Landline repair costs

[Slowroad]

Our phone has been on and off for weeks and now seems to have given up completely. Broadband still works though seems slow and shuts down occasionally for a few minutes. We've tried three different handsets and taken off the master socket front to try the test socket and nothing changes. I've also changed the splitter. Finally got through to our supplier today (that is another story!) and went through all this, they tested the line and said the problem seemed to be 'in the loop'. I think that this means that it is our problem. They will be calling to arrange to send an engineer to check their line but I gather that if it isn't their line we will be charged £140. Our master socket is not on the outside wall of our house, there is a rather old cable which leads round the bottom of the stairs to a small oval box, then out through the wall. My question is: where really do we stand - if this old cable is the problem, how much is it our responsibility? I can see no damage on it.
Anybody else been in this situation?
Cheers!

[Psamathe]

(Assuming you are on BT cabling) As I understand it (and I claim no expertise beyond having a major fault/argument running with BT for nearly a year), if the problem lies on the exchange side of the test socket then it is BT's problem (be that BT Wholesale or whoever) and you should not be liable for any charges (unless it's due to physical damage on your property - and I guess different types of damage would be subject to "debate" ?).

If the problem lies on your side of the test socket then it's your problem and you might be charged for the call-out (and they may not repair it).

I know BT say you should not touch the cable from their test socket (towards the exchange). However, if you damage the cable on "their side" they may charge.

I had my 9th engineer the other day and they are very "variable". Some are really determined to find the problem and work hard (accepting there is an issue, etc.) Others are a complete waste of space, turn up and you can immediately tell that they have no intention to do anything (had one that started as soon as he got out of the van with "it's like working for the keystone cops working for OpenReach" ...).

BT's line tests are pretty useless. I had the person dealing with my fault call me the other day and she had trouble talking over all the hisses and crackles (and the broadband was not working either). So she immediately said "I'll test the line now and call you back, bye". And the tests found nothing wrong in their cable or in my house circuits. She was stumped as she could hear the problem but their tests showed nothing wrong.

I thought (from what I've gathered from visiting engineers) that a loop is a short between the two cables.

OpenReach have two types of engineer and normal line engineer and a "Broadband boost" engineer who are meant to be better trained/experienced. I've found the normal line engineers far better.

My impression/experience is that the engineers can do far better testing from your house/line. Even though the remote tests they instigate have never found anything wrong (despite BT having problems talking over the line noise), the engineers have so far fixed two earths and 3 loops (replacing one section of 100 core overhead cable) and they still haven't sorted the issue.

(If you are rural) seems BT have decided to stop cutting back trees interfering with their cables to save money. However, not surprisingly these trees are now damaging their cables ...

As to your problem, depending on the handsets you have tried (old, cordless, cheapo), if you have any doubts, you can get decent corded phone for £10 everywhere (I got a BT Duet 210). If you plug a good handset into the test socket with nothing else anywhere (no filter, no ADSL, just good corded handset) and it still does not work there is not a lot more you can do. I can't say they wont charge you (e.g. physical damage their side of master socket on your property) but if you want a phone not much else I can think you can do.

Ian

[Psamathe]

Part B: Do you have dial tone or silence or background noise (hiss & crackle). If you have dial-tone try a quiet line test (dial 17070 and it will kill-off the dial tone allowing you to listen for noise).

Do the problems correspond to particular weather conditions ? In my case it started with slower and slower broadband that went very slow about 6-12hrs after heavy rain then gradually picked back up over a week of dry weather. Noise bad when it was windy.

How slow has the broadband got (and is it below their minimum guaranteed) ? Are you on fibre or copper to the exchange ?

What I find now (after the 2 earths and 3 loops have been fixed in BT's line) is that it can all work well and then suddenly ADSL drops and hisses and crackles on line. ADSL keeps re-syncing for less than a minute then drops out again - and this can go on for hours sometimes, sometimes just one drop-out and goes good again. Watching the noise margin, I can see the ADSL interference is due to upstream interference as the upstream noise margin goes through the roof (and upstream runs on a lower frequency that upstream).

Ian

[Slowroad]

Cheers Psamathe, that's really useful. We did go out and buy a new phone just to be sure, plugged it in the test socket as per the BT website instructions. We've had a very crackly line, we've had a crackly sound with no dial tone, now we've nowt.
You lost me rather on your second post but your help is appreciated. We'll have to hope for a helpful engineer!
Cheers!

[RRSODL]

(Assuming you are on BT cabling) As I understand it (and I claim no expertise beyond having a major fault/argument running with BT for nearly a year), if the problem lies on the exchange side of the test socket then it is BT's problem (be that BT Wholesale or whoever) and you should not be liable for any charges (unless it's due to physical damage on your property - and I guess different types of damage would be subject to "debate" ?).

If the problem lies on your side of the test socket then it's your problem and you might be charged for the call-out (and they may not repair it).

I know BT say you should not touch the cable from their test socket (towards the exchange). However, if you damage the cable on "their side" they may charge.

I had my 9th engineer the other day and they are very "variable". Some are really determined to find the problem and work hard (accepting there is an issue, etc.) Others are a complete waste of space, turn up and you can immediately tell that they have no intention to do anything (had one that started as soon as he got out of the van with "it's like working for the keystone cops working for OpenReach" ...).

BT's line tests are pretty useless. I had the person dealing with my fault call me the other day and she had trouble talking over all the hisses and crackles (and the broadband was not working either). So she immediately said "I'll test the line now and call you back, bye". And the tests found nothing wrong in their cable or in my house circuits. She was stumped as she could hear the problem but their tests showed nothing wrong.

I thought (from what I've gathered from visiting engineers) that a loop is a short between the two cables.

OpenReach have two types of engineer and normal line engineer and a "Broadband boost" engineer who are meant to be better trained/experienced. I've found the normal line engineers far better.

My impression/experience is that the engineers can do far better testing from your house/line. Even though the remote tests they instigate have never found anything wrong (despite BT having problems talking over the line noise), the engineers have so far fixed two earths and 3 loops (replacing one section of 100 core overhead cable) and they still haven't sorted the issue.

(If you are rural) seems BT have decided to stop cutting back trees interfering with their cables to save money. However, not surprisingly these trees are now damaging their cables ...

As to your problem, depending on the handsets you have tried (old, cordless, cheapo), if you have any doubts, you can get decent corded phone for £10 everywhere (I got a BT Duet 210). If you plug a good handset into the test socket with nothing else anywhere (no filter, no ADSL, just good corded handset) and it still does not work there is not a lot more you can do. I can't say they wont charge you (e.g. physical damage their side of master socket on your property) but if you want a phone not much else I can think you can do.

Ian

I have had the same feeling with BT engineers - some, from the moment they arrived I could tell they wouldn't do anything about it.

My telephone service is with BT and Broadband is with Sky. A few years ago I got a call from a BT engineer telling me that a fault had been detected and asked to do a few tests. He explained that he could arrange a visit but there would be a charge if the problem was in the property. I said I haven't noticed any problem with the phone line nor with the Broadband. He showed me a little trick to clear the alert flag on their system so I wouldn't get another call. Forward a few years and I started having problems with the Broadband. Sky test found a Loop fault so I got a BT engineer who came and left in 8 minutes saying I should get a BT router. The problem got worse so Sky arranged a BT engineer this time.... two guys turned up and one was training the other. They found a problem but they were reluctant to find the source so they disabled everything they could, I was left with the master socket and one more telephone point. Then the phone line failed and after so much testing I figured the problem was the master socket and I managed to persuade Sky to fit a new master socket...... they did and everything is good now But if I got a good ex BT engineer to start with I would have paid £30 to solve the problem right away.

I wanted to move my Broadband to BT but their engineers are useless in my experience.

[beardy]

A quick caution in case you have not already considered this. The microfilters for the computer can mess up the phone and damp seems to contribute to it. So try disconnecting them and giving the phone a go before calling in any engineers.
The microfilter on one of my phones had corroded and caused the phone to disconnect calls without upsetting the computer.

[bogmyrtle]

I had exactly the same problem. It took three months for BT to identify that the cable from the box to the house was corroded.
Unplug everything then plug one phone you know works into the main phone socket. If you know the socket is ok and the problem is still there then there is something wrong pre socket. The first BT engineer that came out to me looked at an extension cable I had rigged up in the house. He asked me who put it in and when I said it was me he announced that was the problem. He didn't test or look at anything else and BT did their best to charge me for the privilege of this professional assessment.
BT customer service is appalling.

[Slowroad]

Hi Beardy, yes, I've changed the microfilter, I had referred to it as a splitter, which is a different thing. We have a splitter too, but it can't be that as we've tried two different phones in the test socket.
Cheers!

[Psamathe]

...I wanted to move my Broadband to BT but their engineers are useless in my experience.

I thought that, depending on where you live, if you (as many are) on BT cable then you will get BT engineers regardless as to who your contract is with. My understanding is that for BT cabling, the network is owned by BT Wholesale (a company who will not deal with retail customers). Us retail customers then buy our phone/broadband from a retail organisation (e.g. Talk Talk, BT (retail company), Plus Net, etc) who pay BT Wholesale for the line (how much they pay depends on where you are and what gear they have in your exchange). BT Wholesale have subcontracted the engineering of their network to BT OpenReach. So if your line is owned by BT, then you will get an OpenReach engineer whoever you buy your service from.

Of course some areas have other cable providers who own their own network (primarily Virgin). However, such companies tend to operate in high population areas where they can get a lot of customers in a smaller area (so cheaper cabling).

BT has strict rules about who can talk to who within BT - to ensure that BT Retail do not get preferential treatment when it comes to services, etc. So BT Retail have the same access as Talk Talk, Plus Net, etc. to engineering, etc.

One time I happened to have an engineer (BT OpenReach) here when my Case Manager (BT Retail) called to see what was happening ... and I said "don't talk to me and get my interpretation, here's the engineer" and as I passed the phone across the BT Retail Case Manager was shoutig "No, No, No" and the engineer (BT OpenReach) was holding up his hands walking backwards. Because they are not allowed to have direct contact (the rules - which I forced to be broken and it was very useful for them both).

So, if the cable to your house is a BT cable and no other cable owners can supply you (installing their own cabling) they you are stuck with BT Engineers.

That said, BT call centres are your worst nightmare and they alone can provide strong motivation to go with an alternative supplier.

(Above is my understanding of the situation - others might know better).

Ian

[RickH]

I am not an expert but, in discussion with others on a broadband forum I occasionally frequent when we had similar, no (or intermittent) dialtone with lots of noise but broadband still working slowly indicates that one of the 2 wires that make up your "pair" has broken (I've forgotten the technical name for it ). The phone line needs both wires for voice but ADSL will work, after a fashion, with just 1 wire. An incoming call can sometimes make a temporary fix as the 48V(?) ring tone sparks & partially welds the cable back together.

The usual recommended advice is to check with a corded phone in the test socket (the one behind the front plate of your main socket) and then, if the fault is still present, report a voice fault to whoever you pay your phone line rental to and not mention broadband (even if they are the same company) until the voice side is fixed (& if the broadband is still a problem). If possible phone from a mobile or another landline while there is nothing connected to the test socket so any fault cannot be on your side of the circuit (we did have a fault once where it was a break in the wire inside the back of the master socket - still fixed for free! )

Once fixed, it could take a few days for broadband to get back to normal speeds as automated systems gradually stop trying to compensate for the poor line conditions.

Rick.

[Flinders]

Services seem to vary.
A mate of mine is not with BT. Her line regularly goes down, and sometimes it's not working properly for weeks, she gets all sorts of tales like 'we came and you were out' (untrue). It always happens when a neighbour has had work done at the cabinet.

When our line went I thought 'oh no' as we're not far away from where she lives. Reported it just before the weekend, they came out Monday exactly when they said they would, and the engineer fixed it then and there. We're with BT, oddly enough.

What happened with our was we had started to get a very noisy phone line (crackling). It hadn't been good for a while, in fact, thinking back, but when things get worse gradually you don't notice it much. Our broadband speeds had been dropping, but we'd put that down to increased local demand (no fibre here yet )
First the router kept dropping out. Then the phone line stopped working altogether but the router continued to work fine.
We unplugged everything, router, network, the lot, and tested the phone alone direct to the incoming box. Also made other checks I won't go into here. (That's living with engineers for you.) We felt pretty certain it wasn't our side of things. It came and went a bit as we waited for the engineer, but we didn't cancel the call out as it didn't stay good for long.
He came, tested it, put new cabling to the pole, new box inside, and switched us to new connections at the cabinet. Then tested it thoroughly. Now it's as clear as a bell. No charge. I was very impressed.

We're in Staffs. My parents up in Lancs (also BT customers) had a right old time getting exactly the same fault fixed, even though they are recorded as elderly- I had to ring BT and read the riot act to them to get them to sort it out, took weeks. First engineer did a gash job and never checked it, second one when he finally came did a proper job and was scathing about his predecessor.

It seems very variable.

[Flinders]

I had exactly the same problem. It took three months for BT to identify that the cable from the box to the house was corroded.
Unplug everything then plug one phone you know works into the main phone socket. If you know the socket is ok and the problem is still there then there is something wrong pre socket. The first BT engineer that came out to me looked at an extension cable I had rigged up in the house. He asked me who put it in and when I said it was me he announced that was the problem. He didn't test or look at anything else and BT did their best to charge me for the privilege of this professional assessment.
BT customer service is appalling.

I'd test the line with nothing but the phone connected and only connected direct to the box with no extension, and if it doesn't work then, it's not the other stuff that isn't connected (and so I wouldn't mention the other stuff). Probably a good idea not to leave any cables hanging about when they come either. What the eye doesn't see, the lazy engineer can't blame for the fault.

However, in this house, had a BT engineer tried that excuse, he'd have had two irate graduate engineers to deal with, one computing, one electrical...........wouldn't have been pretty.

[dodger]

We had exactly the same problem, although, finally, nothing worked.
The engineer found a length of line had been badly worn by branches on a tree nearby. He said that BT do no maintenance and simply carry out repairs when they have to. He also said that, if the trees had been on my land, I would be liable for the repair cost.