Noise on line

[old Bill]

Hi,
   This is my first post and i hope that you can help. I have been with Idnet for a week and so far i have been very happy with the customer service. I am not so happy with the download speeds i am geting at the moment. My sync speed over the week has got lower and is now at 3136 KBPS my downspeed line attenuation is 49.0db and my noise margin is 14.9. My upstream stats are line attenuation is 29.0 db and my noise margin 8.0db. I spoke to the ever helpful Simon today who said that my line was making lots of noise when i was talking to him. He told me to report this to BT which i did and they came back saying that the line is clear and no fault can be found. Where do i go from here ?

[Linc]

Consider yourself very lucky!  I am currently achieving 266Kbps and am seriously considering reverting to dial up!

[maxping]

Make sure your exchanges are not RED here - http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/

Old Bill  i once had a lot of disconnections usually when it rained, BT tried several line tests and always reported the line as fine.

It turned out to be the line from house to pole had frayed and water was entering the cable causing the disconnections.

How could the line pass several tests if it was obviously faulty?

I would take BT's line test results with a pinch of salt 

[Lance]

I have been with Idnet for a week

Have you only just upgraded to max? If so, you are still in the 10 day training period and you can expect odd speeds and disconnections. If this is not the case, prehaps another call to CS to see if they can help any more?

[Rik]

Consider yourself very lucky!  I am currently achieving 266Kbps and am seriously considering reverting to dial up!

Do you use a router or modem? What are your line stats?

It sounds to me like you are losing sync frequently and/or have then re-synched at a low speed. This will immediately push your BRAS profile down, and it will take three days to recover - assuming you hold a higher sync. Whatever you do, don't force frequent resyncs, 10 or so an hour will be seen as a line fault by BT's equipment.

Have you tried connecting at the test socket. The figures there will be the best your line is capable of. If they are significantly better than your normal connection, you may have a fault in your internal wiring, or a bad filter, or an unfiltered connection. Disconnecting the bell wire (terminal three) will often help.

However, without more information, it's difficult to give you advice, I can only speculate. Other than that, I commend you into the hands of Simon, Miriam and Adam. They will sort you out if you give them the chance.

[wolverene]

Just before swithing to IDNet , when I was on Plusnet, I had loads of trouble with no connection and conns which started but faded away in speed dropping to 2 or 3 kbps- so slow that speedtests couldnt be performed. As far as BT were concerned my line was fine so PN got me doing all their ususal tests. I even changed routers just in case and suprise suprise when I did migrate to IDNet the same problem stayed with me. The difference was that IDNet CS got on the case and within 3 days BT were on my doorstep again and found the fault - the lines coming from a junction box about 400 yds away were not showing a consistent reading and were fading as the engineer watched his meter. No noise on line tests as far as BT were concerned but obviously enough for phones to work but not BB. Moral of the story - keep telling BT you can hear crosstalk when using your phone. It doesnt take much to screw up BB. little bit of corrosion on a conn joint on the line can do it. Other than that, if you have only been on MAX for a week there is no way that the learning period is finished.

[Rik]

when I did migrate to IDNet the same problem stayed with me. The difference was that IDNet CS got on the case

And therein lays the reason why IDNetters generally are happy to recommend the company. 

[jackmalanak]

Hi old Bill sorry to see you're having problems.
There's been some good advice given here already but I think we need to rule a few things out before getting on to BT again.
First of all unplug all of your ADSL equipment Router (or Modem if you use one), Filters etc. If you have any phone extensions can you unplug these. Now all you are checking for now is noise on your phone line. When you use the phone can you or any one you are calling hear any noise on the line (crackles, hiss etc.) If so it's a BT problem so report it again but don't mention any ADSL probs this is just a problem with your phone line and it's up to them to fix it.
If there is no audible noise it's possible your internal wiring or filters or even your phones are causing problems. If you follow the advice as suggested by rikbean and plug into the test socket you might find a difference in performance.

(The BT master socket is usually a split faced socket see here http://www.austin-taylor.co.uk/pages/nte5.htm)

Remove the two screws and carefully remove the bottom section and plug into the test socket you find behind the front panel. If you do see a difference in noise margin stats then its quite likely you do have a filter or wiring problem.

Good luck
jackmalanak

[Rik]

Adding to Jack's excellent advice, to test the line, dial 17070, and opt for the quiet line test (or words to that effect).

[old Bill]

Thanks to everyone for your replys. I Spoke to Simon again today and the line was as clear as a bell. I only have a master phone socket (no test socket) and the router is plugged direct in to this. When i had problems with my old ISP, BT came out and had a look at the line. The BT tech ran some tests and some of the time the line was clear and somtimes it would throw up loads of faults. But they never seemed able to resolve it. I wonder if the line is breaking down some ware which is creating the problems.

[Rik]

It's quite possible that water is seeping in, there's corrosion on a joint etc. All you can do is ask Simon to get BT out again. It's important that it's one through the ISP as that gets you a BB trained engineer, not a voice one. He(she)'s more likely to find the fault. Talk nicely to them, feed them tea and choccy biscuits and see if they'll fit you an NTE5, the master socket with the test socket. If you're really nice to them, they might even fit you a filtered faceplate!

[old Bill]

At the moment i am on the Home ADSL Super Max package. When i spoke to Simon i asked if i could put on the enhanced care, He said he would put the care on the package (at extra cost). I will give a couple of days and then ask Simon or one of the others to contact BT again and see if the enhanced care makes any diffrence to the way the fault is delt with.

[Linc]

I don't want to 'hijack' this Post so will just say I'm resigned to slow speeds after good speeds pre ADSL Max. (and the 10 days don't apply in my case)  Hope you get sorted old Bill.

[Rik]

At the moment i am on the Home ADSL Super Max package. When i spoke to Simon i asked if i could put on the enhanced care, He said he would put the care on the package (at extra cost). I will give a couple of days and then ask Simon or one of the others to contact BT again and see if the enhanced care makes any diffrence to the way the fault is delt with.

It should do, but every ISP using BTw is stuck with what Openreach will do. I was lucky when I needed an engineer out to sort an internal wiring issue, but it seems to be down to who you get, and how interested they are in their job.

[Rik]

I don't want to 'hijack' this Post so will just say I'm resigned to slow speeds after good speeds pre ADSL Max. (and the 10 days don't apply in my case)  Hope you get sorted old Bill.

I was stuck with a 1Mbps line before Max. Now I'm on a 2500 profile, it's not lightning fast, but it's a lot better than it was.

Perhaps if you post your line stats and details of your internal wiring and equipment connected, eg number of extensions, phones etc, we can help you improve your speed.

[old Bill]

Well that was quick. I called BT as the line noise was back again and its raining. As Simon put the total care on my line they will come out at some point today, I just hope they find out whats wrong.

[Rik]

Rain and noise, now there's a coincidence. I hope BT come through for you.

[TimEdwards]

Hmm I checked that exchange checker and my exchange shows up red 

The ETA for the fix is 18th Nov 06 - wonder if this will solve anything my end, and if BT can actually keep a date.

[Nerval]

Tim, BT can't usually keep a date.  They seem to give the same fix date for a large number of exchanges, then move the date on a bit when they miss it.

All it will change is possibly to make your line less slow at busy times.  It won't affect line noise, which is the thread title, or connection problems.

[Rik]

What do you mean usually?    They keep setting dates for my exchange, but when I check it's moved again. Curious thing is, we were green for the past couple of years, then went red, like so many others, in the last month or two. I wonder what has happened to suddenly eat BT's capacity?

[old Bill]

Update
           The BT man come round a while ago. To cut a long story short he found that there was a break in the cable out side the house. Which took him 5 min to repair. Shame he was not carrying any filter plates but he did put a new master socket on the wall for me. The router is now showing a downstream rate of 3552kbps. The noise levels are still high. Is there a chance these will go down now the line has been repaired ? A very big thanks to everyone who helped me with this. Now looking forward to spending a long time with this great ISP.

[Rik]

It will take 3 days for your BRAS profile to change, provided the router holds the connection. If it doesn't change, give Miriam a buzz and she can have it prodded. You may have a target noise margin set higher than the normal 6db because of the problems you have been experiencing, so an earlier check with Miriam or Adam or Simon, whoever answers the phone, could be worthwhile.

It would be worth taking off the faceplate of the NTE5 and doing two things if possible:

1)  Plug your router in there and see if the stats improve. If they do, your internal wiring could do with some attention.

2)  See if terminal three is connected (usually orange/white). That's the ring wire, which you don't need. Disconnect it there and at any extension sockets, it will dramatically improve your noise margin (or should anyway ).

Don't touch terminals 2 & 5, they are the exchange pair.

[VaderDSL]

Rain and noise, now there's a coincidence. I hope BT come through for you.

Took BT 2 and a half years to fix noise on my parent's line, in the end something quite drastic was wrong with the local small box, lots of lines had been degraded, corroded due to atmosphere getting into a junction box, or something to that effect, can't remember the terminology BT used.

[Rik]

I know what you mean though. Possibly high-resistance joints? Broadly, if the joint isn't sealed to the atmosphere, it will degrade and while this may not show on the voice side, it can play havoc with ADSL. OTOH, it's possible to have one wire in the pair with a break in it and ADSL will carry on while the voice side is dead. Strange stuff this comms lark.

[Nerval]

Update
           . The noise levels are still high. Is there a chance these will go down now the line has been repaired ?

Noise on the line doesn't usually go away of its own accord.  It indicates a problem somewhere, probably with another of the connections between your house and the exchange.  If you can still hear noise on your line, BT will need to fix it for it to go away. Sounds like they need to come back and try again.

[Rik]

Noise on the line doesn't usually go away of its own accord.

I took that to be noise margin on the router, but if it's audible noise you are, of course, right.

[Nerval]

Nice to know.  Thanks.

[Rik]

Nice to know.  Thanks.

What, that you're right?   

[old Bill]

Noise on the router. 

[Rik]

Ah, one up to me then. 

Have you spoken to Simon or one of his team?