My BT phoneline has been down since yesterday afternoon. It has no dialing tone and when we ring it from a mobile the mobile tells us the user is busy.

Our internet, which runs from the same line and is BT Broadband is working fine.

I called BT and they said there was a fault on the line. They said it showing a 'loop' fault, whatever that is. They were most unhelpful and said they would send an engineer. However this would be £116 for call out and £99 for each hour that he stays! Clearly we won't be paying that but now we are left with no phone line.

I am reluctant to take my business away from BT as we have never had any problems with them before and I don't want to lose BT Broadband.

So does anyone have any experience with these 'loop' faults? I took away all of my adsl filters and umplugged everything - still no extension in the house would work on any of the two phones we had.

Any advice or tips to try would be appreciated.

Remove the bottom half of the master socket and plug a known good corded telephone in there.

If there's no dial tone, the fault is outside your premises (and, therefore, BT's responsibility).

If there is a dial tone, the fault is in the wiring or equipment in your premises and is your responsibility (and BT will charge you to trace the fault - but they won't necessarily fix it).

I've been reading about the master socket, and you know what - I have a feeling it's been removed. The phone we call our main phone doesn't have one of the boxes with a horizontal line across it which means we can't unplug it right?

We had another phone box in our hallway but it got removed when we decorated a couple of years ago. I now have a feeling that could have been our main box.

Edit: We have one of those boxes upstairs, I doubt that is the master socket but I undid it anyway. No dialing tone and I used both corded phones. I presume that result has to come from the master socket though?

Can you not trace the path of your phone line into your premises?

Not always possible, I know, especially with some flats or new builds.

On tracing the line as best I could I think the master socket is the one we use as our main phoneline downstairs. However it doesn't have one of those boxes with the horizontal lines and so I presume I can't open that one.

I think this is correct but if it's a loop error then it can mean that some where from the exchange to your socket there is a break in the line - thats why your line is engaged. There should be no charge unless the fault is your side of the master socket.

Thank for that info and for all the replies.

if you've traced it from the outside and it go's to the socket downstairs that just looks like a regular socket, then that would most likely be an old Line jack unit. we change these out as standard now on all visits, but we do raise a charge to the service provide for this(wether they pass that onto you is down to them) if your confident with wires and have an inserter tool, by all means unscrew the socket and look inside.
a "loop" fault incase you were wondering is a short circuit between the 2 legs of your line. usual causes are internal wiring under carpets, through doors etc. wet sockets, adsl filters, old external wire and cable going through trees.

One of my ADSL filters failed while I was away on holiday - resulting in there being no dial tone when we attempted to make the usual "we're back" calls.

A methodical one-by-one disconnection and reconnection of all equipment plugged into each of the 4 sockets in my house (the prime suspect, the Sky digibox, was the first to be disconnected) narrowed the problem down to one socket and progressively plugging things back into that socket revealed the cause of the problem (a corded phone plugged in produced the expected dial tone with overlaid broadband interference but inserting the filter resulted in no tone at all).

A change of the (BT-supplied) ADSL filter solved the problem.

I took every ADSL filter away and just plugged in one phone and it still didn't work, so I don't think that's our problem.

I've also tried every phone socket and none of them gives us a dialing tone with either of the two phones we have.


Thanks for the explanation - does that mean the fault is definitly ours and not BTs?

like i said you need to be able to isolate your internal wiring, if you explain to your service provide when you report the fault that you do not have a nte5, then they should issue the job to us, but with notes on not to repair any internal(i.e your extensions) as they havn't authorised it . so when the engineer visits and changes it to a nte5, but finds a fault on the internal, he has to disconnect it, but you shouldn't be charged. thats when you get a sparky from the yellow pages to do the internal. just make sure your SP is aware you don't have a nte, and your not prepared to pay for any internal repairs and your line should be up and running. usually on personal exp. a loop fault is 7 times out of 10 an internal issue. 1 out of 10 it's at the cabinet, and the other 2 it's the cable from the pole through trees or old cable on the wall that the insulation has been broken down by the sun.

What could be a concern for you is that if you did remove the master socket when you decorated (as you seem to imply in one of your posts) this could be expensive for you.

I have a similar problem. There is no dialling tone with both a corded and cordless phone connected directly into the test socket. I have done this with and without ADSL filter and even tried 2 different flters.

If I call my landline from my mobile with the normal setup, with just a corded phone plugged into the test socket or with nothing plugged into the master socket I get the BT1571 message 'the person you are calling is on the phone' i.e. permanently engaged.

When I reported the fault BT did a test and said there was NO fault on my line.

I am now worried that if there is no fault I will have to pay £116 for the engineer call out even though I'm convinced the problem does not lie with any equipment I'm using.

Although my O2 broadband works it is now regularly dropping offline every 2 hours or so and the synch rate is about half the rate before this problem began.

Is this something that sounds like it COULD be an exchange to home problem or is BT's diagnosis correct and it is my equipment (although it would have to be ALL my equipment which individually suffers from the same problem)

if you get no dialtone in the test socket with a known working phone plugged in you can report your line faulty to your service provider and shouldnt have to worry about any call out charges..in your case if the line tests ok your
problem is probably a line card fault in the exchange rather
than a lineplant (the cable between the exchange and your
property) problem, when you report your fault a experienced receptionist could pass the fault straight to bt operate but quite often the fault goes to openreach first who then pass it to operate to check the exchange
so even if you get a visit from an openreach engineer it still wouldnt be a chargable visit, this may not be what happens
if you get your dialtone from a LLU company

My Dial-tone is from BT and many thanks for your help.

It might be relevant to say that i changed from Sky to O2 Broadband only 2 weeks ago so work has been done in the exchange on my line less than 2 weeks ago. Maybe something has been dislodged in there.

I've had the same problem since Thursday, I knew it wasn't our wiring because I plugged the phone into the main master switch and still no dial tone. Phoned BT and she said she would transfer all incoming calls to my mobile.
The engineer came out Saturday morning and said it was a fault with the exchange so we wouldn't be charged, he said we'd be put in a queue and it should be rectified by that same afternoon.
But guess what ! still no phone, and now I find that I can't actually make outgoing calls from my mobile, so I feel a bit cut adrift. I'm going to have to email my son tomorrow morning at work, give him all the relevant info and get him to phone them, to get their act together. Bloody hell, I'm steaming !!!

You were unlucky that the openreach guy called on a saturday because even if he passed the job back for the
exchange people its unlikley that it will get looked at
before monday as sunday not classed a working day.
No outgoing calls on your mobile must be a coincidence as nothing bt could do could stop your mobile working