Thanks cunningham, will give that a try. When you say box I assume you mean where the phone line enters the house. Cheers

Yeah, I'm not very techy, sorry. The box the phone plugs into. The last port of call before BT say it's not ours so you have to pay stupid money now as it's not our problem.

Here a few comments. If the problem was caused by the connection to the Master Socket or the Master Socket itself Openreach will fix it for free. (In my opinion, it is unwise to believe much that Call Centres employees say.)

If it was your extensions causing the problem (less likely) then faults such as you described are nearly always caused by connections. Just remaking them would have fixed it. You are allowed to touch them.

Finally, the Master Socket is the Demarcation Point between your Internal Wiring and BT's wiring. Had you screwed up fitting a new one you would have got a big bill. (You still may if you have done it wrong or fitted the wrong type of Socket and it causes problems in the future.)

See my post about Master Sockets.

Thanks B2. No I haven't changed the phone socket as it would mean messing with the wiring. I've obviously got a different box to cunningham. Have tried cleaning all the ends etc, but no change. Looks like I'll have to get on to BT again and get an engineer out. Its definitely not my end of things. What p----s me off is if people up and down the country are having similar problems doesn't someone in BT think it may be something we are c-----g up and look into it. In a nutshell- provide a proper service.

How do Ilocate that B2?

Bummer I'm sorry that my idea didn't work.

You're box must be really old if you need to mess around with wires. Mine was just take the cover off anf replace the cover as everything is part of the moulding on that.

Have you got it sorted now?

I reported a hissing, crackling & modem tone on my landline. The broadband light turned orange each time I used the phone.The person at the other end couldnt hear it though. Ran through all the checks, I got a new phone and changed the ADSL filter. BT engineer said it was my home hub causing interference and I should order a replacement. The Call Centre ran through all the checks again. I kept saying that the engineer said it was the hub. She then said there would be a further charge of £87 because my warranty had ran out (already charged £127 by the engineer) or would I like to extend my contract with BT?
I connected my old BT Voyager, picked up the phone and was greeted by ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
I fixed the problem myself -with a Valium!

Hi Missy_uk,

I would like to take a look at this for you. Please could you email btcare@bt.com with your BT account details, along with a link to this thread? I will investigate this and reply to you directly.

Cheers

Paddy,

Hi Paddy, A 2nd Openreach engineer did a line test, checked the wiring, filters & home hub. He checked the line running from the roof down to the services room & found water dripping into the shaft from the roof. He replaced the line. My Broadband has only been running at 5.86 mb/s since. I've been told by the broadband team to wait 24 hours. They'll call be again to confirm things are now OK.

No they never do find a fault.
My phone line has been horrendous since we moved in .....and thats 1992
Ive heard every excuse in the book from them....weather...rats...squirrels....modulators in the junction boxes?????...erm hello
As soon as you call them to complain about a fault they more or less say to you straight away " are you on the internet"....yes.
Do you have other things connected to the phone line?
Yes my computer and my sky box.
Have you checked your connection to your sky box?
erm yes.
Do you have extensions?
Yes.....fitted by a BT engineer
Ok ...we'll come out..
OK
We'll be out tomorrow.
Ring Ring from BT next day......we cant get into the allotments next to your house....You will need to go to your local council and get a key for the allotments so we can fix your fault.
Me ringing BT next day to be annoyed that they want me to do that.....getting a foreign call centre that dont know what an allotment is....
And so it goes on...
Its a never ending loop of explaining when you have something going wrong with your BT landline.

A few years ago we had the same problem. Only happened when it rained. The phone was affected but not our broadband.
Three times the same BT engineer came, but could find no fault.
The 4th time it was a different engineer.He checked the cable & found a split in the cable by our front door.This was where rainwater got inside the wiring & caused the problem.
This BT engineer even rewired our phone indoors, so the box was next to our computer. All at no charge. Brilliant
In our case it was much to do with the engineer not doing a proper job on the 1st three visits

I've just started to get this hissing a crackling again today, the strange thing was I had it last year in August also for 2 weeks which knocked out my internet connection.

So I called Sky and they said again a Openreach person would come out to check but this time if they hear no hissing and cracking (went away when he came last year) they will charge me for sure what should I do?

yes the standard call out charge for openreach engineer is 125, so make sure its not your phone or anything else at fault.

try the quiet line test 17070 option 2 when an a corded phone is connected to the test socket (test socket is the socket behind the front plate when you take the front of the socket off).

if there is any noise on the quiet line test then the line has a fault.

Now this is very strange. If I turn off the o2 wireless router the hissing and cracking goes away so I thought its the routers fault. I've already changed the adsl filters 3x now, and connected another wireless router from a friend on the street and it has crackling to on my line (none on his line).

If the openreach person comes out he will say the line is fine since it only makes noises when the router is on, had o2 for a year now without a problem what should I do?

contact 02 and tell them the noise happens when the broadband is connected. and they should do a line test while your on the phone.

when the router is connected does the connection drop a lot when the noise is heard ?

i had a problem recently where my broadband interfered with the telephone so you could hear the noise on the telephone like the old 56k modem days.

yes wod1

it does drop now and then when the phone is not in use to, but usually when you pick up the phone the internet will drop and take a long time to reconnect backup. When on the phone I can hear all the hissing and crackling if I turn off the router it stops straight away, Then if I turn it on after the internet light starts to flashing it comes back.

you have a problem there if the internet disconnects when the phone is picked up.

i would report it to 02 and see what they say about it.

i take it you have changed the obivous filters etc so it cant be those as the issue.

sounds similar to the issue i had, my internet would drop when the phone rang and you could here noise and the sound of like a fax machine on the line.

this was the broadband interfering with the telephone voice calls.

02 can send out what they call a Special fault engineer which can resolve the issue but they will need to make sure its a line fault as they your internet provider will be charged by openreach for the call out.

Thanks for the help wod1, I'll get in contact with o2 then.

I've got similar problems with my line, and after investigating the problem, I tried plugging my phone into the test socket to find that I got nothing!! I took the front panel off the master socket to find that it hasn't even been wired in.

In addition I found that the short cable between the master socket and the terminal block must be loose because if I touch it, the hissing gets worse, goes away or I lose the phone connection altogether.

Having believed that all the boxes and wiring upto the master socket is BT (or telephone provider) resposibility and illegal for me to tamper with, I called Sky Talk techincal support last night to report the fault.

They ran me throught the usual tests (i.e. unplug ALL devices from sockets incl. filters, plug phone into master & test socket) and then ran line tests (which were okay).

He said he'd have to report it to BT who would charge me as the fault is inside my property. I pointed out that the master socket hasn't been wired properly and that there seems to be a loose wire to the terminal block, and also that I was under the impression that was BT/Sky's responsibility.

He said that's not the case, so I told him I'd fix it myself then which he agreed with (or at least get someone from the phone book) as it will be much cheaper than getting a BT engineer out!

It beggers belief!!

PS. As a result of the problems, my BB has been a nightmare dropping out constantly and barely getting above half meg download speed on Sky's BB Max service!

BT are responsible for the line upto and including the master socket, but damage to the line on your property not deemed to be fair wear and tear can be charged for even if its BT's side of the master socket.
If your master socket is a NTE5 type master socket its easy to disconnect any customer owned wiring & sockets by unscrewing the bottom section of the socket and exposing the test socket inside...if fitted, its in your own interest to try with a known working corded phone in this test socket.
The 'grey' area is if your master socket pre dates the NTE5 as these dont have the test socket, but you are expected to unplug everything that you can, and again with a known working phone try in the master socket, but unlike the NTE5 there could still be a problem on any extension wiring/sockets and if the fault is on this even if BT fitted the wiring and sockets more that 1 year before) you could still be charged....
Typical senario is hard wired extension in the bedroom, new carpet fitted, extension cable goes over a gripper rod, and over time the gripper damages the cable, and puts a fault on....you may not like it ,but is that BT's fault ? and if it isnt why would they come out for free ?
Look in your phone book, in the first couple of pages there is a guide on how to localise a fault to inside (your problem) or outside (BT/Openreach's problem)

Hi all,

I am wondering if you could help with a similar problem on my line. My ISP is BeUnlinited and for the last 3 weeks we have started to have a lot of problems with high atinuation and noise on the line. This is the sequance of events and I am having problems getting to the bottom of this.

To complicate things our telephone rental is with TalkTalk (yes i know but they were cheaper than BT).

1) Logged a call with ISP, tested the line and asked me to remove everything off the line.
2) All we have is a drop box, junction spur, master socket and 1 further extenision, which Sky hangs off.
3) Tried the test socket and had the same problem.
4) Called TalkTalk and line test was ok.
5) BT Openreach have been out and said the wiring in the spur junction box had a problem, tidyed it up and now installed a new NT5 faceplate.
6) He made up an ADSL extension kit and advised we plug the router into this and then into the adsl port of the NTE.
7) The NTE has 3 wires 2,3,5 into it which I asume is the extension.
8) We still had an issue as we were only connecting at 6mbps, which compared to 3 -4 weeks ago was 12mbps.
9) Plugged into the new test socket and connected at 14mbps. So i believe the issue is the extension - however should i need the bell wire connected? Is it work installing an iPlate?
10) I then found if i plugged the router directly into the ADSL socket of the new NTE5 this also connected at 12mbps - thinking I did not need the new ADSL extnsion kit he made up.

My stats are now below, connecting is fine but my download speeds are still useless at 2mbps - does anyone have any ideas..

xDSL linestate up (ITU-T G.992.5;
downstream: 14389 kbit/s,
upstream: 1295 kbit/s;
output Power Down: 19.0 dBm,
Up: 12.0 dBm;
line Attenuation Down: 30.0 dB,
Up: 17.0 dB;
snr Margin Down: 6.0 dB, Up: 6.5 dB)
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,287 / 14,163
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 18.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 17.0 / 30.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.5 / 6.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 36 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 3 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 3 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 174,552 / 0

thanks

keith

I had this exact problem and replacing the cable from the pole was the solution.

Oh for the good old days of the GPO! They supplied the equipment and all repairs were included in the price.

Obviously you never had to deal with them professionally. They were quite appalling bad - as was the supplied equipment. In my office, the British Telecommunications Act was a source of great rejoicing.