I am currently looking at getting PlusNet or Zen ADSL, but I currently have
loads of line noise on my normal BT phone line. It is intermittent and
varies from none at all, to sometimes so much that I cannot get a dial up to
the internet to stay connected. I have got BT to come and check it, and
they said they would change something in the wires connecting the house to
the telegraph pole, which worked for a few months then the line noise came
back.

I want to know what happens when I sign up for ADSL self install - I am
worried that this line noise will affect the speed of connection, and I will
end up with the ISP saying that it is BT's problem, and BT saying that it is
the ISP's problem. Because of this I am actually considering using BT as an
ISP, so that they have only themselves to blame, but reading the posts on
this NG, I would prefer not to.

What is the procedure once I sign up with an ISP for ADSL?

Thanks,

Report the line fault. (noisy)
150

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 22:40:24 +0100, Martin Cooper
<usenet@martinc.me.uk> wrote:

com and fix it. So long as the noise is not on your own equipment that
is.

I have in the past contacted BT several times about it... they said the line
is only guaranteed for voice quality, and any use for data (i.e. with a
modem) cannot be guaranteed. However, they did send an engineer out, and on
the day he called, the noise was not noisy!! However, on a second occasion
an engineer came out and it was noisy. He changed some wiring at the box
halfway down the road, which seemed to fix the problem (or at least it was
not noisy when he left), but the noise returned a couple of weeks later.



"cyberdog" <david.midcom@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:cpa0hvs3etgnd6hl05qe5fkra96he0692e@4ax.com...

"-Captain-Pugwash-" <Peter@(NoSpam)PBarnfield.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
message news:bepup3$r0a$1@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
I had this a while ago before broadband, it was a pain in the bum because
the
noise kept coming and going so it was hard to solve the problem. It took BT
about a week to sort it out, the phone line I use is a dedicated internet
line and
they were very happy to help me. Just dial 150 and report a noisy line, say
it's
useless for accessing the internet. If they get funny about it threaten them
with
the cancelation of the line, that never fails.

When I had noise on the line my narrowband was USELESS, I assume the
same would apply to ADSL.

"-Captain-Pugwash-" <Peter@(NoSpam)PBarnfield.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
message news:ber3hj$jgt$1@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
house. When I reported the fault the line was really crackly so they did a
line test quickly and noted that it was not a constant problem. As that line
was dedicated internet they did fix it. This was on narrowband and i could
not get any life online, even getting my e-mail was impossible.

Hope BT don't give you anymore crap.

Matt

This is an awfully familiar story. I had intermitent terrible noise on my
phone line at the end of last year to the point where it was sometimes
impossible to hold a conversation , let alone make narrowband connections.

I logged the fault on five seperate occasions and had five different
engineers out to "fix" it. Each one left claiming to have doe something to
resolve the problem, but each time (except the last) the fault was still
there.

For what its worth, the fault I had was a simple loose wiring issue on the
main phone socket. The fifth engineer dismantled my phone socket and one of
the wires from the outside simply fell out of the screw down connector. Why
it took _five_ trained engineers to spot a simple fault like that I'll never
know.

Good luck

Malcolm Burtt

"-Captain-Pugwash-" <Peter@(NoSpam)PBarnfield.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
message news:ben8b2$7bi$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...

Probably because of the sheer range of hardware they have to deal with
and the fact that so much of it dates back to who knows when. Also with
so much of the quipement out in the open, any of the "joints" in the
connection could be the cause of the problem. If you've ever had
problems with a car that doesn't like damp weather, you will know what I
mean, it's almost impossible to fix. (of course, you should always start
with the obvious! But cut them a little slack, it's easy to forget
something).


From Malcolm Burtt:

--
Julian Knight,
/--------------------------------------------------------------------\
| *** Remove Anti Spam bits from address for Email Replies *** |
|Home Page: http://www.knightnet.org.uk/ |
|Location : Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom. |
|Occupation: Security, Directory, Messaging, Network & PC Consultant |
\--------------------------------------------------------------------/

"Malcolm Burtt" <malcolm.burtt@eurogen.co.uk> wrote in message
news:beulrj$dfg$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
"This is an awfully familiar story. I had intermitent terrible noise on my
phone line" "the fault I had was a simple loose wiring issue on the main
phone socket." "Why

Did the other four have access to your property? Was it noisy when they were
there? Can anyone be trained to find a fault that is not evident at the time
of a visit? The line may be several miles long - engineers deal with all of
it - not just the last few metres in the house.

"Malcolm Burtt" <malcolm.burtt@eurogen.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bf18ju$pjs$1@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
" Its easy to miss a simple fault, I know. That doesn't make it any less
irritating when you have to take time off work 5 times to get a satisfactory
fix"

I would agree - but it all strikes me as a little odd. If I were in your
property and I could hear it crackling/noisy at the master socket I would
remove the face-plate and test with your extensions removed. Naturally - in
your case - the noise would have still been there - that is - nte-to-line.
Why any engineer would then assume it was your extension escapes me - unless
the noise was never heard. My next step would be to take the master socket
apart whereupon I would have found your fault.

I'm trained the same way as every other engineer so there is a problem with
all this somewhere. Care to post me the fault report numbers so I can
look???

(With the wonderful benefit of hindsight,) I would also have progressed on a
similar fault finding trail as you suggest. Sadly, only the successful
engineer dismantled the master socket any further than removing the
faceplate that disconnects the extension sockets.

I'd love to help as it would be interesting to know what went on, but this
was months ago so I've no record of that. Anything else I can supply that
would be of assistance?

"D Side" <pop@goestheemail.com> wrote in message
news:gmfRa.48193$9C6.2549374@wards.force9.net...

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 17:31:08 +0100, "Malcolm Burtt"
<malcolm.burtt@eurogen.co.uk> wrote:

"cyberdog" <david.midcom@btopenworld.com> wrote in message "Because most of
them are not trained properly anymore."

Thats not true! I got great training.

Induction > Wire this plug - name these colours
Week1> 5 days of safety training, being videoed lifting boxes and having
other utter bullshit drummed in so BT could say "We did train them on
safety"
Week2/3 How to make joints with materials that you will never have -
interupted to go and pick up vans. 1 Day on fault finding with obselete
equipment, and reading prints that you can never find or get.
WEEK4 - How to use work manager
Week 5/6 - Out with another engineer that never happened as nobody wanted to
take out new starters.
Ongoing> Extra coaching/help that nobody wanted to give because new starters
were stealing overtime from old hands.....

In fairness the hotels were great, the meals good, the training shite. But
never as shite as the attitude from fellow employees who, in the main, are a
bunch of lazy arseholes that have taken the company down. But hell, say what
you see.......

"Guiseppe Salamone" <gs@corp-group.co.uk> wrote in message
news:6P6Sa.50410$xd5.2825332@stones.force9.net...
Oh dear!

Looks like things have gone downhill fast since I took the Golden handshake
in '92.................

len

--
The links below will soon be changing as I will be broadband from 23rd July
FS2002 AI Traffic for non-AI airports
available here:-

http://members.madasafish.com/~len-hickman/FS2002.htm

FS SoundScape files for UK airfields
http://members.madasafish.com/~len-h...cape_files.htm

FSTraffic Tracks
for England,Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland,
Venezuela, USA(1) & Denmark(1)
available here

http://members.madasafish.com/~len-hickman/fstracks.htm

My recent BT cockup went as follows. Two days before ADSL activation was
scheduled, woken at 6am with wrong number, followed by stream of similar
calls throughout the day. Finally figured out that if you dialled this
person's number you got through to me, and vice versa. Classic crossed line.

Upon reporting the fault I was told off by BT because I had already reported
it, although actually it was the other person who had reported it, but BT
grabbed "their" number (ie my number) from caller ID instead of listening to
the other person.

When an engineer finally arrived, he established both me and the other
person were on different street boxes, so he problem must be at the
exchange. He also discovered the other person was being ADSL activated on
the same day(!).

When he got to the exchange he couldn't get in at first, because, in an
entirely unlrelated incident, someone has cut through a 320 pair main cable
under the mistaken impression it was no longer in use. Which was very much
not the case, despite it being of dubious vintage, with lead sheathing and
paper-wrapped wires, etc. Fortunately I was not part of the entire half of
the town whose service was cut off by this...

After apparently discovering a physical crossed line he swapped over and
resoldered in, and rang to tell me. Being quite happy, I rushed to configure
my new router, as I had just finished doing my own ADSL extension wiring
(incidentaly the only part of the whole sorry incident that went smoothly).

Imagine my surprise when I found I had a link speed of 512K instead of 2
meg, and username and password wouldn't work. Immediately smelling a rat, I
rang BT faults again only to be told off once more that the engineer had
signed off that he had not made a mistake, therefore my ISP must be in
error. Despite the other engineer presumably also having signed off the
original cockup...

Then I had to wait the rest of the weekend (day and a half) to speak to my
ISP, who agreed with me that the ADSL connection had either also been
crossed in the original mistake, or that the repair had crossed that while
uncrossing the voice line. However there was nothing they could do until the
morning of the official activation date, because BT would not consider it a
fault until then.

So I duly waited tried again, and sure enough still half meg connection
which I could make a PPP login to. Now my ISP repotorted it as a fault with
BT, who finally fixed and confirmed their cockup.

On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 19:11:34 +0100, "len Hickman"
<len-hickman@madasafish.com> wrote:

clothing for working outside in all whether is in possible, trying to
change faulty tools is also impossible. Stores, well that is another
story, but you just can`t order any... But they will waste thousands of
£ on idiotic meetings in posh hotels to brainwash you with c**p.
At the end of the day i would say that B.T. don`t want their
experienced and highly qualified engineers working for them. What they
want is someone who can fumble their way into getting something to
work, and hope it stays working. If it does not, well the person that
fixed it with the faulty or inadequate tools gets dragged in by his/her
managers office to have threats made about being moved on if this sort
of thing continues. As for release schemes, people are falling over
each other to leave. Do you not think it funny that for twenty three
years of service an engineer can be told he is doing a fantastic job
for the company in every way possible, but for some reason when B.T.
start letting the prats use figures to calculate how a person is doing
all of a sudden the same engineer is useless at his job and does`nt do
enough, but the fly boy engineer who cocks things up and feeds the
customer a load of rubbish, or if a job looks difficult, or that it
might take longer than two minuets gets rid of it as quick as possible
is thought of a really good engineer. This type of engineer even gets
gift vouchers and bottles of wine for all the cockups he makes.
Sorry to go on but as far as i am concerned figures do nothing to help
the customer who just wants a line or system fixing and will be sure it
will stay working. Until B.T. realise the fact that figures are getting
in the way of good engineers doing a quality job for the customer
things are only going to get worse.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who views it that way. The days I
get thanked for my productivity (?) are the days I don't get my tools
of the van, the days I get my tools off are the days when it goes down
(to 0 on many of them due to cable faults etc).

--
B-)
Life is pain.....
Deal with it!!

On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 22:39:12 +0100, "Kráftéé"
<kraftee@bogoffspammer.ntlworld.com> wrote:

I just can`t see how a jointer/cse can make any money out of smt. Why
did i volunteer to be a cse all those years ago, i should have stayed
as i was(cal/omi).

"cyberdog" <david.midcom@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
"just can`t see how a jointer/cse can make any money out of smt."

It's a corrupt system based on solid stupidity. Only BT could dream it up.
The only way employee's could get it scraped is make the scheme hurt the
company (whilst making money too). I threw my scruples away long ago and
this is how it's done.

1) Pick up a crap job? Sit on it 35 minutes and no access it. 4 points.
2) Take 4 days out of 5 off sick. You earn more points being off work than
you do if you are in busting a gut
3) DACS de-share for ADSL. Disconnect 3 customers on the same dp (the b1/2
and a new chosen dacs inheritor). Report all 3 out of order. Ring control -
pin to you. 3 Jobs (plus the de-dacs activity) for a couple of jumpers and a
dacs re-arrange at the dp.
4) Never build a Dis-d on a provide. Always send it back 'Requires survey -
leadin full/DP Full'. This avoids spending hours chasing a pair to a
customer to get a poxy 9 points for what should be a 25 point divert. Pick
the survey activity up the next day :-)
5) On picking up a low value pair prove disguised as a 25 point pair divert
tag the pair on the dp. Even if the dropwire/leadin is tagged to the
customer - leave it dis. At least someone will get a few more points for the
job as another visit is needed.
4) Down tools in time to get home. Never work on. If that means leaving
wires hanging, bang a gate guard in the customers living room around the
mess and walk out. Give him/her your level 1's phone number and ask them to
call him/her if they have any problems.

However - to make money adopt the BT ADSL engineer mentality.

1) Any two wires (working or spare) is a perfect pair to provide adsl on. If
this means disconnecting a nearby house or business - so what. My line is
all that matters. My points are all that matter
2)Double sided sticky tape and gripfil are faster solutions than drills,
screws and cleats.
3)Leave cables loose on the floor and place 'Customer decorating/laying new
carpet - unable to fix cable' in the job notes.
4)Where there are no stopped lines - kick the job back
5)Advise customer for best transmission socket needs to be as close to the
DP as possible - thus reducing time spend on unnecessary cabling...

SMT - Improving quaility and productivity for managers and stat eaters
throughout the company.

Dial 17070 on your fone. Listen to the comp selections. Choose quiet-line.
Listen for noise.
If you here noise and it's a dry day, try it on a rainy day to see the
difference.
Ring 150.
Tell the assistant you are an ex BT employee and you know wot you are on
about, ( there not smart enough to find out if you are).
As an Ex BT engineer, if we had line noise, we would half the line distance,
clip on the phone, and listen again. Repeat halving the line distance back
to the exchange.
Give this info to the assistant, tell them you are very unhappy and thinking
of ditching the line altogether.
If they have to they could allocate a brand new pair all the way back to the
exchange, baypassing any faulty joints or connections.
You pay your line rental. You expect a fully working quality service as they
advertise.
Persist. Put it in writing.
Threaten them with a campaign to the press on quality of service in your
area.
Most of the problem is the state of the network, which they won't admit to.
I mean if your car didn't start every time it rained, you'd be pretty
pissed.
BT is a massive , lucrative business. They should give you what you pay for.
Period.
RichPuke

"cyberdog" <david.midcom@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:cpa0hvs3etgnd6hl05qe5fkra96he0692e@4ax.com...