Broadband Wiring

[kevin_robson]

Hi,
My broadband has worked flawlessly for over a year. We have a plasterer in at the moment and he has loosened the front of one of our telephone sockets. I noticed last night that my broadband has stopped working upstairs, not on the socket he loosened.

However, I've checked the wires inside and they all seem to be connected, and the telephone works fine out of the same socket that broadband fails to work from.

I'm therefore assuming this is coincidence, or is the wiring different from broadband to normal telephone wiring?

I've sent an email to my ISP but I dont expect to hear anything useful back from them for a while, so I'd appreciate it if anyone knows about whether the wiring could be disturbed and affect only broadband and not telephone, or would it affect both if there was a loose wire?

The power has also been on and off a bit too, so its possible my router has blown too I suppose.

 

[Chris.J]

I assume you have a ADSL filter plugged into the socket in question, and the BB fails to work from that.
If so, transfer the filter to another socket & try it from there.
If still no good, run your Browser, go to the address of your modem/router (something like http://##.#.#.###), go to the connections page & see if the connection "state" is "down". If so, click on "connect"(which will disconnect), & overwrite the password again with the known correct one (this is the password between the M/R & BT exchange, if you don't have it, ask your ISP).
Click "connect" & see if the "state" changes to "up".
The terms "state", "down" & "up" & "connections" page may be different for your particular M/R.
My BB has failed for no apparent reason several times & this procedure has fixed it; my ISP advise that somehow the password in the exchange occasionally gets corrupted. I'm not a IT pro., so some of my terminology might not appeal to someone who is!!

 

[kevin_robson]

Thanks. I work in IT so the router setup side of it is OK. It is showing as not connected to the internet, and clicking connect causes it to hang. I dont have any logs to see why.

I haven't tried it from a different socket, but the socket that is not working is not the one that the front was removed from. I will try plugging it in elsewhere tonight.

I'm more trying to get clarification as to whether it is possible for the phone to work but the broadband to have a loose connection, or whether if broadband has a loose connection the phonbe wouldn't work either. I have no idea how the wiring works.

I have a mate lending me a USB broadband modem tomorrow so I can eliminate the router as the cause.

Thanks for your help anyway.

 

[HDRW]

Thanks. I work in IT so the router setup side of it is OK. It is showing as not connected to the internet, and clicking connect causes it to hang. I dont have any logs to see why.

I haven't tried it from a different socket, but the socket that is not working is not the one that the front was removed from. I will try plugging it in elsewhere tonight.

I'm more trying to get clarification as to whether it is possible for the phone to work but the broadband to have a loose connection, or whether if broadband has a loose connection the phonbe wouldn't work either. I have no idea how the wiring works.

I have a mate lending me a USB broadband modem tomorrow so I can eliminate the router as the cause.

There is only one pair of wires from you back to the exchange - they are shared by the phone and broadband using different frequencies (hence the filters to separate them).

The most likely local cause of phone OK/Broadband knackered, is interference - I had a client whose phone line picked up the local AM radio transmitter! Until *all* the phone sockets had a filter in, broadband just would not work.

As others have said, plug the filter and the router/modem into the master socket, and unplug all the phones, answering machines, fax machines, anything that plugs into a phone socket, and see if it works then. Give it time - it takes surprisingly long for a broadband modem to go through all the handshaking to get itself online.

If you can try another modem/router, so much the better to eliminate a fault in yours. I have a Zyxel P660R that I use for debugging - it's simple to mess about with the settings, and very good at dealing with problem lines. It will even tell you that you have the wrong password for the ISP connection when you try to access a web site, which is more than others do!

If it's still no good, contact your ISP and tell them you think you have a line fault (beyond the point where it reaches the exchange and splits into phone and broadband).

Good Luck!

Cheers,

Howard

PS:If you still suspect the plastered socket (!) pick up the phone, dial a digit to get rid of the dialtone, and wiggle the socket around on its cable, and see if you get crackling noises. If not, your plasterer is innocent!

 

[breezer]

ever thought of pulling the wires out and reconnecting them?

 

[suffolklad]

i had a case where my phone wouldnt work but broad band would . bt engineer said one of the pair of wires was broken in the exchange . so could be just one wire broken

 

[kevin_robson]

Thanks Everyone.
Still wasn't working last night.

I rang my ISP to check everything was OK with my account. They said my account was OK, but would quickly double check the line was ADSL enabled too. All came back OK.

So I tried once more and Hey Presto it was working 5 minutes after I had called them. Despite not owning up it looks like something their end.

 

[HDRW]

Thanks Everyone.
Still wasn't working last night.

I rang my ISP to check everything was OK with my account. They said my account was OK, but would quickly double check the line was ADSL enabled too. All came back OK.

So I tried once more and Hey Presto it was working 5 minutes after I had called them. Despite not owning up it looks like something their end.

Glad you got it working! This sort of thing happens fairly often - probably getting the equipment to do a test caused it to wake up and start working.

Cheers,

Howard

 

[TicklyT]

I have heard of the exchange end ADSL equipment 'hanging' if the customer end equipment has been disconnected for a few days. When the ISP provider tests the line it is sometimes enough to kick the ADSL connection back into life.

 

[Softus]

probably getting the equipment to do a test caused it to wake up and start working.

Yes, but it's more scientific than that. The ISP can initiate/request a line test, and if there's no sign of the client's router logging in they can progress to kill the platform session at the exchange end. Sessions get hung up sometimes, and for many reasons, amongst which is a transient physical interruption (e.g. by a plasterer).

You can often, but not always, force the platform to end a session by physically disconnecting the client router from the ADSL line for at least 30 minutes.