Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Telephony Wiring + Equipment => Topic started by: aesmith on September 15, 2016, 11:51:21 AM
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After all the dust settled on the big lightning damage our line was left with a continuous hum/buzz. Yet again. First Openreach visit found a fault, around 1/2 way between us an the public road, a few days later that was reported fixed but the noise was unchanged. Third visit today, the guy found a fault reported as 13m from the master socket, but then when he opened a joint he found the fault actually much further away. Again referred back to the underground team. The guy spent quite a bit of time away checking before he came back to report, apparently the line was clean at the pole by the public road, but noisy at one of the joints a 100m or so from the house. Interestingly he said he wasn't really supposed to open up these joints, which sort of begs the question as to what sort of fault he actually could have fixed.
One thing I think I need to resolve is that we have concealed joint behind the plaster where the line comes into the house, one sort of cable goes in from the outside, and a different type of cable pops out of the plaster and runs to the socket. OR guy wasn't happy with that, he really wanted to access whatever sort of joint that was, although in the event he proved the fault to lie further away.
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Another OR guy round today, not an appointment but he needed directions to find the house. Bizarrely although this was referred to the "underground" team, and this guy was from that team, he wasn't authorised or qualified to dig. I asked if it would help if the joints just happened to be lying on the surface (because I'd dug them up), but apparently that wouldn't help him. What's that all about? He's requeued the job noting that this underground cable is, well, underground.
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Any digging that is required on the highways and byways (Flags, tarmac, block paving etc) are sent to our contractors to perform, it has been like this for approx. 25yrs now.
Historically, if the digging was to be done in 'soft' (Mud, grass etc), we would perform the task ourselves. However, due to a few 'Near miss' incidents whereby the electric cable was mistaken for our own armoured UG cables, Openreach introduced a 'Safe dig' policy ....... or at least they have in my operational area.
This means a dedicated team of individuals will do the deed, once the engineer has proven where the fault lies. Don't blame the engineers, this is mandatory. It comes under the 'compliance banner' and serious disciplinary action could follow.
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Don't blame the engineers
Don't worry I don't. There's actually an ex-OR guy at work and comparing his accounts with the hoops that the current engineers have to jump through it sounds as if the organisation is now in a virtual straitjacket of procedures and targets and compliance.
It must be costing them though, for example that's now two abortive visits already, the first attendance wasn't an underground engineer at all, and the second although from the underground team wasn't qualified to dig. Why would they have been dispatched to a fault where the whole extend from exchange to DP and from DP to end user is all underground cable? It's even more bizarre because the "underground" cable actually lies on the surface for much of it's length, and even the joints that are buried are just under turfs that can be lifted out by hand. That's why I offered to expose them for him, however apparently that wouldn't get him off the hook so I can only conclude that the cable is classified and known as one that requires this "dig skill", so he'd be in trouble for doing any work on it.
I would also comment that only reason our previous fault made any progress was when the 5th engineer, not an underground team member, did actually pop open a couple of joints to prove the fault lay along the length from house to DP and finally knock on the head the persistent suggestion of REIN. He was presumably chancing his arm outside OR rules, but if it wasn't for him it would never have been fixed.
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Don't worry I don't. There's actually an ex-OR guy at work and comparing his accounts with the hoops that the current engineers have to jump through it sounds as if the organisation is now in a virtual straitjacket of procedures and targets and compliance.
It must be costing them though, for example that's now two abortive visits already, the first attendance wasn't an underground engineer at all, and the second although from the underground team wasn't qualified to dig. Why would they have been dispatched to a fault where the whole extend from exchange to DP and from DP to end user is all underground cable? It's even more bizarre because the "underground" cable actually lies on the surface for much of it's length, and even the joints that are buried are just under turfs that can be lifted out by hand. That's why I offered to expose them for him, however apparently that wouldn't get him off the hook so I can only conclude that the cable is classified and known as one that requires this "dig skill", so he'd be in trouble for doing any work on it.
I would also comment that only reason our previous fault made any progress was when the 5th engineer, not an underground team member, did actually pop open a couple of joints to prove the fault lay along the length from house to DP and finally knock on the head the persistent suggestion of REIN. He was presumably chancing his arm outside OR rules, but if it wasn't for him it would never have been fixed.
This is just my own personal thoughts (well, plenty of other engineers that I talk to, as well), but procedures, compliance or whatever we call it …… really does seem to hold us back.
That, coupled with the real culprit that was introduced 25yrs ago (The Work Manager system - a work auto-allocating machine), sees that sometimes wrong engineers are despatched to tasks.
Back in the good 'ol days, we had patch ownership ….. this means you worked on your own patch day in-day out. You very rarely travelled outside your patch and you got to know the local network like you know your own family. Plus, the work was allocated by someone who had done the job, and knew his men's abilities and capabilities ….. ensuring a high success rate of 'the right man to the right job'.
The WM takes all that away ….. :no:
So, the WM machine doesn't know that your entire feed is underground for its entirety …… it can only allocate tasks based on the test result the ISP has given the task (i.e.: Overhead, UG, Broadband, REIN, Hot-site etc), which is why you had a UG engineer, but presumably not safe-dig trained ??
It matters not what the EU thinks about the cable, how deep it is, that they themselves would be willing to dig it up …… all that matters is compliance with the rules & regs (especially where health and safety are concerned) that BTOR lay down.
It isn't as you conclude that the cable is labelled as 'Dig skill', so the engineer would get in trouble if working on it. We don't have that info on our tasks when allocated initially. It's the fact that we are regularly and randomly audited on our work which would throw up the skilling issue had the non-skilled engineer worked on the cable ?
If that was me I would have done exactly the same, getting tin-tacked for gross negligence and the possibility of losing ones pension is more than enough to make me walk away. Mr aesmith (or any other EU) are highly unlikely to provide the lifestyle I've become accustomed to should the other option happen. ;)
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.. which is why you had a UG engineer, but presumably not safe-dig trained ??
I think that's the case. He was on the phone to see if someone could come out to him, but nobody available that day so all he could do was case the joint a little and write up his notes. Still seems a little odd that he couldn't progress if I did the digging, but would there be a presumption (or risk) that they'd treat that as me digging on his instruction, ie as bad as him doing so himself?
By the way are you ever up in NE Scotland? Lots of these guys seem to be on a scheme of secondment for two weeks at a time, one said it was paying for his holiday, another it's going towards his new kitchen. Sounds like hard work though.
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My own opinion again, but 'You doing the digging' is akin to you digging up the gas main, just because it isn't a couple of feet below ground as it should be.
It's a carte blanch no-no !!! Just because it's 50vDC doesn't make it right and proper that anyone can start digging our cables up, or pulling them out of the 1" ground they're partly submerged in. There's also the inherent danger (as mooted above), that MR DIY (as well as OR engineers) will mistake an electrical cable for one of ours.
As I've pointed out in many, many posts (encouraging the sometime name of 'broken record'), it is one rule fits all ........ it is the same for the obscure town with 5 occupants in the Scottish highlands, as it is on Tottenham Court Road in Central London.
Re your comment about Scotland engineers .................. I have mentioned elsewhere on here that we regularly (every other day) get a SMS text begging for volunteers to work in Scotland. I did my stint working away for a full 3yrs, back when my kids were young and cash was needed ..... and it was very lucrative I have to admit. But these days, I like my own bed and enjoy the gatherings of friends and family for food and drink too much, to even consider doing that again !!!
We all know ... time, circumstances, wealth and health play a big part in how we choose to live life. Much as like the idea of working in Scotland, the body is telling me to stick down here !!! ;) ;D ;D
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Relying on updates from the service provider, OR reports that the fault or job has been passed to "licensed operators". Does that mean a non-Openreach contractor, or does that just refer to qualified OR person? (Or misquoted by the CP).
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It definitely means our contractors.
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We've been away and during that time I got a message from the CP saying the fault was reported as clear. Now I'm back I'm disappointed but not totally surprised to find that the noise on the line is exactly as it was. I can see this is going to be a struggle. I think I need to start kicking up a fuss with the CP to see if it can be escalated, it's ridiculous that nothing's been achieved after four visits and several weeks. At least they're not (yet) claiming it's REIN.
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Had the sixth and seventh Openreach visits yesterday, one who can't work on it because he's not an underground engineer, and the second one who claimed he was unable to hear the noise.
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Looks like the end of the line now, the current PSTN provider is refusing to progress the fault any further. The annoying thing is that on a normal phone call the noise is clearly audible at my end, but must be filtered out so that nothing's heard by the remote party.
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Looks like the end of the line now, the current PSTN provider is refusing to progress the fault any further.
Who is your current provider?
You should now ask for a deadlock letter, as there is a clear specification for PSTN circuits . . . one element of which is No Audible Noise.
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Who is your current provider?
You should now ask for a deadlock letter, as there is a clear specification for PSTN circuits . . . one element of which is No Audible Noise.
The problem is with faults of this nature, they will be raised as a CDTA (Conscious Decision To Appoint) which means our remit is to carry out a Fast Test before attending site, then once at the premises carry out a PQT, and finally listen for audible noise and perform an Eclipse test.
If all tests pass ..... we leave and we bill the ISP. Them's the rules. No-one is saying there isn't a fault, but if it isn't prevalent when we're on-site what can we do ??
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I think he is with aaisp looking at mdws..
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If all tests pass ..... we leave and we bill the ISP. Them's the rules. No-one is saying there isn't a fault, but if it isn't prevalent when we're on-site what can we do ??
Perhaps billing the ISP should delayed, say 14 days or possibly longer, and only billed if there is not a repeat fault report with no fault found. Some sort of automated system like this would probably save both sides a lot of wasted time.
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The problem is with faults of this nature, they will be raised as a CDTA (Conscious Decision To Appoint) which means our remit is to carry out a Fast Test before attending site, then once at the premises carry out a PQT, and finally listen for audible noise and perform an Eclipse test.
It's the audible noise that's the issue at the moment, so it's nice to know that is part of the standard test. Last appointment the engineer did what you said, no fault found on the tests but audible noise. He passed that back to Underground.
The problem came when the Underground engineer denied that he could hear audible noise (I could hear it standing next to him, but he had the earpiece to his ear and said he could hear nothing). The whole experience was odd - for example he tried to test the ADSL with his tester set to PPPoE, and his first attempt at listening for audible noise was with the phone off-hook playing dial tone. He wanted everything plugged back in and powered up and tested via the DSL faceplate rather than the test socket. There was a load of other stuff he came out with that didn't seem to make any sense. It was just a really odd visit, but as this is the last word from OR it puts the CP at a loss how to proceed as understandably they don't want to clock up charges.
DSL is with A&A, PSTN with Pulse 8.
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I thought AAISP had a good reputation for being able to kick BT into shape over such faults?
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I thought AAISP had a good reputation for being able to kick BT into shape over such faults?
They do, but this isn't a DSL issue, it lies with the copper pair. So my plan B is to get them to take over the copper as well, now that we can live without calls on the line. First I think I need to give Pulse 8 a chance to see if they can move it on. It's a tough one in any case since the provider can't actually hear the noise first hand, they have me saying it's an abnormal noise (and three or four OR engineers not disputing that) but now they have the last engineer's notes saying it's perfectly quiet.
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I stopped paying line rental to BT a long while ago and started paying AA for copper pairs instead just for this reason, so there could be no buck-passing over faults and that plan has worked fine for me this year.
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This seems to be a complete brick wall now. Although there's a clear loud buzz on the line it passes BT remote tests, meaning we're still in that "conscious decision to appoint" territory. The CP is trying to dispute charges raised by BT by the guy who said that the line "sounded normal", and won't take any further action at least until those charges are over turned. The frustrating thing is that I've not managed to find any way or recording the noise, and it isn't audible at the far end of a telephone call (presumably outside the 400-4000 range), so it's firmly my word against there's, making it difficult for the CP.
I'm even considering running my own cable bypassing the problem area.
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Hi, the fact that the noise is a great deal more audible to you than the caller would generally indicate the fault is located close to your end of the circuit.
Your following statement really sets the alarm bells ringing, if you will forgive the pun.
One thing I think I need to resolve is that we have concealed joint behind the plaster where the line comes into the house, one sort of cable goes in from the outside, and a different type of cable pops out of the plaster and runs to the socket.
If your issues are BB related remember it is delivered via the copper pair so this really needs to be addressed believe me, as no engineer IMHO worth his salt would be prepared to rely on a measurement taken from the the internal wiring, if as you state it is purely a PSTN issue it still needs to be addressed, as most noisy lines will " LINE TEST OK" so a non service affecting hard fault(Battery/Earth/Loop/Capacitance/AC balance) condition may have been cleared, yet you still have a High Resistance Fault (noisy line).
Please,please,please find and expose that plastered over joint (it will always be problem) and make everyones life that little bit simpler.
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Cheers, I agree the concealed joint is an unknown that could really do with being addressed. Thinking about it the other day, I can't really see any alternative to cutting a hole and having a look. It doesn't really move things on, as at the moment the CP are refusing to send OR and I can't see that changing until the fault worsens enough to show up on a remote test.
I would still put money on the issue lying further away. Since we moved here it we get three or four line faults a year, and so far all have been found to lie with the cable that runs between our house and the public road. This is mostly surface run cable and the cable and joints are always getting run over, ploughed up, burned etc. The fault that was cleared last January lies between two joints along that length and it was cleared by moving our line onto a "better pair" rather than by finding and correcting the actual defect.
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Cheers, I agree the concealed joint is an unknown that could really do with being addressed. Thinking about it the other day, I can't really see any alternative to cutting a hole and having a look. It doesn't really move things on, as at the moment the CP are refusing to send OR and I can't see that changing until the fault worsens enough to show up on a remote test.
I would still put money on the issue lying further away. Since we moved here it we get three or four line faults a year, and so far all have been found to lie with the cable that runs between our house and the public road. This is mostly surface run cable and the cable and joints are always getting run over, ploughed up, burned etc. The fault that was cleared last January lies between two joints along that length and it was cleared by moving our line onto a "better pair" rather than by finding and correcting the actual defect.
For info: That is what we term a 'Fault in length' ...... as opposed to a fault in an accessible joint. Protocol is to change pairs until we are down to the last few, then the planners will request a new cable be pulled in.
Faults 'in length' are generally down to cable/rope burn when pulling in a separate cable/rope/sub-duct down the same length of duct, for example to provide a FTTC cab.
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Are you still thinking about getting AA to take over the line? Would certainly simplify things, less future chance of buck-passing and confusion over categorisation.
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The frustrating thing is that I've not managed to find any way or recording the noise, and it isn't audible at the far end of a telephone call (presumably outside the 400-4000 range),
We have some DEC phones as well as land-line one's and there is a 'Record call' button on them which is useful for that.
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Are you still thinking about getting AA to take over the line? Would certainly simplify things, less future chance of buck-passing and confusion over categorisation.
Funny you should say that, the order with AA was committed yesterday and although they don't take over the PSTN until a couple of weeks they decided to raise this as a DSL fault. Have a guy coming out on Thursday.
Fingers crossed my faith in Openreach gets restored. Up till that last visit they all seemed decent guys, prepared to do what their systems allowed and genuinely wanting to help. That last guy soured my whole view, he was prepared to tell a straight lie presumably to get the job off his plate, and the fallout is charges to the provider (that I won't be paying) and extreme difficulty in getting the fault moving again.
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One step forward and two back. I'm finding it hard to keep faith in OR at this stage. OR engineer turned up, nice helpful guy who'd actually attended before and was surprise that the underground team had denied the fault existed. This time he said he got an "amber" on his tester, he confirmed abnormal noise on the line that should not be present. Fault referred to underground team as normal, and I can see from his notes that he's explicitly mentioned the buzzing as well as the test fail. Openreach have simply vetoed this and not permitted the underground job to be raised.
A&A are on the case, and we'll see whether they can make any progress.
Aside from that I'm seriously thinking the only way that line will be fixed is if I do so myself.
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Forgot I hadn't updated this. Noisy line is fixed, although not without further almost farcical elements. I think the (very helpful) OR guy was getting frustrated at repeatedly visiting, proving it as underground but have the case knocked back to him after underground refuses to act. Anyway after A&A had escalated, and specifically asked for underground "dig" engineer to be assigned, who should we get on doorstep was the very same guy, very apologetic and saying he can't understand why he was sent back. He was back the same afternoon with another (presumably underground) guy and together they tracked down and fixed the fault. As expected it was on the stretch where we'd been swapped to another pair last winter, but this time they found the hidden joint, basically smashed and buried in the mud so not readily visible.
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Hopefully there will be no more trouble with that line. :fingers: