This topic

Area fault not showing on status page

JoeCool — Sat, 03 Oct 2020 13:00:12 GMT

My broadband dropped last night (just before 9pm). I couldn't find a way to report the fault. Online wouldn't let me as there is already an unresolved intermittent fault on my line and to report another one I had to phone up. But lines were closed.

This morning I noticed the automated text line so I tried that. Initially it said there was an area fault. Great, I thought, so I went back to sleep. It wasn't showing on the fault status page in the area section though, and a few hours later I got another text to say the bot couldn't find a fault and it was probably my end. So I requested a call back.

That eventually happened, while on another phone I had broken the 1hr mark being in the support queue. Anyway, they confirmed an area fault. Great.

Except it still isn't being shown on the status page. What's up with that? Is BT making the mistake of having multiple systems that don't talk to each other? It doesn't give me a lot of confidence that it's actually being worked on.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Re: Area fault not showing on status page

JoeCool — Sat, 03 Oct 2020 16:33:30 GMT

The guy on the phone described it as a major service outage so it's weird that nothing is showing up on the status page.

I'm concerned that it isn't being worked on so I've asked the bot for someone to call me. Don't know what else to do.

Re: Area fault not showing on status page

JoeCool — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 16:35:55 GMT

Well it's a mess... and still not sorted.

It appears to be mostly impossible to phone BT (over an hour waiting each time, and I've always had a callback before someone answered), but texting ADVISOR to the bot does work, albeit with random wait times.

First person I spoke to today (after about 41hrs of internet downtime due to a MSO), assured me things were fine but then put me on hold to investigate further. After about 10mins they hung up and I got an email thanking me that I'd closed my fault report. What was that about?

I finally got to speak to someone else who was pretty good. It appears engineers have started on the problem (but no start date/time and no other evidence to suggest they have). There was a problem BT's side that the report hadn't been pushed far enough and was in some holding pattern. Also, I wasn't getting updates because I didn't have a mobile listed on the account - even though the team from this forum who are handling my long term fault do phone me up on my mobile.

So it looks like BT and OpenReach have multiple systems that don't talk well to each other. The area fault is still not listing on the faults page which apparently can be because only a few of openreach's customers are affected (I think it more likely that the system just isn't working well at all). The fault is nearly 48 hours old and no updates have been given. I still have a big feeling that no one has started working on it.

Oh, and I asked why these faults aren't automatically detected. That got a bit of a shoulder shrug. It appears comms firms can do deep packet analysis of customer internet traffic but they can't spot when an entire area has a prolonged period of zero internet traffic. Kinda dark ages really.

I'm venting but this is a complete mess. And who knows when it'll be fixed?

Re: Area fault not showing on status page

Keith_Beddoe — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 16:48:18 GMT

@JoeCool

As you have posted on the ADSL board, I assume you just have standard broadband?

That comes from the exchange, so if you have dial tone on your phone, then there is a good chance its a fault on the MSAN in the exchange. This can be caused by a loss of connectivity on the 21cn network, but its quite rare, as there are multiple paths configured.

If you do not have dial tone, then its a fault on your copper pair, back to the exchange, which could be a cut cable, or simply a fault which is only affecting you.

Re: Area fault not showing on status page

JoeCool — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 17:04:28 GMT

@Keith_Beddoe yes, non-fibre broadband.

Phone is fine. Its actually been better than normal (noise has been part of the long running fault but this is quite a different situation).

BT are saying its an area fault/MSO. But there's no other info available.

Re: Area fault not showing on status page

JoeCool — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 17:19:22 GMT

Back working. Phew

Re: Area fault not showing on status page

Keith_Beddoe — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 17:29:57 GMT

@JoeCool wrote:

Back working. Phew

In that case it must have been a MSO on the 21cn network, probably a faulty fibre on the SDH network.

Explanation for clarity MSO= Major Service Outage. SDH=Synchronous Digital Hierarchy. 21cn=21st Century Network.

MSAN=Multi Service Access Node.