Strange BT line Problem, what could it be?

[henleyb]

Hi,

Having a little problem with our line and hoped someone here might know what it could be.

The problem is that the ADSL drops every time there's an incoming call. The internet light on the modem (tried both a Netgear DG834 v2 and DG834GT) goes out, flashes as it re-connects and then connects as normal allowing the use of the internet again.

We contacted ID Net who contacted BT and after a lot of hassle are no closer, the BT guy couldn't find the issue and have apparently replaced all the hardwear in the exchange for us but still it's exactly the same. The BT engineer also said that he had replaced all the wire to the exchange this morning when he was trying to figure it out for over 3 hours, I thought replacing all the cabling for a good few km would take longer.

Anyway, I'm baffled as is BT. The engineer said he's never had a problem like this in the 10 years he's been doing ADSL.

He was also unable to find where the phone line came in to our property (converted flats from a really old school) so was unable to check at the box. I'm half considering hunting it down myself as i've heard old test equipment that is used in the boxes can sometimes cause this.

[kinmel]

According to Kitz..............

~ adsl drops out when phone call is made or received.

- Incorrectly installed filters - check filters are installed correctly see here.
- Faulty filters - replace one by one to identify which filter is faulty.
- Fault on the line - unlikely but possible if all else has been eliminated

[henleyb]

yep, read all through his website.

Tried three different adsl modems (two netgears and the bt engineers one he came with). Tried several types of filters (including ADSL nation ones), as well as the BT Engineers ones. Nothing plugged in the extensions, extensions completely removed from master socket as well.

Disconnected wireless phones and switched them off as well as switched off all lighting circuits in our place to minimize interferance.

Basically, everything on my end has been tried and tested to death, there's something wrong somewhere else and I was hoping that next time I spoke with the BT guys I could just drop in convo a few ideas just in case it's out of their ordinary every day type of fix and they might not have even thought of it.

[Glenn]

When my line dropped as the phone rang, it was traced to the twisted pair earthing somewhere between the house and junction box in the street

[sobranie]

A hard wired alarm system on the line will cause this problem with the netgear. Possible there was one that was used when the old school existed and is still connected somewhere.  

[sobranie]

Found the link here;

http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=29014


Best of luck tracing if that is the prob.

[g7pkf]

so can i be correct.

the BT engineer left after seeing the fault with no resoloution or fix?


if so when is he coming back?

next time hold his tools hostage (or block his van in) until fault is fixed. You may get arrested for kidnap but at least you will get the fault fixed.

Seriously raise a complaint via bt website, make sure you SEE WHAT HE TYPES INTO HIS LAPTOP AS FAULT RESOLUTION

[henleyb]

He said they were now doing a "season reposition/migration" and it would be done by "the other guys" at the exchange, this could take them a week though apparently...

I will have a look for an alarm. How would BT have worked it when the school was converted? I mean, would they have to put up new boxes for each apartment or would the line from the exchange still go to a single box as if it was one building and then it branches out of there for each flat?

I'm trying to figure out that if an alarm in say the house next door (which was part of the school once too) was still on the line would it affect me or would it purely be an alarm within my apartment?

Thanks for the help, hoping I can figure this out as we work from home and it's really disruptive!

EDIT: One last thing, the Engineer also said the ADSL Nation filter was useless and the BT ones were far superior. Is this true, should I leave the Openreach face plate on there or swap it over for my ADSL Nation one?

[g7pkf]

TBH excrement that comes from cows/


BULLpoopoo

Give them a week then kick ass

and no when the conversion took place they sould have renewed/added to the lines.

and to be perfectlt honest i have heard some cr*p in my time but being in the trade this takes the biscuit. (well it comes in the top 10)

Best i ever heard was "its because of the birds jumping on the line- sorry you will have to live with it" in a reported fault of a very scratchy line.

[g7pkf]

Sorry was going to make another comment.

Rik would have a hissy fit and the swear filter would go into overdrive.

so i will like you should do wait, or go straight to bt complaints procedure.

KICK SOME BIG ASS.......

do not be British COMPLain you are being poo pooed on.

and to quantify.

i have an onc electronics hnd and hnc telecomunications and i work on dpnss/qsig lines/voip as my main daily job. if you do not know what these are they handle multiple calls on a single line.

PLEASE let me know the outcome

[henleyb]

haha, I did suspect he was having me on a little. He also stole our coffee mug, we managed to ring him and he said he would bring it back but he hasn't yet...

It's been a nightmare, they promised to be over last Friday but didn't turn up so we rang and re-arranged for the Saturday (last sat) and again they just didn't turn up, not even a phone call. Finally today they come over and take our internet down for about 4 hours while he went off and did "stuff".

He said he had replaced all the cable from the exchange, I then asked where the box outside was as I told him I couldn't find it and he admitted neither could he and that actually the cable he replaced was up to a box down the road... Seems I caught him out a touch there, I didn't let on I thought it was all cr*p, I didn't want to make an enemy out of the one person who might have been able to help!

VERY frustrating!

He also said he was able to get 3mbit from the box just down from our place, here I get 1600kbps connection at best, which is an absolute max download speed of 150Kb/s, i've never had faster.

So surely there's got to be a problem in between that apparent box and where we live?

Not sure what to do now, he actually said that if we were working from home the best option is to move house as then we would get better speeds. Apparently we don't have any emotional ties to this place as we rent it....

I bet he wishes he could solve all the problems by just getting people to move out.

Should I contact ID Net again, they're a bit slow on responding recently and just go straight to BT to try and get this sorted quickly or do ID Net need to be involved?

P.S. LOVE the birds jumping on the line excuse, hahaha!

[g7pkf]

one thing to do




bt complaints

[henleyb]

one thing to do

bt complaints

*salutes*,  on my way.... Will keep you updated.

EDIT: I've sent a nice, understanding matter of fact complaint but with a firm, "I want to get issue resolved ASAP", lets see what they come back with. Last time I had problems with BT (a different property) it went on for months.

[Sebby]

Fingers crossed for you.

[David]

Hope you get it sorted henleyb 

[Inactive]

Ditto, good luck...

[Rik]

It's certainly the weirdest case I've seen on here, and my first thought was filter as I started reading through. The amount of effort BT have already put in suggests to me that they know there's a fault, but haven't yet managed to identify it. Do let IDNet know what's happened, if you haven't already, possibly pointing them at this thread.

[henleyb]

Ok, will mail them this thread.

Here's what ID Net have written back about the work carried out yesterday.

"The work was carried out in the exchange yesterday, however they are still seeing the same issue after the work was carried out. The have sent for the service to be ceased and completely reprovided giving you a completely new circuit. At the moment i am awaiting on a date when this will be complete."

Does reprovided mean a new line?

Nothing back from BT Complaints yet.

[Rik]

Not necessarily a new line, but it will mean a new connection to the DSLAM.

[David]

Sounds a good solution to me......at least you will get,or should get a fault free line and even better you could end up with a brand new line......has to be better than your current situation  Good luck hope they treat you to a new line you have earned it

[henleyb]

If they did put a new line in, could I expect my speeds to increase. i.e. will my attenuation go down etc due to it being all new cable and connections?

[Rik]

It depends on the length of the cable, primarily, but hopefully there would be an improvement.

[3DBULLY]

henleyb,
            Dude i feel for you, as i'm in very much the same situation.
I used to have a very good ADSL connection, had a BRAS profile of 7100k, had some work done by BT when thing's started going t*t's up, still t*t's up at the moment IDnet and BT are monitoring the problem.
James at IDnet sent me an I-Plate to try, which was a nice thought but hasen't had any effect in regards of the mass Downstream SNR dropping off at 15:00hrs onwards.

How much monitoring is needed before they decide to come and do something about it is beyond me.

Funny thing is when you mentioned about when you receave a phone call that you lose ADSL, i also have this issue, but mine is intermitant sometimes when making a call or receaving it will drop the ADSL connection, intermittant earth issue ?

I have done allsort's in regards of my SNR issues, even to the point of getting my two direct neighbours to turn all the power off to there houses via there main's circuit board which i did yesterday, outcome for that little experiment ...... Nil, nicht , narder and zilch.

Regards

3dbully

P.s DMT Tool stat's notice the 3 tone gaps, tone 173, 207 and 211 missing, last night i had 7 missing tones, giving the distance from my exchange (330mtr line distance) and my line stat's via BT who are stating that i have a very good quality line, if so what the heck is the problem?

I'm no muppet i have a BTEC national diploma in electronic engineering so it's nothing my side


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[Rik]

I suspect a lot of the problems we are seeing at the moment stem from a reluctance to continue to invest in the 20CN network while they are replacing it with 21CN as fast as they can go - not that they seem to be able to deliver on time.

[David]

I wonder if the current financila situation will slow the operations down it is a great excuse to drag their feet I would have thought 

[Rik]

BT never seem to need an excuse, David. IDNet's Hostlink, which should originally have been active in June, was put back to November 4, and has now been put back to November 14. IPStream Connect, which would allow them to move customers who are on non-activated WBC exchanges to the new link has been put back to next summer, many exchange activation dates have slipped back by 3-6 months.

[David]

   Surprise surprise 

[Rik]

Indeed. It makes it very difficult for ISPs to plan or to provide the service they would like to.

[henleyb]

An update to all this. Problem still exists!

BT did something at the exchange and now the modem doesn't appear to disconnect from that but on an incoming call the modem still drops the local connection. I'm not sure how that works since it's telling me in the stats that it hasn't dropped the connection but the light on the modem goes out, flashes orange before re-establishing a connection.

If downloading a large download with a download manager, this will obviously stop and I'll have to re-start it and pray no one phones us.

ID Net are saying that there's nothing up their end and to try another modem/router. I no longer have a second modem/router to test with so now it looks like we will have to purchase another just to test. I did say I would like a BT engineer around to test the line end to end to ensure the 'fix' has 100% worked but was told this would be chargeable if it turns out it's now something our end again so in the tiny chance it is this brand new modem and it's exhibiting the exact same issues that were present before when the engineer tested with his own equipment it may end up costing me ~£150.

grr.

Also, I installed DG Team Firmware on this new router (DG834GT) and have the terminal stuff set up so if there's anything I can pull from the tons of info I have, please let me know.

[Lance]

Normally a connection drops on an incoming call if the filter is failing - have you tried a new filter?

If you don't have a spare router/modem, you could ask IDNet to lend you one - they've done this before.

[g7pkf]

where abouts you located henleyb?

[henleyb]

We're located in Axminster, Devon. I will ask ID Net if they are able to send us out a router to test with, thanks.

[g7pkf]

Oh well thats a shame i only go that way about twice a year.

Just i have a few spare routers you could have borrowed (if you had been a little more local)

now heres a thought move closer to me (Milton Keynes) and then i could lend you a router.....Hmm moving would probarly solve the problem anyway, and i would not wish this dodgy aluminum cable stuff on anyone.

[henleyb]

hehe, thanks for the offer. Maybe I really should move since the internet is such an important part of what we do here. I just wish BT would actually seem half interested in our issues (boo hoo).

[Rik]

BT are only interested in their bottom line I'm afraid.

[henleyb]

ID Net are sending out a modem to me for tomorrow so I will give that a go and see what happens.

[Rik]

They're good like that.

[Sebby]

ID Net are sending out a modem to me for tomorrow so I will give that a go and see what happens.

Let us know how you get on.

[henleyb]

BT have been "doing things" for the last few weeks but as always our internet is exactly the same as when we first reported the problem.

ID Net sent the modem out and it has exactly the same problems. ID Net have now escalated the issue to a BT Manager and they are now going to be doing a "Tie-pair modification" which will be completed by Thursday. They hope this will resolve the issue once and for all but I'm skeptical as always!

I still suspect it's something this end with our BT box due to our property being so old and the engineer not being able to find the box to check it. Makes me think he just ticked the box on a form saying, "yep, checked it" so he could get away with our coffee cup quicker.   

[Rik]

The mod being suggested is at the exchange, so it suggests that they are trying their best to eliminate the possible sources of the problem.

[Lance]

At least BT have admitted there is a problem, and support are able to escalate it until a solution is found!

[henleyb]

Very true, I'm glad things are still being done but it seems a pretty long and drawn out process.

[David]

Wish you well and hope they get it sorted out soon for you 

[Rik]

Very true, I'm glad things are still being done but it seems a pretty long and drawn out process.

BT do long and drawn out, unfortunately.

[David]

Are they Catholics ?

[Rik]

or should that be cosmic?

[David]