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[kitz]

Yep

[kitz]

Mr Openreach man came.   Tests showed HR fault and failed between the UG JB and BT66.
Testing from the UG joint box showed HR on 4 out of the 5 pairs.  Guy phoned up to request a new lead in but this was declined by his boss because there was still one spare pair, which is what Im now on.  Full DLM reset done.  This line doesnt sync quite as high as the old one, but whilst he was here it wasnt throwing any errors so its classed as ok. 

He said he wouldnt be too surprised if that failed at some point either as that only just was classed as within acceptable params,  but nothing more he could do without Openreach installing a new lead in which would mean digging up parts of the pavement and my drive.   

[Chrysalis]

Is a lead in to replace the cable bundle or something? Quite shocking the manager said leave the bad 4 pairs in place because one works.

But obviously as far as you are concerned you just want the stability issues fixed, so if the new pair works its job done, this all happened pretty quickly since you reported the fault.

Your symptons seem weird for a HR fault, so I guess time will tell now if it fixes the oscillating issue over time.

[Black Sheep]

Mr Openreach man came.   Tests showed HR fault and failed between the UG DP and BT66.
Testing from the UG junction box showed HR on 4 out of the 5 pairs.  Guy phoned up to request a new lead in but this was declined by his boss because there was still one spare pair, which is what Im now on.  Full DLM reset done.  This line doesnt sync quite as high as the old one, but whilst he was here it wasnt throwing any errors so its classed as ok. 

He said he wouldnt be too surprised if that failed at some point either as that only just was classed as within acceptable params,  but nothing more he could do without Openreach installing a new lead in which would mean digging up parts of the pavement and my drive.

Some bizarre behaviour here, or things don't add up right ??

Talking in general terms, as I'm obviously not on site ...... if you have a BT66 there's a fair-to-middling chance your property is fed via duct from the joint-box outside your premises in the pavement ?? Of course, there's always exceptions to the rule.
To add to the picture, 5pr cables are what were always used 'back then' to feed ducted premise, so my money would be that you do indeed have duct feeding your house.

Our remit has always been that we don't swap pairs in this kind of 'feed cable' as it is easy enough o pull another cable through the duct and re-joint at both ends. Assuming of course the duct hasn't collapsed.

If you had the other kind of 'feed' which was the older armoured cable led directly in the ground (DIG), then a pair change would be acceptable but this would usually be followed up by new duct-work being installed and a new cable being run to your premises.

So, something isn't quite adding up from a remote perspective ?? The only thing I can think of is that you do have the older DIG cable, that has been worked on in the past with newer 5-pair cable jointed to it by way of a repair ?? Thus giving the impression it is the newer ducted installation ??.

Either way, I have never in my entire faulting history had to request the permission of my boss with something as simple as this. The engineer n-site makes this decision as to whether it needs a new length of cable installing, and then will run through with you the best way fro our contractors to attack this. The easiest option is to dig in 'Soft' (Grass/mud), but these guys are very, very good at what they do and any surface dressing will be replaced 'The same as or better' than what is was found in.   

 

[Black Sheep]

I've just had an afterthought as I hit the enter button.

I've changed my mind as to how your premises is fed. I'm now betting it's the older DIG cable with a newer 5-pr cable jointed to it from a previous repair The reason I say this is that it is very odd for 4prs of a 5pr cable to go faulty and not all 5 !!!

The older DIG cable is only worth 2prs, so I would humbly suggest he is measuring 3prs that actually won't be going anywhere as they have nothing to be jointed through to. There will only be the 2 prs available, one of which is faulty, which means the other won't be so far behind at all.

It needs a new feed putting in via duct, as mooted above in my first reply.

[kitz]

Yes BT66 and UG joint box in the pavement. -  My fault I typed DP rather than JB on the first sentence, I will change it to avoid further confusion.
 
He said it needed new armoured cable.  He most definitely said 5 pair and of the 4 he tested were faulty.  The one I'm now on just about passed as being acceptable.  He also said something about 4 volts and 7 volts if that makes any sense to you?  He said he was going to ring his boss to ask about a new lead in cable.   He went to his van and was speaking to someone on the phone and I dont know what was said other than he came back and said he'd been told to use that final pair.

When he came back he told me to monitor because he thought that one may fail too as which point they would have to put a new lead in.  He said about having to dig up my drive and that it could take a month before it was done or approved (bit hazy about the month so I may have misunderstood that bit. )
 
When he swapped them in the JB he then also swapped something at the BT66, it was peeing it down so I didnt go look.  After he'd swapped we noticed that this pair sync'd slightly lower than what the old pair did before it started erroring (about 2Mb) but he sat here for about 15 mins checking for CRC errors of which there were hardly any. 

I have noticed though that already its displaying some SNR bumpiness on DSLstats and now throwing CRCs and Err/secs although still acceptable to DLM.

The other thing that may or may not be worth pointing out to you is that the same week this fault originally started (back in Oct last year) was exactly the same week that my neighbour had to call out Openreach because her broadband was also faulting.

[kitz]

@Chrys.   No the behaviour didnt look like typical HR fault to me, but what can I say if when he pulls out his JDSU and straight away it tells him there is a HR fault?
He then looked at something that looked like an app on his mobile phone which told him the distance which is why he said its somewhere between the BT66 and the joint box.

@BS.  Ive just been out there to take a pic.   It does look like there may be some sort of duct in place.   I scrapped away the top layer of gravel so you can see it.   That 6 inch wide strip of gravel is only at the side of the house where the cable comes in.   The driveway is flagged,  the edge of which you can see in the photo.   He has obviously done something at the BT66 as you can see he's left some copper wire tails there that he must have cut off.

[Black Sheep]

Quick reply as going out in 10mins.

If he is picking up fault voltages, be it 4v or 7v or any volts for that matter, then your circuit has to be in contact with another circuit. If you only have the one circuit working at your premises, then the fault could never be in the actual lead-in ??.

I'm afraid the info is too vague to give a definitive answer. For example, if it is armoured cable (DIG) it is highly unlikely to have 5prs ........... the cable will be concentric and the only ones I've ever worked on is 2pr, 7pr, 15pr, 30pr, 50pr ....... etc

So I can't make a call based on what he is telling you, Kitz. It sounds to me like he's relatively knew to UG faulting ??.
The only thing we know is the issue is at the 'far end' near your house, and the likelihood is groundwork will need to be performed to rectify this situation. 
 

[Black Sheep]

The plot thickens, that is indeed duct-work . It sounds to me like a simple task has been complicated, but that said, until you are there 'on-site' you don't know what you will be confronted with ?? #sgtblackman 

Righty-o ..... will catch you laters, Kitz. 

[kitz]

I dont have a clue whats going on then.   Wondering if Ive been fobbed off if he didnt want to pull a new cable through in the pouring rain?
Yep re the hashtag he did mention

Have a good evening out - enjoy

[burakkucat]

Looking at the picture of the BT66, I notice that the fixing screw for the cover has not been tightened up.

A small detail which is probably irrelevant but something which would make me wonder why? Too much rain? A grey squirrel ran off with the screwdriver? 

[kitz]

Yes I noticed that myself when posting the image.   I'd quickly taken the pic as is was still raining slightly when I took it and was more concentrating looking for a duct.
Damnit...  It will have to wait.  The guy could clearly see I only have the use of one arm atm and certain things are difficult.

[WWWombat]

If I ever needed a thread to remind me that I know nowt about faulting on copper, it's this one. I'm thoroughly baffled, but I have to say that the SNRM graph since the fix doesn't look especially brilliant. Better, bu not good.

Incidentally, has anyone noticed how MDWS visualisation seems to change radically as you go from a "10d" view to a "20d" view?

[Chrysalis]

Is erratic snrm technically a fault within openreach? I expect not.

I guess the issue now is that the new pair passes tests on the JDSU.
Sync is now above min speed for GEA to pass.

Still is no harm for fault been passed back to plusnet, another online test carried out to see if it picks anything up.

[Chrysalis]

its getting worse gradually, if it carries on it wont be any better than the old pair. I guess all kitz needs to do is wait for it to throw a fit again, DLM reduces speed and then report fault again as it will be below speed estimate.