Hi Paul,
Your continuing saga does strongly suggest there are difficulties in the supply-side of your D side connections back to the PCP.
Why else would it be necessary for TWO engineer visits just to provide a new service to somebody else?
(Yet more inefficient and costly deployments of BT engineers.)
For those who are yet to become embroiled in the ever increasing impediments of the ageing 20 CN infrastructure,
(That means EVERYBODY until such time as the nation wakes up to the crucial requirementее of point-to-point Fibre To The Home.)it is probably worth explaining how most distribution arrangements are organised.
There will usually be several D side cables radiating from every PCP green cabinet.
Each cable usually takes the minimum TOTAL cable length strategy "hedgehopping" back and forth to each Distribution Point (DP); thus often increasing the D side lengths to each house.
At every DP (and sometimes at intermediate points if a cable has been damaged and repaired) a cable joint is inserted with every wire of every active pair individually crimped in its "birds-nest".
Some pairs will be straight-through connections to the next joint. The remaining local pairs depart from the main cable in a multicore (e.g. 20 pair) cable to the actual distribution box nearly always at the top of the pole**.
I hope those who have not yet been lost in this labyrinth will observe that their service is connected by (Petroleum) jelly crimps at every joint up to the DP and then there are two sets of connections leading to the drop cable to the house, sometimes with yet more connections there.
Every crimp is a potential source of a high resistance connection, particularly with age-brittle aluminium alloy for EVERY crimp in the entire joint.
Perhaps it is now obvious what a stirling job the average BT linesman does and the thankless, frustrating, task that awaits him or her when attempting to find a faulty joint.
Their JDSU (or similar) test equipment can help indicate the approximate distance of the discontinuity, but it is a very time-consuming task to be completed under significant pressure to get on to the next job.
Does anybody now wonder why so many, sometimes intermittent, faults go undetected and un-repaired for so long ?
** The above description covers what I believe to be the majority of phone connections. There are three exceptions that I'm aware of:-
1. The distribution on more modern estates where all cables are underground. In this case the same joints are made back to the PCP but the local DP function is done within a single joint sleeve.
2. There are some hollow metal distribution columns where the DP is situated at ground level within the base of the column.
3. Similar distribution arrangements but using cables and boxes fixed directly to buildings.
ее Apologies if have already rambled off-topic for too long here so I will start a new topic for a practical solution to this horrible quandary which is here:-
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,10655.msg210353.html#msg210353Kind regards,
Walter