Problems with BT phone line

0lordy

Maybe this should be in "Consumer Issues" but...

I've had a problem with BT for the last week, really struggling to get any decent support from them. Maybe someone can help me out here:

Have BT phone & eircom Broadband (BB paid for through work, so I keep it seperate)

Have cordless phone off master socket under stairs, corded phone in upstairs bedroom.

For several days had a lot of "noise" on the line - like the battery was flat on the cordless phone, but noise was occuring on upstairs phone as well.

To investigate, I took the upstairs phone & plugged it in directly to master socket (not via DSL filter).

Phone line went dead. No signal, noise, nuthin'.

Neither phone worked.

Called BT, they said to disconnect everything for 30 minutes, then reconnect, it should be OK. Tried that, it didn't work

I checked my phone in another house and it worked fine.

Called BT, they said it was an "internal wiring" problem, and could not help.

I said they should have responsibility up to an including the master socket, like eircom (allegedly) do, but they said to get an electrician out to check the wiring.

Got an electrician out (a friend of mine) who checked the line & said it was dead, whereas it should have a 12V current.

That was Friday, checked the line a few times since, and it seems to change from dead to 1-2 volts to 25 volts, but there's never a dial tone on the phone.

BT have said they can get an engineer out, but it will cost €119 as it's an internal wiring issue.

Questions:
Should BT have responsibilty up to master socket?
Would connecting a phone directly into a DSL line "break" anything?
If you connect a phone directly into a DSL line, should it work, i.e. get some sort of dial tone?
Any idea of what to do next?

themole

0lordy wrote:

Questions:
Should BT have responsibilty up to master socket?

Don't think so, that are only providing you the service, the line is still the responsibility of eircom, unless you have had your local loop unbundled by BT, in which case it would be BT's responsibility.

0lordy wrote:

Would connecting a phone directly into a DSL line "break" anything??

I would be very surprised if it did.

0lordy wrote:

If you connect a phone directly into a DSL line, should it work, i.e. get some sort of dial tone?

I don't think it should work. Without the filter your phone would be receiving frequencies which the phone was not designed to receive, and these would interfeer with the dial tone you are trying to hear. You might hear some noise, not sure really.

0lordy wrote:

Any idea of what to do next?

How many phone sockets do you have? If you have too many sockets with too many phones attached this can degrade your line, and it not Bt's fault and they will not pay to fix it.
If their engineer comes out and finds that it is their line at fault you should not have to pay.

Try the master socket with a filter attached and an ordinary non fancy wired phone, as in one with no screen.

0lordy

Hi themole, thanks for the response.

themole wrote:

Don't think so, that are only providing you the service, the line is still the responsibility of eircom, unless you have had your local loop unbundled by BT, in which case it would be BT's responsibility.

Yep, eircom still own the network, but I pay line rental to BT - therefore IMHO they're responsible for providing it to me i.e. I've no direct relationship to eircom re line rental.

themole wrote:

I don't think it should work. Without the filter your phone would be receiving frequencies which the phone was not designed to receive, and these would interfeer with the dial tone you are trying to hear. You might hear some noise, not sure really..

Yeah, thought I'd hear something too, but it's dead.

themole wrote:

How many phone sockets do you have? If you have too many sockets with too many phones attached this can degrade your line, and it not Bt's fault and they will not pay to fix it..

I've only two sockets.

themole wrote:

If their engineer comes out and finds that it is their line at fault you should not have to pay.

They seem to be trying to charge the €119 up front, because they say that the line is fine (I assume it's showing green on some console or other

themole wrote:

Try the master socket with a filter attached and an ordinary non fancy wired phone, as in one with no screen.

Tried it with and without the filter, no tone

Trying to get to talk directly to a BT technician, but even that is proving to be a challenge

Sponge Bob

It should be 48v, sounds like a line fault so report the fault to BT

golden rule, no noise at master socket = line fault