Broadband Related > Telephony Wiring + Equipment

Does this sound like an HR fault ?

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toulouse:
Hello everyone,

I appear to have a fault on my telephone service, primarily a LOT of noise on the line during calls. I am with Utility Warehouse for both telephone and FTTC broadband, and I believe these services are provided by TalkTalk. I tried running the 17070 test which is often referred to in resolving telephone problems, but all that does is identify the line with my telephone number. I'm running DslStats (v6.5.9), and when either I initiate a call or there is an incoming call the SNR margin drops from a normal 6.0 - 8.4 to 0.5dbM, and then returns to a normalish reading at the end of the call. Another effect of the present fault is that due to the loops that I was asked to jump through to test the line, my Interleaving has increased from ~740/1 to the present level of 1375/62 with a resultant drop in speed from a normal 37000 - 38000/5600 to 32400/4905.

I'm guessing that this problem is what is generally referred to as an HR fault, and additionally that it doesn't matter what I do with my installed equipment, it will not be resolved without the intervention of a telephone engineer. I reported the problem to Utility Warehouse, my service provider, who requested that I unplug my DECT phone and plug in an analogue phone to the Test socket and monitor the problem for a couple of days, during which I have identified the associated problem with my FTTC broadband.

Needless to say, I would welcome any advice on how I might get this fault rectified from anyone on here.

Thanks

toulouse

j0hn:
The 32400 is a banded figure so your line may be stuck at that sync for a long time.
This is triggered by too many resyncs and often requires a DLM reset to remove it.

It's definitely not normal behaviour for the SNRM to crash so much when a call is made.
Is it a corded phone or a wireless DECT phone?

Make sure to run the same test with a plain corded phone if it is a DECT phone in use.

I would report it to my ISP and add that the instability has also capped/banded the sync rate.

Any noise present during a Quiet Line Test needs reported.
Although with LLU lines there is no specific QLT test on 17070 it does (or certainly used to) still go quiet for long enough to determine if their is an issue.

toulouse:
Thanks j0hn, and in response to your questions, I was asked to plug in an analogue phone during the 'line test' that the ISP carried out on Friday. But as is often the case with this type of fault, that made no difference at all. I have now reverted back to my DECT phone, but could just as easily leave the analogue phone plugged in. Ok, back to the corded phone and still the problem persists.

I guess I'll have to get back to Utility Warehouse and get them to arrange an engineer visit.

toulouse

Weaver:
I would check for a bad filter - micro-filter or SSFP. I had a particular telephone which did this and double micro-filtering cured it. I’m not saying that it isn’t a line fault, it probably is, but I would just swap out the filter or use no filter at all - having disconnected all phones - and re-test.

siofjofj:

--- Quote from: j0hn on January 30, 2019, 12:07:40 PM ---Although with LLU lines there is no specific QLT test on 17070 it does (or certainly used to) still go quiet for long enough to determine if their is an issue.

--- End quote ---

In my experience 17070 on TalkTalk LLU is useless for quiet line testing as it's either talking or humming, never quiet. One quick option is to just dial 0 (or any digit really) to get rid of the dial tone which will then give you about 5 seconds of silence for testing.

Alternatively you can call 02087599036 which is identical to the 17070 you get on a BT line. My impression is that this number is actually what 17070 on a BT line maps to, though I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that the 17070 "Openreach line test facilities" are definitely available somehow on LLU lines, as an Openreach engineer once initiated a fast test like this on my LLU line (no EE phone signal where I live, so the usual way of doing it via the engineer's iPhone wasn't possible). When they did this I heard lots of DTMF tones in quick succession, so perhaps the Openreach issued butt phones have a feature to automatically dial this number. Perhaps Black Sheep might know.

I'd advise you to try and get a recording of the noise with just the corded phone plugged into the test socket. My experience of a fault with similar symptoms had an Openreach visit where the line was found to be "right when tested", so it's good to have some evidence of the problem to protect yourself from charges.

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