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Author Topic: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines  (Read 3178 times)

Weaver

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Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« on: March 15, 2017, 06:22:16 AM »

Engineers were out yesterday, working on all three lines, can't make out where, although it does mention "underground" and wrt line 1 it now says, Line 1:
Quote
Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128677310948 Warning Message: 9437 This fault will be closed automatically in 24 hours unless you respond.   bt
Yesterday 16:36:00      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128677310948 Estimated Response Time: 2017-03-14T23:59:59   bt
Yesterday 16:36:00      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128677310948 Clear: 82.1 In Length AreaCable (Underground)   bt
Yesterday 16:36:00      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128677310948 Status: Open - Clear Unconfirmed   bt
Monday 16:36:02      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128677310948 Informational Message: 4150 Response Required - Fault Report Cleared   bt
Monday 16:36:02      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128677310948 Estimated Response Time: 2017-03-14T23:59:59   bt
Monday 16:36:02      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128677310948 Clear: 82.1 In Length AreaCable (Underground)   bt
Monday 16:36:02      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128677310948 Status: Open - Clear Unconfirmed   bt
Monday 16:35:57      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128677310948 Notes Field: 13/03/2017 16:34:00 - Dave Mort


===Ring ahead information===

Primary EU contact name : Cecil Ward
Primary Contact no : wrong as I have no voice - it's a dsl-only line
What was the outcome of the call ? : Successful call
Call date & time : 13/03/2017 13:45

===Ring ahead information ends===

===Point Of Intervention notes===

Between this point...
- Location: Rd to heasta near no dhachaidl
- Work Point: JF2
And this point...
- Location: Rd to haesta, 2.5km cattle gr
- Work Point: DIG

Plant details...
- Plant affected: JNT100
- Plant type: MC32

Multiple Intervention?: N
===Point Of Intervention notes ends===
Pair changed in buried length, Service restored, FastTest2 now OK , customer not visited

-- edited because the last line had been omitted since I'm too stupid to do cut 'n' paste correctly.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2017, 10:32:38 AM by Weaver »
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Black Sheep

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Re: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2017, 07:27:42 AM »

It is not completely clear as to the full extent of the work done, this will have been covered in the manually input notes from the engineer.

All we can see is the POI (Point Of Intervention) notes, which indicates work on a 100pr cable between two points ......... one being in an MC32 (Mechanical closure) joint in a JF2 (Joint-box footway 2, in other words on a public footpath), the other being DIG (Direct In Ground - in other words, buried).

Whether pair changes have occurred or whether wet, corroded joints were found ... only the job notes will say ??. 
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Weaver

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Re: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2017, 09:35:40 AM »

I can't seem to see the job notes for line 1 - perhaps they haven't come through yet.

Line 3 (this is the one where the router's ethernet port was burnt out btw) simply says:

Quote
Yesterday 12:49:07      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128809657824 Informational Message: 3236 Notification Only - Trouble Report Amendment Request Accepted   bt
Yesterday 12:49:07      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128809657824 Status: Open - Implementing Solution   bt
Yesterday 12:49:03      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128809657824 Informational Message: 3242 Notification Only - Trouble Report Amendment Request is Pending   bt
Yesterday 12:48:02      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128809657824 Error Message: 4011 Amend Report Request Rejected - Appointment Reference is not provided or invalid or slot no longer available.   bt
Yesterday 12:48:43      Note 585BCZNS WLR3 Repair appointment reserved 2017-03-21 PM   Shaun@a
Yesterday 12:47:44   Yesterday 12:47:45   Note 584BCZNS WLR3 Repair appointment reserved 2017-03-21 AM

And I think that means on the 21st OR will come and swap out the NTE5 - I've asked them to do all three NTE5s. And guess what - AA tell me that OR are supposed to be coming out twice in the one day, to do line 3 and then to do line 4's NTE5s. And AA found that BT's system would not book anyone to do line 1's NTE5 yet, for some reason, so that would be another huge waste of the poor engineers' time.
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Weaver

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Re: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2017, 10:01:13 AM »

And line 4 reads

Quote
BT Test xDSL Status Check:Pass Standalone sub test passed successfully.Pass OK. Circuit In Sync
BRAS=2326kb/s FTR=2278kb/s MSR=2848kb/s ServOpt=1 I/L=A
A SERVICE OPTION CHANGE ORDER IS IN PROGRESS ON THIS LINE
Up Sync=471kb/s LoopLoss=41.7dB SNR=6.3dB ErrSec=0 HECErr=0 Cells=0
Down Sync=2613kb/s LoopLoss=65.2dB SNR=1.5dB ErrSec=0 HECErr=N/A Cells=0   cwcc@a
Yesterday 15:38:13      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128810085446 Informational Message: 4150 Response Required - Fault Report Cleared   bt
Yesterday 15:38:13      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128810085446 Estimated Response Time: 2017-03-14T14:42:07   bt
Yesterday 15:38:13      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128810085446 Clear: 82.2 In Joint AreaCable (Underground)   bt
Yesterday 15:38:13      Track PSTN Fault 5-7-128810085446 Status: Open - Clear Unconfirmed
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Weaver

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Re: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2017, 10:30:13 AM »

What does the 82.2 mean, for line 4, I wonder? “Clear: 82.2 In Joint AreaCable (Underground)" - 82m from the exchange perhaps? So that would be right in the middle of Broadford if this guess is right,  perhaps that is the 'AreaCable' before it splits apart and some of it later branches of to Heasta where I am, total guesswork.

And for line 3, it says “Status: Open - Implementing Solution” - wonder what exactly that means, more work to do? Or they need to make a plan, or what? That was the line that got zapped.

For Line 1, "No dhachaidl" would be Japanese for "mo dhachaigh" which Mrs Weaver tells me is my good friend Fiona’s extremely unimaginative name for her house which is on the Heasta road in Harrapul, a suburb of the vast metropolis that is Broadford, very near the main A road and so quite near the telephone exchange. This point is where the line is still surrounded by houses before it heads off up into the entirely unpopulated moors before it gets to me, the first house in Heasta. There is a cattle grid at Harrapul, just near the aforementioned "Mo Dhachaigh", where the notorious Gàidhlig-Japanese art-porn movie was filmed. This is 1.44km by road from the Broadford Telephone Exchange NSBFD according to freemaptools. Perhaps the other comment means 2.5km  from the exchange to the fault, rather than 2.5km from that cattle grid at Harrapul. That would place it at one of the trouble spots where they were working before - because Janet noted some evidence of works right by the roadside as she drove past. This is on the rise as you head uphill (southbound) towards Heasta, south of the main bridge over the stream that is near the Harrapul fank. If so, it would mean that I was correct in my guess that the earlier repair works were never finished off properly.
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Weaver

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Re: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« Reply #5 on: March 15, 2017, 10:33:52 AM »

I missed the end off the report for line 1 which should have ended with
    “Pair changed in buried length, Service restored, FastTest2 now OK , customer not visited

So that means a quick-and-dirty fix, presumably they put me onto a new length between that point and the exchange? Not between that point and my house? Otherwise they would have had to come all the way out to Heasta too. If I am understanding correctly.

This has been a problem for months, but I couldn't get AA to do anything about it as the fault kept testing pass-fail-pass, as I mentioned in an earlier thread, and being practical about it it was only causing a very minor error rate so I could live with it. AA didn't want to try and get BTOR out only to have them charge AA for time wasting, either that or they just thought they would refuse because the test results were not sufficiently compelling. But I was correct all along. A few times a day, for very short periods, there was minor packet loss (of PPP LCP echo CQM test 'pings') when the line was not fully loaded with a big flat-out transfer.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2017, 10:42:16 AM by Weaver »
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Weaver

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Re: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« Reply #6 on: March 15, 2017, 10:54:56 AM »

Shaun at AA got them out incredibly quickly. I reported it at the weekend and first thing on Monday morning, at some god-awful unearthly hour like 8.20am he had OR on the case and they were on-site in just a few hours. I did have this enhanced care thingy on line 1 (only), but not on the other two lines as it's so expensive and I can't just about live with a reduced service if there is an area-wide disaster as this lightning strike has proved to be.

I didn't report it properly for a while anyway seeing as the strike was on Wednesday, because I was too ill, no power next day, confused about dead modems and then realising that it was the Firebrick (router) that had been damaged.

When she is feeling less tired, I will need to ask Mrs Weaver to swap in the spare Firebrick so that I can get back to having all three lines up. I think that even having a good modem connected to line 3, it won't show as DSL-connected as seen from AA's end while there is no router commanding it - is that correct? A PPPoE modem won't bring DSL up until an Ethernet-connected router tells it to? Would someone sanity-check me? So until I can get a good router back on that port AA will see that the DSL line is down and so can't check the state of the DSL, so I'd better be getting on with it.

Mrs Weaver has been feeling really ill as she has arthritis and bad joints and is shattered in the daytime because of waking up umpteen times in the middle of the night to give me pain medication as well. So she has not been up for much networking replumbing. Swapping modems over again and again the other day did her in she said - it made her hips and knees hurt with all the walking back and forth. Encouraged her to have a daytime nap.
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Weaver

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Re: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« Reply #7 on: March 15, 2017, 11:02:37 AM »

So the answer one of BlackSheep's questions is that a pair-swap was carried out.

BTOR engineers have kept trying to call me on the number associated with the metallic oath line 1. This is no earthly use as there is no phone service on this line. We are VoIP and mobile-only, and the VoIP is a different number altogether. I asked AA to fix the problem of BT having the wrong contact phone number for us stored on file, which I believe they have now done. (I don't think AA themselves were ever making the same mistake, whatever I had entered in the way of contact info on their system, they possibly were just applying a bit of common sense seeing as they can understand what it all means and what will and won't work, whereas BT don't have that knowledge.)

Does anyone know what contact info BTOR can be given to pass on to their engineers? More than one phone number as a fallback, because obviously it's no good trying to phone a dead PSTN phone or a VoIP number that relies on some particular internet connection being up, or some number that relies on the user having mains or whatever.

Can OR engineers have several numbers, including a mobile number? Or an email address or SMS? In fact, what about IM using Twitter? After all, AA do direct-tweet to me (what is it called) all the time with warnings and status updates. Twitter is free, I assume, and is platform-neutral and I assume that it is push, near-realtime IM and quite lightweight? There is a Facebook IM thing too, which Mrs Weaver uses, and that similarly is free and platform-neutral. And what about iMessage - can only dream.

Maybe some day OR might have all these other options written down too, to give them more of a chance of getting through when lots of things are broken, as they are highly likely to be.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2017, 11:46:43 AM by Weaver »
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burakkucat

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Re: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2017, 06:55:30 PM »

I think that even having a good modem connected to line 3, it won't show as DSL-connected as seen from AA's end while there is no router commanding it - is that correct? A PPPoE modem won't bring DSL up until an Ethernet-connected router tells it to? Would someone sanity-check me? So until I can get a good router back on that port AA will see that the DSL line is down and so can't check the state of the DSL, so I'd better be getting on with it.

The DSLAM & modem will synchronise and the G.992.3 link will "come up". So a visual look at each of your three modems' LEDs will tell if a metallic pathway is "sickly".

There will have to be a PPPoE client (at Torr Gorm) to interact with the PPPoE server somewhere in A&A-land. Obviously that higher level interaction requires the lower level G.992.3 link to be active.

Could you ask A&A exactly what they can see with regards to that circuit? Mention that you think the Firebrick has had one port zapped and ask if they would agree?
« Last Edit: March 16, 2017, 06:30:49 PM by burakkucat »
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Black Sheep

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Re: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« Reply #9 on: March 15, 2017, 07:19:40 PM »

Weaver -- we will usually have at least two contact numbers (Landline and mobile number) for residential EU's. With business customers we may have a plethora of contact numbers ...........

............ of course, there's always the anomaly whereby we won't have any info other than the EU's address, and we have to spend time searching our systems, ringing other departments, LLU operators to get this very relevant information.
How these jobs sneak through I have no idea, but they are in the low percentages.
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Weaver

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Re: Openreach Working on Faults on all Three Lines
« Reply #10 on: March 16, 2017, 05:26:42 AM »

@burakkucat - when Mrs Weaver is feeling better will swap Firebricks over and then hopefully be back to normal.

I can't remember, I may have asked Mrs Weaver to leave line 3 modem-less so as not to confuse any tests. OR notes said 'no CPE' iirc.
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