quick result. I'll try and find what detail PO get back from Openreach on the fault, if anything.

icarusi

There may be a plus point to ADSL from FTTC installs, in that the relinquished data load is take off the POTS wiring, from exchange to nearest cab, so effectively there'll be more capacity for the existing ADSL kit to work with. Also in my case the POTS wiring to the nearest cab has had a bit of an MOT, so if I was to opt for a self install fibre broadband, I wouldn't be wondering if the wires part was iffy.