Home phone issues

Lawdie

Hi There

When getting the house built several years ago I got the phone points installed. There’s a plethora of points throughout the house. Telecoms are primarily used for broadband and some calls.

A few months back I had line issues. Lost the tone for all points.

Eircom called out and spent about 45 minutes testing the main line and some points before declaring the issue unsolvable by them. They installed a temporary line that’s running across the facia outside.

I would obliviously like to get the original points working.

Does anyone know a skilled telecoms person who could handle and resolve this issue?

Based north Dublin

My thanks Lawdie

ttm

You don't need skill you need common sence. Anyone with a signal generator, a tone tracer and a screwdriver could work out what you have and what can be done with it. I fear many skilled people wouldn't be bothered and would prefer to just rewire.

Lawdie

yes, I would agree. But two guys from eircom tried that on most points to no avail.
So this issue could be outside at the main house connection. It also could be a fault in one of the cables in the wall!
Anyone recommend a troubleshooter?

ttm

If the Eircom guys gave up I'd give them a bit more credit than perhaps you have. Eircoms service may be crap but on the whole there linesman have years of experince and wouldn't have tried to fix anything if they didn't think it could be done. If they failed then it may mean you have a problem in the walls that can't be fixed without replacing a good proportion of the wiring. The only thing they might not have done is disconnect every joint box and termination you have and wire map whats there but thats a slow and painstaking job that a professional either wouldn't be bothered with or would have to charge a lot to do.

Why not cut your losses and use WiFi for the Broadband and the minimal amount of rewiring for the fixed line phones you need.

b0bsquish

alas its not up to eircom to fix this for you, as long as you have one working point at home, thats all they have to do. In ze uk BT charge 120 squids per extentsion, not sure if eircom even offer the service (Other than a friendly linesman) you could try look up an telecom engineer in ze yellow pages, but expect to pay a bit for it.

Lawdie

The issue is I've a temporary line running accross the house. Its connected to a point thats lying on the floor. So its nowhere near ideal, Besides I've still no standard phone connection.

ttm

So the Eircom guys put in the tempory line and said call them when you have it sorted so they can come back and put in a permenant point?

Solair

If the fault's that serious, you might want to trace the wiring back to see where it comes to.

Sometimes each phone socket loops into the back of the previous one in a long daisy chain type setup, or more usually they just all come back to a single point in a star configuration.

Typically, you'll find they'll all tie into the back of one phone socket or to a junction box in your attic / hallway or somewhere central.

To be honest though, given how good and reliable modern DECT cordless phones are these days I really wouldn't bother. It's generally a complete waste of time.

Get yourself down to Argos (or somewhere similar) and pick out a decent multi-handset DECT phone pack. I'd suggest spending a reasonable bit of money on it, don't go for the cheapest of the cheap.

Install that and you'll have phone in as many rooms as you like. Usually, each phone comes with an individual charger that can simply be plugged in.

If you've broadband, invest in a good quality Wifi hub, you can pick these up in any PC shop and you'll get plenty of help in configuring it from your broadband provider.

You can either get a stand alone router that plugs into the back of your existing DSL modem via an ethernet cable, or you can get a combined modem/router which does the entire job in a single box.

Many of these come with USB key type adaptors which can be plugged into non-wifi enabled PCs so they can join the network. Just check the description / ask in store.

In general, you can survive quite well without a load of phone sockets all over the house.

Also, in terms of avoiding problems with DSL broadband connections, you're nearly better off with just a single clean connection to the phone network rather than a big load of extensions.

Lawdie

ttm wrote: »

So the Eircom guys put in the tempory line and said call them when you have it sorted so they can come back and put in a permenant point?

Exactly. Theres already a decent wifi hub, I could buy the multi phone solution. However that does not sort out that a loose wire is hanging outside my house.

I would prefer to get the original connection working.

Solair

Just pick a point on a gable wall near a power socket and give eircom a shout. The guys shouldn't have any issue doing a neat 'drop' into that straight through the wall and they'll tidy up any dangling messy wires. They're usually fairly neat to be fair to them.

Last

The most probable situation is that one of your socket/outlet has a short circuit. With a little direction would you feel confident to disconnect/reconnect cables. If so I would be happy to try to assist. If not I would suggest that you call eircom and report problem again and when the technician calls out offer them a few bob to sort out the problem. If they are not intrested ask them if they know anyone else who would.

Lawdie

Last wrote: »

If not I would suggest that you call eircom and report problem again and when the technician calls out offer them a few bob to sort out the problem. If they are not interested ask them if they know anyone else who would.

I tried that on the last visit with no joy. The original electrician is calling out in two weeks. He should sort the problem.