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[Chrysalis]

Yeah he said something along the lines he has to have a reason to do physical work.

[Black Sheep]

For clarification purposes, before people start thinking we are refusing to do any kind of physical work. 

Our remit is to test the pair of wires (MPF). 'We' have been tasked to do this by the ISP, and they pay handsomely for us to be at the EU's premises for 'Up to 2hrs'. This period of time is for us to 'normalise' the installation, thus giving a speedier more stabilised circuit.
We have to perform a PQT on every broadband job, be that Copper or Fibre. Also, an Eclipse (CIDT)/Fast Test is also expected whilst we are at site. On top of that, although not mandatory yet, we usually carry out a 5-minute DSL Close-out test, this determines the speed, attenuation, SNR, and more importantly the FEC/CRC count. We will also usually perform a co-op call with the ISP's tech 2 support, so that they too can run checks against our, and the EU's equipment.

If everything tests OK, and the ISP are happy with their remote viewing of the circuit, then the job gets closed. We are told on the job notes NOT to undergo any speculative changes, purely for the sake of it.

However, should a Network fault be highlighted by one of the tests, then the '2hr time limit', is scrapped and we will stick with the job until it is resolved, however long that takes. Safety and hazard issues dictating, of course.
Slightly off at a tangent, but local directives also dictate how network faulting should be carried out (if a fault has indeed been identified). Some OUC's will have their engineers 'fault to fix', in other words find where the actual fault is. Some will advocate their staff doing a pair change. Very political and this topic has been argued to death a million times over, within BTOR.

This is not posted with the intent to enflame the situation, just to point out the facts of how we are instructed to carry out our work.

[Chrysalis]

Well the problem for me seems to be two things.

1 - The long delay after I reported the water issue, and that its not happening whilst they here (hasnt occured since that big downpour, light rain doesnt affect my line).  The engineer said I probably have a developing joint issue and he thinks one day it will just get much worse after it gets bad enough, but in his words its not bad enough yet to be detected by his equipment and as such find the fault.
2 - The local engineers dont consider me been below my speed estimate to be worthy of work.  It seems they have to find a fault on their tests otherwise its a no go, I am just reporting what I have been told by them.  This last engineer was very polite about it, the one last week was very agressive about it.  The one that seen me today told me he came off a 5 hour job tho and I think he was knackered.  Plusnet told me been below the speed estimate is justification.

When he gave the testing unit to me and told me to play with it (go through all the test result screens) all of them had a green tick and I think one had a yellow tick which said 'ok' instead of good.  The balance was the ok one at 97%, the rest were good.

[Chrysalis]

this is proceeding plusnet convinced me to push it.  They not happy with how local engineers approaching the issue.

[Chrysalis]

By the way guys if anyone is following this, dont know if anyone cares.

I ended up swapping my nte5 after the last visit (as my original was in during all the visits).

The HR behaviour which showed up on multiple engineer tests was never mentioned to plusnet by the engineers, a senior guy at plusnet took openreach's word for it, I was never charged for these visits but unhappy with the result.

the result been (a) plusnet been told my line tested fine every time (it didnt) and (b) my speed estimate been lowered.  Ironically the new speed estimate is still many mbits above my actual speed, so they didnt lower it enough to mask whats going on.

I proceeded to tell plusnet the lower speed estimate is not valid as I only look at the estimate at the point of sale, I dont want any more SFI engineers, plusnet apparently cannot send speed boost engineers on FTTC (this is what they told me privately in ticket).  I got a 3mbit sync speed boost (which has persisted since) and got rid of the HR symptons by swapping out the NTE5 myself, it took me 10 minutes yet none of the visiting engineers managed it.  I was so angry about this I also emailed the CEO of openreach who is still currently investigating the situation.

So as it stands there wont be any more engineers, I dont want them to mess up my wiring, and leaving dodgy NTE5's in place (as they seemed to do) and waste my time.

I openly confessed to openreach and plusnet I have since swapped the NTE5 (front part, not the bit fixed to wall).  So will see what the senior management at openreach come back with.

It has also emerged my neighbour is easily managing 80/20 and he is in the same building.