Not quite DIY, I know, but I think there are some folks here who know
a bit about telecomms but won't baffle me with excess technical jargon
(please!).

Being out in the country at the end of the line from the exchange, my
broadband connection is not one of the best. It is not at all unusual
for it to drop out, although it has improved a lot lately - I
sometimes get whole days when it hasn't failed! What I have discovered
is that if I call the status line, before the recorded message is
complete the broadband connection comes live again. Since I found that
this works, it has worked every time. Is this a peculiarity of my
line, or is it something in BT's system?

Curious,

--
Regards, VivienB

Please respond to group.
Mail to newsgroups address is deleted.

"VivienB" wrote in message
...
Not quite DIY, I know, but I think there are some folks here who know
a bit about telecomms but won't baffle me with excess technical jargon
(please!).

Being out in the country at the end of the line from the exchange, my
broadband connection is not one of the best. It is not at all unusual
for it to drop out, although it has improved a lot lately - I
sometimes get whole days when it hasn't failed! What I have discovered
is that if I call the status line, before the recorded message is
complete the broadband connection comes live again. Since I found that
this works, it has worked every time. Is this a peculiarity of my
line, or is it something in BT's system?

Curious,

--
Regards, VivienB

Please respond to group.
Mail to newsgroups address is deleted.


A common cause of this is a HR ( High Resistance ) fault on your line.

The extra current on the line whilst the phone is in use is enough to 'punch
through' the HR fault, and the ADSL signal comes back on.

You'd need to determine if the fault is within your house wiring, or on BT's
side.
To do this, you'd need to plug the modem or router directly into the test
jack in behind the removable faceplate of the NTE5 master socket. Then see
if the line is still dropping.

If the flakey connection is still present, then the fault is in BT's wiring.
The only fix in this case is to call your ISP and have then raise a fault
with BT.
Some ISPs are better at this than others...

( uk.telecom.broadband is a good group for these queries. )

--
Ron

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Ron Lowe wrote:

"VivienB" wrote in message
...
Not quite DIY, I know, but I think there are some folks here who know
a bit about telecomms but won't baffle me with excess technical
jargon (please!).

Being out in the country at the end of the line from the exchange, my
broadband connection is not one of the best. It is not at all unusual
for it to drop out, although it has improved a lot lately - I
sometimes get whole days when it hasn't failed! What I have
discovered is that if I call the status line, before the recorded
message is complete the broadband connection comes live again. Since
I found that this works, it has worked every time. Is this a
peculiarity of my line, or is it something in BT's system?

Curious,

--
Regards, VivienB

Please respond to group.
Mail to newsgroups address is deleted.


A common cause of this is a HR ( High Resistance ) fault on your line.


Agreed. If this is the problem, the fault will clear by ringing *any*
number - not just the status line. Does it?
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:49:40 +0100, "Ron Lowe"
wrote:

The extra current on the line whilst the phone is in use is enough to 'punch
through' the HR fault, and the ADSL signal comes back on.

You'd need to determine if the fault is within your house wiring, or on BT's
side.
To do this, you'd need to plug the modem or router directly into the test
jack in behind the removable faceplate of the NTE5 master socket. Then see
if the line is still dropping.

If the flakey connection is still present, then the fault is in BT's wiring.

Thank you for the explanation. The router is plugged into the master
socket, I shall try the test jack when I can raise the round tuit to
grovel under the table!

I have been convinced for some time that BT's wiring is not very good,
but every time I complain of noise on the line they have told me they
can't find a fault.

Regards, VivienB

vbmessages-misc AT yahoo DOT com

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:06:00 +0100, "Roger Mills"
wrote:

A common cause of this is a HR ( High Resistance ) fault on your line.


Agreed. If this is the problem, the fault will clear by ringing *any*
number - not just the status line. Does it?

Don't know. I'll try it next time. Thank you for the suggestion.

Regards, VivienB

vbmessages-misc AT yahoo DOT com
--
Regards, VivienB

Please respond to group.
Mail to newsgroups address is deleted.

" A common cause of this is a HR ( High Resistance ) fault on your line.


Agreed. If this is the problem, the fault will clear by ringing *any*
number - not just the status line. Does it?
--
Cheers,
Roger
______

Or even just looping the line and getting dial tone?
Regards,
Eddie

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:34:31 +0100, VivienB wrote:

I have been convinced for some time that BT's wiring is not very good,
but every time I complain of noise on the line they have told me they
can't find a fault.

Ah that one. Next time you get a noise fault, report it and get a fault
report number. If it goes away and comes back report it again, if they
haven't been out to fix the first one yet you probably won't get another
fault report number but you should be able to get a note added to it.
Keep reporting...

Also try and report it when the noise is present and make sure that the
person recording the fault notes that they have heard line noise and
maybe even what it sounded like, crackles, hiss, whistles, hum etc.

With the noise present they ought to be able to run a line test and get a
rough indication of the distance from the exchange the fault is. These
intermittent faults can be a beggar to find so you'll need a bit of
perserverance but a gert long list of fault reports (resolved or NFF) can
get things moved up a gear.

Treat the engineer with kindness when he comes, tell him (if you keep
getting different ones) that it's an recuring and intermittent fault and
that your BB is bad as well. Note he's really there to fix the voice side
but if he knows there is BB as well he migt pay a bit more attention to
all the joints. Offer chocolate biscuits tea/coffee. If you get the
engineer on your side they'll normally pull out the stops to fix things.
I suspect when you get the noise problems on voice calls sorted out your
broadband will come good and may well be better than it was (if on Max).

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 21:26:07 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

These
intermittent faults can be a beggar to find so you'll need a bit of
perserverance but a gert long list of fault reports (resolved or NFF) can
get things moved up a gear.

Hmm - when I worked for the GPO (long before BT existed) there was
"RWT" (Right When Tested), or "FNF" (Fault Not Found) which meant that
the GPO had diagnosed a fault but it cleared by magic (!) whilst
working on it - sometimes known as "DWL" (Disappeared Whilst
Localising).

"NFF" must be a new one - presumably similar to RWT.

--
Frank Erskine

"NFF" must be a new one - presumably similar to RWT.

Or SNAFU even!

Frank Erskine wrote in
:


"NFF" must be a new one - presumably similar to RWT.


No Fault Found - ie finger trouble by ops.

Not new to us at the Beeb; used it since Pontius were a pilot

mike

On 23 Aug 2006 22:08:16 GMT, mike wrote:

"NFF" must be a new one - presumably similar to RWT.

No Fault Found - ie finger trouble by ops.

Or such an obscure or intermittent fault the menders couldn't find it.

Not new to us at the Beeb; used it since Pontius were a pilot

Perzackerly. I applied to the BBC and the PO, the PO don't know how lucky
they were... B-)

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:34:31 +0100, VivienB wrote:

I have been convinced for some time that BT's wiring is not very
good, but every time I complain of noise on the line they have told
me they can't find a fault.

Ah that one. Next time you get a noise fault, report it and get a
fault report number. If it goes away and comes back report it again,
if they haven't been out to fix the first one yet you probably won't
get another fault report number but you should be able to get a note
added to it. Keep reporting...

Also try and report it when the noise is present and make sure that
the person recording the fault notes that they have heard line noise
and maybe even what it sounded like, crackles, hiss, whistles, hum
etc.

With the noise present they ought to be able to run a line test and
get a rough indication of the distance from the exchange the fault is.
These intermittent faults can be a beggar to find so you'll need a bit
of perserverance but a gert long list of fault reports (resolved or
NFF) can get things moved up a gear.

Treat the engineer with kindness when he comes, tell him (if you keep
getting different ones) that it's an recuring and intermittent fault
and that your BB is bad as well. Note he's really there to fix the
voice side but if he knows there is BB as well he migt pay a bit more
attention to all the joints. Offer chocolate biscuits tea/coffee. If
you get the engineer on your side they'll normally pull out the stops
to fix things. I suspect when you get the noise problems on voice
calls sorted out your broadband will come good and may well be better
than it was (if on Max).


Could the problem be a consequence of all that hot dry weather we've had
in the south followed recently by rain and humidiy? In my case it does
seem that the few occasions when broadband fails follows a short heavy
downpour. As it hasn't caused me any real problem I haven't thought
about it. Next time I'll try the phone idea and see it that has an
effect.

I fully agree with your last paragraph Dave. It's never a mistake to
treat people kindly.

Edgar

On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 06:43:03 +0100, Edgar Iredale
wrote:

Could the problem be a consequence of all that hot dry weather we've had
in the south followed recently by rain and humidiy? In my case it does
seem that the few occasions when broadband fails follows a short heavy
downpour.

I cannot relate problems with my line to the weather - it has not been
reliably available full-time at any time since I got it in early June
this year. In the last few weeks, it has been better than it was
before.

Earlier today when it dropped out, I just lifted the phone (did not
dial) and it came on when the 'please hang up' message started. Is
that what you mean by 'looping the line'?

--
Regards, VivienB

Please respond to group.
Mail to newsgroups address is deleted.

mike wrote:
Frank Erskine wrote in
:

"NFF" must be a new one - presumably similar to RWT.


No Fault Found - ie finger trouble by ops.

Not new to us at the Beeb; used it since Pontius were a pilot


'It's all right leaving me'.

People know about 'finger trouble', so within the user's
hearing it's often referred to as a 'digital problem'.

In message , Frank Erskine
writes
On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 21:26:07 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

These
intermittent faults can be a beggar to find so you'll need a bit of
perserverance but a gert long list of fault reports (resolved or NFF) can
get things moved up a gear.

Hmm - when I worked for the GPO (long before BT existed) there was
"RWT" (Right When Tested), or "FNF" (Fault Not Found) which meant that
the GPO had diagnosed a fault but it cleared by magic (!) whilst
working on it - sometimes known as "DWL" (Disappeared Whilst
Localising).

"NFF" must be a new one - presumably similar to RWT.

NFF is the abbreviation we use here

--
geoff