Any problems tonight?

[Simon]

You should have promised him lunch if he came back. 

[Niall]

He must be having problems. Routerstats is showing he's reset the line several times now. Noise margin went up to 30 at one point but now back to 22. Speed still 3mb!

[Niall]

I don't understand. The line just reset to a nm of 4 but is giving nearly 15mb speeds. How?!

[Rik]

Lower margin, higher sync speed, Niall.

[Niall]

Really? Good grief someone on here told me the opposite a while ago. What about the attn on the line then? Mine is 17up and 30 down. Does that match my speed (currently) of 1.1up and 14.23 down?

Whatever the engineer has been doing for the last two and a bit hours, seems to be working

I've been reading definitions, etc on the kitz site, among other sources and one thing I will be taking away from this is to not believe what people tell you, read up fully on the subject (rather than blindly take the word of someone you don't know, who claims to know what they're talking about!), and record every routerstats log for safe keeping.

It seems people can assume you mean one thing when you're talking about another.

Still, these forums have been a MASSIVE help, so no matter what the outcome, thanks to one and all! IDnet support have put up with a lot of emails from me too

I still wish there was a more transparent way of doing things though. I've had an engineer here and he immediately dismissed the fault being at my end before starting testing, but I still have no idea what he's actually done or is doing, ad I've heard nothing from him in over 2 hours since he left!

[Steve]

The only time a high margin is good is on a full sync with adslmax, you'll rarely see a full sync on adsl2+. What we never know is the overall noise on a line as all a router tells us is the noise margin required to run the broadband signal.The noise margin is more dependent on variations in the noise than it's overall level.

[Simon]

I'm actually surprised that an engineer came out on a Bank Holiday!

[Niall]

You and me both. I thought he wasn't supposed to be here until Wednesday, but he said he thought it was tomorrow but had a spare couple of hours so came today.

Despite my line now being fixed, which I'm grateful for, the fact he hasn't bothered calling me on my now noise free phone line, is a little annoying. After 4 months of cr*p, I still don't know what the problem was. All I do know for certain is nothing was wrong at my end, or outside the house. 45 minutes after he left to go somewhere, my line returned to normal after repeated drops while he was doing something either at the exchange or the box at the top of my estate.

So now I have no idea what's happened, or why. I did tell him though, that the previous engineer told my mum someone had dropped something on the equipment at the exchange when he originally phoned, but I don't know if he looked in to that at all as he never mentioned it when he got here. All I got out of him was that my side was fine as I've known all along. I don't know if he found a fault at the socket outside as he didn't say anything when he left, and I've not seen him since

Ah well, I hope it is fixed. It doesn't look like I'm getting charged anything as the fault was clearly outside my house, so woo and yay

I'm wondering that now it's fixed, if I can claim the money back for all the needless filters and faceplates and routers I bought to rule out problems at my end, now they sorted it. Just for the routers and filters I'm out of pocket over £300.

[Rik]

No, in a word.

I think he's gone along the line re-crimping joints, but that's just a guess. Support should get a report back from BT.

[Niall]

Hope so, it'd be nice actually knowing what the hell was wrong. I'm certain it was something at the exchange as nothing changed until 45 minutes after he drove off. Unless he fixed something outside, then reset things at the exchange. Whatever it was, my line is now IDENTICAL to how it was pre problems.

Woo and yay!

[Den]

I just wished I could get those sort of speeds of the Gresford exchange Nial. How about I run a cable from your house to my house it's only about 2 miles as the crow flies. 

[kinmel]

Congratulations Niall. it is always good to here of someone beating the odds 

[Niall]

I've had a couple of emails from support today. Apparently there was a fault with the dside link at the exchange. I would have posted earlier but was waiting for support to tell me what that actually was

http://www.lucidos.co.uk/d-sidecoppercablingforbt.htm

[Glenn]

Have they confirmed that no charge is being raised?

[Niall]

Nothing has been mentioned by support and as the fault was actually at the exchange, they can't possibly charge me a penny! Stop trying to ruin my happy! As I say, the engineer didn't test anything at my end. He did the silent line test (I assume), then plugged his little tool into the line, said "hmm", went outside and then drove off in his van. At no point did he say there was any problem here. Besides, you can clearly see that there was no problem at my side, and as that link above shows that the error was with cabling at the exchange, it's nothing to do with me.

It does beg the question however, how BT can say the line is fine when it clearly wasn't and an engineer immediately located the fault and fixed it within 2 hours!

The strange thing is that when I mentioned this to my mum, she said that this is exactly what they told her was the fault when her phone stopped working, so it seems they bodged it rather than replace it last time. It explains why my line was down for about 20 minutes before a couple of resets. My phone line is incredibly clear now, too.

All is well, it seems, but now you've made me worry, I'll have to bother support again

[Lance]

If it was D-side wiring, that is, I understand, between your house and the cabinet. The E-side is cabinet to Exchange.

It seems pretty clear to me that if BT were to raise a charge (not that I expect them to) there is clear grounds to dispute it on the basis they have confirmed there was a fault and there was no work completed within your house.

[Niall]

God I hate the web based email system. It's so slow it's silly. My iphone wont download large emails, so I have to log in to that. Plus Firefox refuses to remember not to block the pop up windows on there, or remember my email log in details.

Really not looking forward to installing a new system when my SSD arrives, and setting up all my email accounts again! Argh!

[Ardua]

This is truly a bizarre way of doing business. BT man comes and plugs his test kit into the Test Socket which, in effect, eliminates any router and internal wiring issues and goes away never to return. Says nothing but line improves shortly after his visit, but householder is still left to worry about a bill. At this point, IDNet should step firmly into the fray and tell Niall that any question of a bill, if there actually is one, is a matter between the ISP and BT to dispute and resolve. I sense that ISPs see the 'pass-through of charges' as something of a cop out. Surely, there has to come a time when ISPs say something along the following lines: OK, you tell us that your wiring etc is OK and we will take this on the trust. In our technical opinion, the problem is X,Y or Z and we will inform BT accordingly. If in the event, X, Y and Z are proved to be OK and BT can demonstrate to us that the fault actually sits on your side of the Test Socket, then a pass-through charge will be levied on your account.

Getting back to an earlier point mentioned on this site, is it not time for IDNet to have a formal technical faults log which is visible to its customers which show the recording and progression of all faults - both internally and externally.

[pctech]

This is why ISPs ask you to connect to the master socket before calling BT in, if the fault is apparent while plugged into the test, there is no charge.

You can have any extension wiring worked on by a telecoms engineer of your choice, its just the main wire coming into your home or office that noone bar BT can touch as up to that socket the wiring is considered part of BT's network.

[Niall]

I am, via a filter. I've got two faceplates (BT and ADSLnation) and three filters (also two additional ones that came with various routers that I gave away to my sister, were also tried), which I pointed out to him so he didn't have to test anything himself. I don't think I've ever been as prepared for anything as I was for this engineer visit!

Just got a reply:

Hi Niall,
Any charges BT attempt to apply to the case we will gladly dispute on your behalf, they stand very little chance of upholding them.
Kind regards
James
IDNet

This pleases me. Although it does suggest they may actually be attempting to charge something. Still I'm paying nothing as there were no faults at my end, plus I've spent over £300 on routers and faceplates, so they can whistle

My noise margin has dropped even further today too. It's down to 5.5 now. Being paranoid after all this, I've left routerstats running

[Niall]

I really should stop staring at routerstats, and I did last night, but this morning my connection dropped and the noise margin has doubled almost, to 9.2db, knocking 2mb off my speed. The phone line is still clear as a bell though, which is nice. I can't remember the last time it was this clear

[Niall]

Christ, I just phoned a taxi using my mums phone and the line is the noisiest I've ever heard one! Suppose we'll be raising that next!

[Ardua]

Christ, I just phoned a taxi using my mums phone and the line is the noisiest I've ever heard one! Suppose we'll be raising that next!

Perhaps the engineer just switched your line for your Mum's.    Only joking - honestly.

[Niall]

I was wondering the same thing actually. It's settled down now though.

My noise margin seems stuck at 9.2db though. Absolutely no idea why/when it changed as I turned off routerstats last night, but my line dropped this morning changing from 5.4 to 9.2 when it reset. Something is well and truly borked in that little green box at the top of the estate.

[Simon]

I wonder if it could be leaking water in?  We had a similar problem with one of our green boxes, but fortunately, it didn't affect me, and I only found out they can leak by chatting to the engineer, as his van had blocked me in!