Kitz Forum

Broadband Related => FTTC and FTTP Issues => Topic started by: Jasonkruys on October 12, 2018, 11:54:16 PM

Title: Absolute Shambles - I hope it doesn't happen often!
Post by: Jasonkruys on October 12, 2018, 11:54:16 PM
Today I realised just how much we rely on the Internet in our home - everything has stopped working, and it is a nightmare! The worst part is, trying to get it fixed is like banging your head against a brick wall.

I'm with Sky on Fttc and on Monday afternoon my line resynced, with an RDI of 4 (misdetection?). The effect was noticeable immediately, with complaints from the family. When I got home from work I had a look - my upstream sync had reduced from around 6500 (with a snrm of 6.8db) to around 1700 (strangely with a snrm of 6.2db). I rebooted the modem, and it resynced to the same speed - the downstream appeared to be unaffected except a reduction of around 2db snrm - the line has been banded for over a year with a 10db+ snrm so I lost no downstream speed. Did all the usual checks, tested on test socket, swapped modems etc - concluded it was clearly a line fault.

The previous week I had seen people working on my cabinet - I wondered if it was related.

Here's where the frustration starts. I spent 2.5 hours on the phone to Sky over two days, running speed tests rebooting modems, putting their Sky Hub back on the line etc before they accepted there was a potential fault and organised an Openreach Engineer visit. I was lucky - got one relatively quickly, for today between 1300 and 1800. I duly booked the afternoon off work. The modem stayed synced at that rate over the next few days, but a few times my telephone indicated a line error and there was no dial tone. Yesterday, I received a text message from Openreach reminding me of the appointment - great.

Today I left work in good time, and drove home past my cabinet - 2 people were working on it. I got home at 1230 and patiently waited in all afternoon. At around 1530 my line resynced - still at the lower upstream rate. Maybe the engineer was at the cabinet before he came here, I wondered. At 1656 I lost all Internet service - modem was unable to sync at all. You guessed it, at 1800hrs still no sign of the engineer. On the phone to sky - on hold for 40 minutes. Get through to someone, they have a look and can't see any info - job still looks open. They persisted digging and at one point indicated there was a note that suggested they were at the exchange at 1530, but nothing since. No further info. Sky operator said he would contact Openreach and call me back. 20 mins later I get a call back. Sky operator says that Openreach said that they couldn't allocate an engineer due to demand - 1. Does this happen? And 2. After texting me to confirm my visit, why would they not tell me and save me wasting my afternoon waiting (only my mobile number was on the job - relevant later)?

Next step is apparently Sky will call me back tomorrow when they can engage with Openreach to set up another appointment - apparently it has to go a different route (within Sky perhaps?) to ensure it gets completed, and Sky suggested they (Openreach?) will call me after the call tomorrow to arrange an appointment - anyone know if that is 'a thing?' Or is it just some miscommunication, and it is the same that happened last time - a qualified sky person that rang me back, books a slot on the Openreach system for an appointment that is within 72hours? Is there a different procedure for a missed slot, rather than book another one?

In the meantime I have been wondering why a few phone calls I was expecting didn't come through. I've found out - I've received two phone calls where when I picked up it was a 3-way conversation and everyone was confused and after putting the phone down and picking it back up again I rejoined their conversation, rather than getting a dial tone. I have also received a further 3 phone calls where the caller was calling someone else. Out of interest I dialed my mobile number from my house phone and it was a different number that came up! I called my own number from my mobile and it rang out. It appears my line has been swapped/merged (3 way call, remember) with someone else's! Is this likely to have been done with the cabinet work? How does this even happen?

A quick message on the local Facebook page, and it seems I am not the only one - there are a few reports on the same thing happening to at least one other person (not the person I am swapped/merged with) and at least one of the addresses is near my cabinet. They have been told it will be investigated and won't be fixed sooner than a week.

So currently, I have no Internet in the house (which I didn't realise would be such a nightmare), I can't receive incoming calls on my number, and if I manage to get a call out on my land line without someone interrupting it, it is on a different number (presumably their bill as well?)!

To top it all off, my only route to resolution seems to be communicating with Openreach (assuming any messages are getting passed on) through a 3rd party I can never get through to, and when I do the person normally has to log it and get someone else from the right team to call me back a day later! Why does it have to be so hard?! *If* Sky call me back tomorrow, I will advise them of the line (voice) merge/swap and hope they believe me and hope it somehow expedites the right thing to happen!

To be fair, when you get through to the 'right' person at Sky, they seem to want to help and they call you back when they say they will, but it is so frustrating not knowing what they are able to do/doing in the mean time - it's like communicating in morse code!

Arrrgh!

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Title: Re: Absolute Shambles - I hope it doesn't happen often!
Post by: burakkucat on October 13, 2018, 12:06:15 AM
It read as if someone has made a right pig's ear of the connections through that primary cross-connection point.  :(

I wonder if certain contractors were involved?  :-X
Title: Re: Absolute Shambles - I hope it doesn't happen often!
Post by: Jasonkruys on October 13, 2018, 12:14:01 AM
It read as if someone has made a right pig's ear of the connections through that primary cross-connection point.  :(

I wonder if certain contractors were involved?  :-X
Tee hee. I have to say I didn't notice their vans to see if it was a certain contractor we all know and love.

The most frustrating thing is that using carrier pigeon / morse code / knocking on water pipes would probably be more effective at reporting the fault and getting it resolved than the ridiculous route we have to go through. Chances are, if I ever do get an engineer, it'll probably be the characters that have done such an excellent job on the cabinet when they are free, having finished their job!

What would they be doing at the cabinet that would end up with multiple lines all messed up?

EDIT: Looking at street view it looks like they might be putting a new copper cabinet in and moving the lines across. I'm sure the cabinet they were working on (definitely not fibre) was all shiny and on the opposite side of the road to the existing tire looking one on street view. Is this likely? Anywhere I can find out for interest? Nothing in roadworks.org, but then again they have done no work in the road.

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Title: Re: Absolute Shambles - I hope it doesn't happen often!
Post by: burakkucat on October 13, 2018, 12:20:50 AM
What would they be doing at the cabinet that would end up with multiple lines all messed up?

Depending upon how the cabinet has "evolved" over the years it could have been nothing more than removing direct links and connecting to tie-cables . . . if provisioning a new VDSL2 (ITU-T G.993.2) service or the inverse, if the tie-cables were being recovered from a ceased service.
Title: Re: Absolute Shambles - I hope it doesn't happen often!
Post by: Weaver on October 13, 2018, 01:25:22 AM
I do hope you get it sorted soon. I have had one of my lines set to Openreach ‘enhanced care’ (https://aa.net.uk/broadband-care.html) by my ISP, which costs extra money (lots) every month. This is suppose to give you priority fault repair and a shorter maximum call-out time. It has been incredibly good, next day call out if the ISP can report it to BTW in the morning. Quite often, because of my very dicey health and my wife’s work commitments, I need to ask for an afternoon appointment or a particular day because my wife is tied up, so in that case I am not asking OR for the very first appointment they have, so many times I am nit even testing the system properly. The reason I wanted this really is for the case of massive storms - widespread lightning damage or a hurricane - which wipe out everything in the area and overload OR, so in that case I want to pay to jump the queue.