Any telephone exchange engineers around? ADSL drop-outs...

Hi,

Over the last 18 months we have had problems with our ADSL connection
at home dropping out, and following some blind luck we figured out a
workaround to get the connection back when it does drop, but I would
love to hear from anybody who has seen something similar, and could
maybe confirm my suspicions...

Here's the trick - the connection drops, and the computer will not
re-connect. The modem has not crashed at this point; it just cannot
get any response on the line.

We then pick up the telephone in the house, pick it up in order to get
a dialtone, and put it back down... we repeat this five or six times.
We then re-connect and hey-presto; the connection is back up.

I'm guessing that cycling the phone connection is either re-setting
some piece of hardware that has crashed at the exchange (and has a
bodge on it to do just that after N connections), or by pure luck
we're being bumped to a different card (that hasn't crashed) in the
exchange when we cycle the phone...

Anybody have a real reason why this happens?

I'm guessing the likelihood of BT upgrading the exchange any time this
century is probably zero...

Jonathan

On Fri, 02 Jul 2004 21:26:52 GMT, Jonathan Beckett
<jonbeckett73_nospam@nospam_yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>We then pick up the telephone in the house, pick it up in order to get
>a dialtone, and put it back down... we repeat this five or six times.
>We then re-connect and hey-presto; the connection is back up.

I suspect you have faulty microfilters, though I know they aren't
supposed to interfere with the ADSL signal. Have you tried different
ones? Have your mates got one you could borrow that they know works
well on their setup?

--
To email me remove ".lartsspammers"
http://www.kingqueen.org.uk

"Jonathan Beckett" <jonbeckett73_nospam@nospam_yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
message news:(E-Mail Removed)
> Over the last 18 months we have had problems with our ADSL connection
> at home dropping out, and following some blind luck we figured out a
> workaround to get the connection back when it does drop, but I would
> love to hear from anybody who has seen something similar, and could
> maybe confirm my suspicions...
>
> Here's the trick - the connection drops, and the computer will not
> re-connect. The modem has not crashed at this point; it just cannot
> get any response on the line.
>
> We then pick up the telephone in the house, pick it up in order to get
> a dialtone, and put it back down... we repeat this five or six times.
> We then re-connect and hey-presto; the connection is back up.

This can happen when you have a poor connection somewhere in your line.
The DC current the phone uses makes a minute spark which re-makes the
connection for a while.

To test this theory try phoning yourself with your mobile (don't
answer) - the ring current *may* re-make the connection in the same way.


> I'm guessing that cycling the phone connection is either re-setting
> some piece of hardware that has crashed at the exchange (and has a
> bodge on it to do just that after N connections), or by pure luck
> we're being bumped to a different card (that hasn't crashed) in the
> exchange when we cycle the phone...
>
> Anybody have a real reason why this happens?

You are permanently connected to the same ADSL equipment.

Nothing you do with the phone should have any effect on the ADSL.

--

Brian Gregory (In the UK).
(E-Mail Removed)
To email me remove the letter vee.

On Fri, 02 Jul 2004 22:35:07 +0100, King Queen
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>On Fri, 02 Jul 2004 21:26:52 GMT, Jonathan Beckett
><jonbeckett73_nospam@nospam_yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>We then pick up the telephone in the house, pick it up in order to get
>>a dialtone, and put it back down... we repeat this five or six times.
>>We then re-connect and hey-presto; the connection is back up.
>
>I suspect you have faulty microfilters, though I know they aren't
>supposed to interfere with the ADSL signal. Have you tried different
>ones? Have your mates got one you could borrow that they know works
>well on their setup?

It's not the filters. We had BT engineers out in the past, and they
always tested everything and traced the problem to the exchange... 2
minutes after leaving our house, they would call from the exchange
having reset something, and the connection would be back...

Jonathan

"Jonathan Beckett" <jonbeckett73_nospam@nospam_yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> It's not the filters. We had BT engineers out in the past, and they
> always tested everything and traced the problem to the exchange... 2
> minutes after leaving our house, they would call from the exchange
> having reset something, and the connection would be back...

I experienced a similar problem that reoccurred over a period of about 3 to
4 months. Each time the connection would go down (usually on a Friday night)
leaving me without ADSL connection over the weekend. Eventually I lodged a
complaint with Oftel and then received an email from my ISP some weeks later
informing me that BT has found a fault with my DSL card at the exchange and
have replaced it. My connection has been rocked solid since!

In article <40e5d67f$0$6442$(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) says...

> > We then pick up the telephone in the house, pick it up in order to get
> > a dialtone, and put it back down... we repeat this five or six times.
> > We then re-connect and hey-presto; the connection is back up.
>
> This can happen when you have a poor connection somewhere in your line.
> The DC current the phone uses makes a minute spark which re-makes the
> connection for a while.
>
> To test this theory try phoning yourself with your mobile (don't
> answer) - the ring current *may* re-make the connection in the same way.

You might be right here - our house was built in the 30s, and has pretty
horific wiring - I wonder if a trip to do-it-all to get replacement
connectors, wires and junction boxes might solve it?

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
Jonathan Beckett <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> You might be right here - our house was built in the 30s, and has pretty
> horific wiring - I wonder if a trip to do-it-all to get replacement
> connectors, wires and junction boxes might solve it?

See my mail. Summary: connect known-good quality microfilter, modem and
one phone direct to your master socket. If that fixes it, you know
where the problem is. Whenever I help people sort out home DSL my
recommendation is to put the router straight into the master and use
wireless to distribute it, as most home wiring is pretty low grade
stuff.

ian

Jonathan Beckett <jonbeckett73_nospam@nospam_yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
news:(E-Mail Removed):

> Hi,
> We then pick up the telephone in the house, pick it up in order to get
> a dialtone, and put it back down...

I had virtually the same problem - until I got a faulty piece of cable
replaced by BT and a new master socket installed.

I too found that picking up the phone and waiting for the bleeps that tell
you to put the phone down reactivated my BB.

But what really pissed me off is they tried to charge me 55 quid for
replacing the cable from the junction outside to my master socket. I soon
got on to them and got that changed.