Getting broadband on possibly dodgy line

A customer is wanting to try again to get his line upgraded to broadband. He
originally used Wanadoo who proved themselves singularly inept at resolving
a no-ADSL-carrier problem - he eventually cancelled his contract with them
and recovered the money on the grounds that they'd failed to provide the
service that he'd been paying for.

Now he's going to try again with a different ISP - hopefully one with more
responsive customer support.

First of all, which ISPs would people recommend, both for price and
availability of their servers, and for customer service which will take
ownership of the possible line problem and do whatever is necessary to
resolve it. Is there any advantage in using BT as an ISP, given that BT also
own the line, compared with using a different ISP?

BT's line checker predicts ADSL up to 2.5 Mbps. The phone line has (as far
as the customer knows) only one socket: the master in his office. When
Wanadoo were providing broadband, two different routers (his DLink G604 and
my Netgear DG834GT) detected no DSL carrier: no line speed was reported and
the attenuation/noise margin figures were off the scale. Wanadoo got BT to
carry out several line tests from the exchange, which all passed, but I
could never get them to get a BT Broadband engineer to test the line as seen
from the customer's socket. I tried removing the faceplate of the master
socket and plugging into the test socket inside, but to no avail. I also
tried plugging the router directly into the BT socket, bypassing the
microfilter. The dialling tone sounded mushy compared with another
non-broadbanded phone line; the customer also reported that the broadbanded
line had experienced problems sending/receiving faxes - sounds like there's
a wiring fault somewhere between his socket and the exchange.

Given this history, what is the best way for him to escalate the problem (if
it exists with the new ISP)? I've suggested that he gets whichever ISP he
chooses to supply a (free) USB modem, mainly as a diagnostic aid, so he can
say truthfully that it fails using the equipment supplied; one of the
problems with Wanadoo is that they lost interest when they heard that it was
a third-party router rather than their own router/modem.

"Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote in message
news:455998d6$0$8715$(E-Mail Removed)...
>A customer is wanting to try again to get his line upgraded to broadband.
>He originally used Wanadoo who proved themselves singularly inept at
>resolving a no-ADSL-carrier problem - he eventually cancelled his contract
>with them and recovered the money on the grounds that they'd failed to
>provide the service that he'd been paying for.
>
> Now he's going to try again with a different ISP - hopefully one with more
> responsive customer support.
>
> First of all, which ISPs would people recommend, both for price and
> availability of their servers, and for customer service which will take
> ownership of the possible line problem and do whatever is necessary to
> resolve it. Is there any advantage in using BT as an ISP, given that BT
> also own the line, compared with using a different ISP?
>
> BT's line checker predicts ADSL up to 2.5 Mbps. The phone line has (as far
> as the customer knows) only one socket: the master in his office. When
> Wanadoo were providing broadband, two different routers (his DLink G604
> and my Netgear DG834GT) detected no DSL carrier: no line speed was
> reported and the attenuation/noise margin figures were off the scale.
> Wanadoo got BT to carry out several line tests from the exchange, which
> all passed, but I could never get them to get a BT Broadband engineer to
> test the line as seen from the customer's socket. I tried removing the
> faceplate of the master socket and plugging into the test socket inside,
> but to no avail. I also tried plugging the router directly into the BT
> socket, bypassing the microfilter. The dialling tone sounded mushy
> compared with another non-broadbanded phone line; the customer also
> reported that the broadbanded line had experienced problems
> sending/receiving faxes - sounds like there's a wiring fault somewhere
> between his socket and the exchange.
>
> Given this history, what is the best way for him to escalate the problem
> (if it exists with the new ISP)? I've suggested that he gets whichever ISP
> he chooses to supply a (free) USB modem, mainly as a diagnostic aid, so he
> can say truthfully that it fails using the equipment supplied; one of the
> problems with Wanadoo is that they lost interest when they heard that it
> was a third-party router rather than their own router/modem.
>

As a matter of interest, has the exchanged been LLU'd?

Could make a difference on recommended ISPs depending on who is in there.
If its not LLU'd then I would suggest avoiding the 'cheap and cheerful' ISPs
as they have to claw back their money somewhere.#
FWIW my father had problems with Waitrose BB and their Customer Service
(after a sightly shaky start due to misunderstandings between him and them)
were excellent in getting it resolved. Personally I am with BT and have had
no problems so far.

J

--
All comments, views and opinions expressed are entirely my own.
No inference should be made or drawn that they represent the
Policy of any organisation and should not be taken as such.

Martin Underwood wrote:
> A customer is wanting to try again to get his line upgraded to broadband. He
> originally used Wanadoo who proved themselves singularly inept at resolving
> a no-ADSL-carrier problem - he eventually cancelled his contract with them
> and recovered the money on the grounds that they'd failed to provide the
> service that he'd been paying for.
>
> Now he's going to try again with a different ISP - hopefully one with more
> responsive customer support.
>
> First of all, which ISPs would people recommend, both for price and
> availability of their servers, and for customer service which will take
> ownership of the possible line problem and do whatever is necessary to
> resolve it. Is there any advantage in using BT as an ISP, given that BT also
> own the line, compared with using a different ISP?
>
> BT's line checker predicts ADSL up to 2.5 Mbps. The phone line has (as far
> as the customer knows) only one socket: the master in his office. When
> Wanadoo were providing broadband, two different routers (his DLink G604 and
> my Netgear DG834GT) detected no DSL carrier: no line speed was reported and
> the attenuation/noise margin figures were off the scale. Wanadoo got BT to
> carry out several line tests from the exchange, which all passed, but I
> could never get them to get a BT Broadband engineer to test the line as seen
> from the customer's socket. I tried removing the faceplate of the master
> socket and plugging into the test socket inside, but to no avail. I also
> tried plugging the router directly into the BT socket, bypassing the
> microfilter. The dialling tone sounded mushy compared with another
> non-broadbanded phone line; the customer also reported that the broadbanded
> line had experienced problems sending/receiving faxes - sounds like there's
> a wiring fault somewhere between his socket and the exchange.
>
> Given this history, what is the best way for him to escalate the problem (if
> it exists with the new ISP)? I've suggested that he gets whichever ISP he
> chooses to supply a (free) USB modem, mainly as a diagnostic aid, so he can
> say truthfully that it fails using the equipment supplied; one of the
> problems with Wanadoo is that they lost interest when they heard that it was
> a third-party router rather than their own router/modem.
>
>
I would suggest Zen as the best for trouble shooting - you can also
buy a router from them (I think they recommend Speedtouch) but I find
they are happy to deal with line problems with any of the recognised
router brands. Have you run an automate voice fault test on the line
to see if the mushy dial tone shows up as a fault.

JP

On 14-Nov-2006, "Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote:

> The dialling tone sounded mushy compared with another
> non-broadbanded phone line; the customer also reported that the broadbanded
> line had experienced problems sending/receiving faxes - sounds like there's
> a wiring fault somewhere between his socket and the exchange.

You don't say how far he is from the exchange, give or take a bit, as it's
rarely the most direct route.
Or whether he has any neighbours with a good connection.
Has he, or can he borrow, a dialup PSTN modem, what speed
does it connect at?
Many of the USRobotics Courier modems
give a wealth of line statistics and the lines frequency response
figures, which you can then plot, to see it's rolloff at the upper
end of the audio frequency band.
There are several possible causes and regardless of which ISP he
chooses any line problem needs to be fixed if he is going to get a
reliable service.
What has to be determined is whether line length, bad connection
(dry joint), water in the underground cable, split pair, bad dropwire,
noise from adjacent cables and services (street lighting and MV
ring main cables may be running parallel for some distance) or whatever.
BT has test sets that will fully characterise a line and it's
problems, plot the frequency response, measure noise, gain
(attenuation) and phase hits. Even do a bit error rate test.
It's getting them to use them that's the problem, it's only a
pair of wires from A to B and it's not rocket science to test
them. There are also Reflectometers that will measure the
distance to faults, indicate their nature (water, dry joint, open/short
circuit) so the pick and shovel brigade know where to dig.
I've used them, you would think BT had never heard of them.

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 10:21:49 -0000, "Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote:

>A customer is wanting to try again to get his line upgraded to broadband. He
>originally used Wanadoo who proved themselves singularly inept at resolving
>a no-ADSL-carrier problem - he eventually cancelled his contract with them
>and recovered the money on the grounds that they'd failed to provide the
>service that he'd been paying for.
>
>Now he's going to try again with a different ISP - hopefully one with more
>responsive customer support.
>

Zen may be a worthwhile consideration as only tied in for a month and
generally good customer service. Suggest you discuss it with them
before ordering.

Some local villagers hassled BT enough to get substantial recabling
carried out which sorted out their broadband issues.


--
AnthonyL

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...

> There are also Reflectometers that will measure the
> distance to faults, indicate their nature (water, dry joint, open/short
> circuit) so the pick and shovel brigade know where to dig.
> I've used them, you would think BT had never heard of them.

Never actually herd them refereed to as 'Reflectometers' but there are tools
used by the faults teams that do just that, and are used all the time.
Possibly if you spoke to a sales person, or one of the call centres they may
not know, but they are the normal fault teams Bread and Butter.

J

--
All comments, views and opinions expressed are entirely my own.
No inference should be made or drawn that they represent the
Policy of any organisation and should not be taken as such.

"Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote in message
news:455998d6$0$8715$(E-Mail Removed)...
>A customer is wanting to try again to get his line upgraded to broadband.
>He originally used Wanadoo who proved themselves singularly inept at
>resolving a no-ADSL-carrier problem - he eventually cancelled his contract
>with them and recovered the money on the grounds that they'd failed to
>provide the service that he'd been paying for.
{snip}

Use Zen - they are the only people who will reliably get BT to send a
competent technician to the site. But be sure that the cable distance is
acceptable first - if it runs to 12km even Zen won't be able to get it
working.

Ring them first, explain the previous history, and establish a 1:1
relationship with a technical contact as a pre-condition of placing an
order.

-- Graham

Martin Underwood wrote:
<snip>

> microfilter. The dialling tone sounded mushy compared with another
> non-broadbanded phone line; the customer also reported that the broadbanded
> line had experienced problems sending/receiving faxes - sounds like there's
> a wiring fault somewhere between his socket and the exchange.
>
Is it worth getting BT to address the FAX problem, even though previous
tests have been passed? IIRC, voice and FAX are the only things BT
expect to be used (from a quality viewpoint) and that may resolve a
wiring fault.

> Given this history, what is the best way for him to escalate the problem (if
> it exists with the new ISP)? I've suggested that he gets whichever ISP he
> chooses to supply a (free) USB modem, mainly as a diagnostic aid, so he can
> say truthfully that it fails using the equipment supplied; one of the
> problems with Wanadoo is that they lost interest when they heard that it was
> a third-party router rather than their own router/modem.
>
>



PeeGee
--
The reply address is a spam trap.
If you need to reply directly, put the UK where it should be - first.

On 14 Nov 2006, "Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote:

>I've suggested that he gets whichever ISP he chooses to supply a (free)
>USB modem, mainly as a diagnostic aid

some of the ISPs now provide a router, (I wouldn't touch a USB modem) and
AAISP is one of them... The router is loaned (or can be bought) and AAISP
would also be the type to push BT Wholesale if they had provided the kit,
and then found a significant problem with the broadband service.

From what I've read, they check the connection once a minute, and can send
SMS when it changes from "OK" to "down"... I'm not a customer, and would
primarily suggest them for short term use (they could prove expensive if
this user wants to be using the net a lot in 'office hours').

(E-Mail Removed) wrote in message
(E-Mail Removed):

> On 14-Nov-2006, "Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote:
>
>> The dialling tone sounded mushy compared with another
>> non-broadbanded phone line; the customer also reported that the
>> broadbanded line had experienced problems sending/receiving faxes -
>> sounds like there's a wiring fault somewhere between his socket and
>> the exchange.
>
> You don't say how far he is from the exchange, give or take a bit, as
> it's rarely the most direct route.

The exchange is reported by BT's line test as being Nuneham Courtenay
(Oxfordshire) and the customer lives in Dorchester, about 5.8 km as the crow
flies. Given that this is quite a high figure, I'm wondering whether there
might be another "repeater" exchange closer to him. Or is 5.8 km not
excessive these days?

> Or whether he has any neighbours with a good connection.

The person who lives opposite him (coincidentally, another of my customers)
can get a good broadband signal. I set them up with a Netgear router about 6
months ago and they were getting (I think) 2 Mbps down / 488 Kbps up - I
remember the upload speed because it was the first time I'd ever encountered
upload speed greater than 288 - so the exchange has been upgraded to ADSL2.

> Has he, or can he borrow, a dialup PSTN modem, what speed
> does it connect at?

I noticed that his PC's built-in dial-up modem was achieving 49 kbps when I
tried it yesterday - ironic that a line which gives an unusually high
dial-up speed should be so poor for broadband. I couldn't test the broadband
state yesterday because Wanadoo ceased ADSL on the line ages ago when they
cancelled the contract. Checking back in my records, I first became involved
in June 2005 (yes, over a year ago!) and we faffed around with Wanadoo for a
couple of months, at which time he said he was going to try a different ISP.
I didn't hear anything since then until a year later when he called me in
yesterday about a problem with his dial-up modem crashing his PC (needed a
System Restore to a previous day's config) and he mentioned about trying
again now for broadband.

> Many of the USRobotics Courier modems
> give a wealth of line statistics and the lines frequency response
> figures, which you can then plot, to see it's rolloff at the upper
> end of the audio frequency band.
> There are several possible causes and regardless of which ISP he
> chooses any line problem needs to be fixed if he is going to get a
> reliable service.
> What has to be determined is whether line length, bad connection
> (dry joint), water in the underground cable, split pair, bad dropwire,
> noise from adjacent cables and services (street lighting and MV
> ring main cables may be running parallel for some distance) or
> whatever. BT has test sets that will fully characterise a line and
> it's
> problems, plot the frequency response, measure noise, gain
> (attenuation) and phase hits. Even do a bit error rate test.
> It's getting them to use them that's the problem, it's only a
> pair of wires from A to B and it's not rocket science to test
> them. There are also Reflectometers that will measure the
> distance to faults, indicate their nature (water, dry joint,
> open/short circuit) so the pick and shovel brigade know where to dig.
> I've used them, you would think BT had never heard of them.

I presume most of these tests have to be carried out from the customer's
master socket, and that there's a limit to the faults that can be diagnosed
from the exchange end.