Long term issue with faulty landline.

[DennisD51]

Hi all,

It's a long time since I went through the process of trying to get this issue fixed, and I would have linked to the previous threads if I could have, but the links in my profile now lead to a 404 error. 

For reference, this is the old link in my profile with the date and heading of the original topic. 

Apart from the severe crackling, we also have the issue of regularly being unable to make an external call, although this can sometimes be fixed by making an incoming call with a mobile. For whatever reason doing this kicks the outgoing ability into life. Sometimes.

At the time, in 2020, while connected to customer services, I went through all the standard procedures of removing the face plate from the front of the Openreach master box, connecting my phone directly to the internal master socket, dialling a call out and then dialling a call in with my mobile, and finally trying all this with a different phone.

All to no avail. 

The operator did whatever tests she could from her end, and the outcome of that was the decision to have an engineer come to the house. 

And that's as far as I could take it, although I did get a call from an engineer to arrange an appointment.

If you look at the date (March 2020), that is sadly when Covid started to really bite, and with my wife and I being pensioners and her with particularly severe asthmer, we were in one of the most vulnerable groups and couldn't take the chance of allowing anyone into our house. Especially someone who could probably have been in contact with other properties and people.

Covid went on for a long time, and we got used to using our mobile phones in place of the unusable landline. And it's been like that since. An ornament sitting there which we weren't really bothered about. 

Until last month.

On January 13th our O2 mobile signal went down in Esh Winning, Durham. And it's still down with the next update from O2 scheduled for the 20th February!!

Apparently this is an upgrade to a single mast which encountered unexpected technical problems. Unbelievable, and this multi-provider outage has now made the local BBC news for the third time.

What this has done is make us realise we do actually need that landline working properly. 

Finally, apologies for the lengthy post, which wouldn't have been necessary if I could have either continued on from the previous one, or simply just linked to it.

The point of it also is that I really do not want to jump through all those initiall hoops again with a faulty line and a no doubt very helpful customer services person whose dialect I really struggled with last time. My 74 year old ears are not what they used to be.

I no longer have a spare phone and I would also have to disconnect a large TV from a number of hifi separates and a heavy third party glass swivel stand to access the box behind it. 

Can I respectfully request that we continue from where I left off in 2020. The phone hasn't fixed itself during those years and is in fact worse.

Thanking you all sincerely in advance, 

Dennis (Dixon) 

[Debbie-TalkTalk · Accepted solution]

Morning @DennisD51 

I'm so glad to hear that this fault has now been resolved.

Thanks for the tip about recording the noise on the line before the engineer arrives. On occasions the fault cannot be replicated when the engineer arrives, so that is a handy tip 🙂

[DennisD51]

Hi all, 

Firstly, thank you all for your assistance and input.

OpenReach engineer came today, rechecked our connections internally with a more sensitive piece of equipment (his words) and gave it a clean bill of health.

Off he went, or should I say off they went, as there were two of them, and shortly after returned to check if it was fixed. Sadly not.

They'd found the issue but admitted the fix mustn't have been as good as they thought it was. Another trip to the nearby street "cabinet" was successful. All interference gone.

For info, the issue was that over time the insulation had deteriorated on two connections, and they were shorting out. As easy as that. And as of this moment almost 5 hours later, line is still perfect.

And finally, if it's of help to anyone else with a similar problem, both the TalkTalk and the OpenReach engineers found my recordings of the crackling and buzzing noises extremely helpful. Sods Law often dictates that faulty equipment can work perfectly when the technician/engineer calls.

Most modern phones have a record feature and I think all mobiles have a recording app. Well worth the effort. 

Thanks again guys for all your efforts.

Sorted  🙂

Dennis

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi @DennisD51 

That's great, thank you for letting us know 🙂

We will check in again with you next week after the Openreach engineer visit.

Thanks again.

Debbie

[DennisD51]

Hi Michelle, 

Engineer came this afternoon and after doing his various tests and actually hearing the crackling and experiencing for himself the no outgoing call issue, confirmed that all is OK with my equipment and that the fault is outside somewhere.

Received another call not soon after he left to arrange an appointment with an OpenReach engineer.

This is arranged for next Monday afternoon.

Great customer service.

So thanks again everyone and I will keep the topic updated. 🙂 

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Good morning,

I'm glad to hear this and please let us know how you get on 🙂

Thanks

Michelle

[DennisD51]

Hi Debbie. 

Had a call a couple of hours ago, and an engineer is coming to see me tomorrow afternoon.

I'll update with the outcome.

Thank you. Your assistance is very much appreciated. 🙂 

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi Dennis

Thanks for your reply.

I've requested that this engineer is arranged and I will post back to confirm the date and time.

Debbie

[DennisD51]

Thanks for your response Debbie, that would be appreciated. I've attached two zipped up mp3 sound samples to this post which should be useful for an engineer to hear.

One is the noise we get when we can't make an external call, and the other is an example of the crackling we get 90% of the time with incoming or outgoing calls.

In the absence of the original topic, just for info, I'll point out that 3 different phones have been tried on this line, one of them a new BT cordless phone which we purchased because we thought our original phone may have been the issue. It wasn't. The other being an old style wired phone which we no longer have.

If you listen to those recordings you'll understand why I'm puzzled that no fault is evident on the line.

Anyways, I hope the recordings and background info is useful, and finally can I request a contact from the engineer be made any time from midday onwards. We have family "taxiing" commitments on a morning.

Thanks again. 

Dennis

[DennisD51]

Thanks for your input Gliwmaeden2. I'm grateful for it. 

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi Dennis

I'm really sorry to hear this.

The line tests are clear - No faults detected.

Would you like me to arrange a TalkTalk engineer first so they can complete equipment checks for you?

[Gliwmaeden2]

@DennisD51, Talktalk won't be able to just pick up where you left off.

Test socket tests will still need to be done. If they are not done, it's impossible to know whether the fault is internal  / your equipment  or further out of the house.

To avoid the possibility of incurring a charge for an unnecessary engineer visit, it's best to assume that you will be asked to remove other things from the mastersocket etc.

Staff will respond during the day.