This topic

ADSL Line Unreliability

acm_zzz — Sun, 10 May 2020 10:55:59 GMT

Hi,

I'm at my wits end - I've spent almost 18 months struggling with ADSL link reliability and after a recent period of reliability ADSL link drops have returned with a vengeance that reconnect at variable link speeds.

Overnight, for example, after I had restored the ADSL connection yesterday afternoon with a reasonable speed I found this morning that the link had been dropped 3 times and had reconnected with a speed of around 3.4Mbps. I can see from my router logs (Draytek not BT hub) that the connection had been reset remotely and not by the router.

I had numerous visits from engineers last summer who all diagnosed different things until the last engineer visit in September found a load of corroded connections in a BT manhole. After replacing all of the crimps in there the line reliability was better, but still not perfect suffering from unexpected ADSL link drops.

That however, wasn't the outcome that was needed - despite logging the fault as 'broadband' the engineer was invariably sent out for voice problems, and then told me that because of that they can't investigate broadband problems.

I have tried many times to log a fault, I have run all of the troubleshooting steps all of which do not show any problems, but still the ADSL link drops regularly.

FWIW I have a second line to the house with Sky broadband and that is as solid as a rock - that is until the Openreach engineers turn up and snip out all the crimps without first informing me what they are doing, then refuse to reconnect the Sky connection, because they were called out to a BT problem...

I understand the COVID-19 situation is impacting response times, but still it seems like I need to wait for hours to get to the same set of troubleshooting questions, which I am somewhat familiar with, that proves nothing.

How do I get a expert broadband engineer to investigate the link reliability problems - from DSLAM to my home and not just try to clear off within minutes of arriving?

Andy

Re: ADSL Line Unreliability

acm_zzz — Sun, 10 May 2020 19:38:04 GMT

hmmph - and within 3 hours of this post my line has dropped twice leaving me with 800kbps and having to spend time to reconnect manually in order to get back to a decent ADSL link speed.

Seems like a never ending quarterly increase in price is not rewarded with reliability - after over 35 years a BT customer this is a good example of the worst type of customer service.

Andy

Re: ADSL Line Unreliability

imjolly — Sun, 10 May 2020 20:03:12 GMT

If you do quiet line test is there any noise. Dial 17070 option 2 should be silent and best with corded phone preferably from test socket

your description of the previous problems and constant drops in connection suggest it Is still a line fault not a broadband fault and needs phone engineer not broadband

Re: ADSL Line Unreliability

acm_zzz — Mon, 11 May 2020 08:34:36 GMT

As I've said - I have repeatedly done all of the standard troubleshooting checks, but just for laughs I just carried out the quiet line test a number of times with a corded phone connected to the test socket for a few minutes each. No noise, no fizzes, no crackles...

I suppose I'll get the comment that "it's SHINE" next?