Talk Talk telephone problem

Hi,

My Brother in -law has his telephone and broadband through Talk Talk and
they have a LLU presence at our local telephone exchange.

About three weeks ago his telephone went dead, he can;t make any outgoing
calls and if you call his number you just get an endless ringing tone and at
his end he gets nothing.

Rather curiously his broadband is still working.

He called Talk Talk who performed a test on the line and said that the fault
was in his house and suggested that he unplug everything and then try again
from the back of his BT master socket.

So he unplugged everything and then plugged his telephone straight into the
back of his BT master socket ie cover removed, still nothing.

So he called them back on his mobile and they told him that his telephone
must be faulty.

So next day he went out and purchased a new telephone and tried that
directly in the back of the master socket, still nothing.

So he called them back and they said they'd get back to him.,

After chasing many times over the next ten days or so he just went round and
round in circles, eventually they told him that the fault was internal and
that if he was prepared to stump up the charge for an engineer to call then
they'd send someone round.

All this time his broadband was working perfectly....

He knew an independent telephone engineer who offered to come along for a
nominal fee and check things inside his home.

He came and checked everything and connected his test phone to the back side
of the BT master socket and then declared that as far as he was concerned
the fault was external to the premises.

Talk Talk were called again and they arranged for an engineer (Talk Talk)
to call out to take a look.

Several days later he arrived and announced that he was sent out to
investigate a broadband fault, my brother in law who was incandescent by now
explained that throughout all of this the broadband had and was still
working perfectly.

He said that as far as he could tell the fault appeared to be external and
that Talk Talk would have to get BT Openreach engineer to check it out.

Several days later a BT Openreach engineer arrived and although the fault
has yet to be identified and rectified he has connected many brother in law
to a temporary connection out in the road somewhere ( whatever that might
be ) and now his telephone is working again some three weeks later. His
broadband initially stopped working following this but started working again
an hour or so later.
He was told that further diagnosis would be necessary to identify and
rectify the initial fault/cause and determine who was responsible.

Anyone any idea what might be causing this ? surely if it were a wiring
problem between the house and the exchange wouldn't his broadband have
packed up as well ?

Could this be some kind of routing or account issue at the local exchange
betwixt the Talk Talk equipment and the BT network ?


J

On 30/12/2010 in message <ifieq2$1iip$(E-Mail Removed)> Jim wrote:

>Anyone any idea what might be causing this ? surely if it were a wiring
>problem between the house and the exchange wouldn't his broadband have
>packed up as well ?

There have been many reports that BB works fine on one wire and an earth
so perhaps a broken/bad joint somewhere?

--
Jeff Gaines Wiltshire UK
If you ever find something you like buy a lifetime supply because they
will stop making it

On 30/12/10 17:40, Jeff Gaines wrote:
> On 30/12/2010 in message <ifieq2$1iip$(E-Mail Removed)> Jim wrote:
>
>> Anyone any idea what might be causing this ? surely if it were a
>> wiring problem between the house and the exchange wouldn't his
>> broadband have packed up as well ?
>
> There have been many reports that BB works fine on one wire and an earth
> so perhaps a broken/bad joint somewhere?
>

This happened to me a year or so ago. Turned out one leg of the line in
the cable from the house to the distribution post in the street had been
trapped under the cover to said post and this had caused the wire to
break. The BY engineer who came out (fortunately within 24 hours..!)
said it could have been like that for 5 hours or 5 years.


--
Much love,
Ria xx

On 30/12/10 17:59, Ria Elaine wrote:
> On 30/12/10 17:40, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>> On 30/12/2010 in message <ifieq2$1iip$(E-Mail Removed)> Jim wrote:
>>
>>> Anyone any idea what might be causing this ? surely if it were a
>>> wiring problem between the house and the exchange wouldn't his
>>> broadband have packed up as well ?
>>
>> There have been many reports that BB works fine on one wire and an earth
>> so perhaps a broken/bad joint somewhere?
>>
>
> This happened to me a year or so ago. Turned out one leg of the line in
> the cable from the house to the distribution post in the street had been
> trapped under the cover to said post and this had caused the wire to
> break. The BY engineer who came out (fortunately within 24 hours..!)
> said it could have been like that for 5 hours or 5 years.

Oh the thing that alerted me (don't use the BT line much, most calls on
VoIP) was that broadband dropped to about 2Mb download speed from its
usual 8Mb.


--
Much love,
Ria xx

"Jim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:ifieq2$1iip$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> My Brother in -law has his telephone and broadband through Talk Talk and they have a LLU presence at our local telephone exchange.
>
> About three weeks ago his telephone went dead, he can;t make any outgoing calls and if you call his number you just get an endless
> ringing tone and at his end he gets nothing.
>
> Rather curiously his broadband is still working.
>
> He called Talk Talk who performed a test on the line and said that the fault was in his house and suggested that he unplug
> everything and then try again from the back of his BT master socket.
>
> So he unplugged everything and then plugged his telephone straight into the back of his BT master socket ie cover removed, still
> nothing.
>
> So he called them back on his mobile and they told him that his telephone must be faulty.
>
> So next day he went out and purchased a new telephone and tried that directly in the back of the master socket, still nothing.
>
> So he called them back and they said they'd get back to him.,
>
> After chasing many times over the next ten days or so he just went round and round in circles, eventually they told him that the
> fault was internal and that if he was prepared to stump up the charge for an engineer to call then they'd send someone round.
>
> All this time his broadband was working perfectly....
>
> He knew an independent telephone engineer who offered to come along for a nominal fee and check things inside his home.
>
> He came and checked everything and connected his test phone to the back side of the BT master socket and then declared that as far
> as he was concerned the fault was external to the premises.
>
> Talk Talk were called again and they arranged for an engineer (Talk Talk) to call out to take a look.
>
> Several days later he arrived and announced that he was sent out to investigate a broadband fault, my brother in law who was
> incandescent by now explained that throughout all of this the broadband had and was still working perfectly.
>
> He said that as far as he could tell the fault appeared to be external and that Talk Talk would have to get BT Openreach engineer
> to check it out.
>
> Several days later a BT Openreach engineer arrived and although the fault has yet to be identified and rectified he has connected
> many brother in law to a temporary connection out in the road somewhere ( whatever that might be ) and now his telephone is
> working again some three weeks later. His broadband initially stopped working following this but started working again an hour or
> so later.
> He was told that further diagnosis would be necessary to identify and rectify the initial fault/cause and determine who was
> responsible.
>
> Anyone any idea what might be causing this ? surely if it were a wiring problem between the house and the exchange wouldn't his
> broadband have packed up as well ?
>
> Could this be some kind of routing or account issue at the local exchange betwixt the Talk Talk equipment and the BT network ?

A very good example of why LLUing your broadband is often a good idea but LLUing
your telephone service can often end in tears.

TalkTalk were prepared to send one of their engineers (actually I beleave they
work for a 3rd party called "Qube"), rather than escerlate the fault to Openreach.

Qube have no access to lineplant, I am not sure if they have access to TalkTalk's LLU
equipment in exchanges, but all in all a total waste of your time.

Be on your guard in case one of these entities try and charge you for their time.


--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, spam-no-
(E-Mail Removed)d says...
>
> m <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>
> >If one feels a bit naughty and is handy with a voltmeter, you will find
> >about 10volts to earth on one leg and about 40 to earth on the other
> >leg. (BT now do this offset preciesly to help faultfinding wheras it
> >used to be 50v to eath on one leg and about 2Kohms to eath on the other
> >if I remember correctly)
> >This measured on the BT incoming wire (that you wouldn't touch however
> >would you??)
>
> But testing the voltage on the appropriate pins of the test socket
> would surely be acceptable, would it not? If you can connect a phone
> plug to that socket, why not a meter?

Quite correct. And a good idea IMHO.

The problem is how to get the information to the appropriate place (BT
Openreach). I guarantee 100% that the clueless numpties on the help desk
won't have the first idea what you are talking about. They aren't even
telecom trained people - just a bunch of call centre droids employed by
HCL Technologies (That's who runs the outfit - NOT BT).

On Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:24:36 +0000, Gaius wrote:

> The problem is how to get the information to the appropriate place (BT
> Openreach). I guarantee 100% that the clueless numpties on the help desk
> won't have the first idea what you are talking about. They aren't even
> telecom trained people - just a bunch of call centre droids employed by
> HCL Technologies (That's who runs the outfit - NOT BT).

Tell me about it. I had a line failure Wednesday evening; the firts driod
I spoke to hadn't a clue, but pretended he had. Then he said he'd call me
back - and didn't. He also failed to test the line properly.

The second one did test the line, and found a fault. I told them I had
TotalCare and they hadn't a clue. Eventually they gave me an earliest
estimate to repair of 48 hours, and I had to bang on about TotalCare at
length, explaining what it was, and what my expectations were. OpenReach
finally got told at 2330, and phoned me immediately.

To OR's credit, they had a man on the doorstep at 0815 next day.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

>>Deviating from a BT phone to offer the opportunity of endless
>>buck passing seems like madness to me. Adding broadband on
>>top of that pile of s*** and hoping that it might ever be
>>repaired is pure insanity.

I couldn't agree more...

Jim.

Jim wrote:
>
>>> Deviating from a BT phone to offer the opportunity of endless
>>> buck passing seems like madness to me. Adding broadband on
>>> top of that pile of s*** and hoping that it might ever be
>>> repaired is pure insanity.
>
> I couldn't agree more...
>
> Jim.

I couldn't agree less.