BT / Openreach fault fix procedure

[Edfred55]

Hi,

I'm interested to find out how Openreach go about fixing a faulty residential line. My phone and internet went dead two days ago. I have registered the fault with bt and have an estimated fix date of next Wednesday (6 days total).

I'm hoping they will want to check their end of things at the exchange etc before wanting to inspect the wiring in my house. Does anyone have experience of this? We had some major building work done at our house 6 years ago and I took the chance to replace the old worn telephone cable and master socket with new. The line has been working without any issues since.

I have checked my internal wiring with a continuity tester between the outside line (at the junction box) and the master socket and am 99% sure my internal wiring is fine. I've also tried a new master socket.

I'm hoping that inspecting my wiring isn't their first port of call. If it is then I reckon I'll be in for a hefty bill.

 

[sparkymarka]

First thing check for 50volts dc on incoming line if you have no voltage it's an external issue .... More than likely you have been bumped off, a common practice . Someone else had an issue so they use your pair as they don't give them the time to sort it

 

[Edfred55]

Thanks for the reply! Yes I did read about the 50v DC, I did check and couldn't get any voltage reading.

So, "bumping off" sounds dodgy. Will they be aware of this or will they need to try and "trace" it as a fault? Either way i think they should be waiving my line rental this month.

 

[sparkymarka]

Best of luck !

 

[cajar]

they will come to your house first, for convenience to take a measurement to the fault and put their tracer tone on. If you're not in they'll test from the dp (pole usually) and prove the line to there or repair the fault from outside. In the event the 50v is ok to the dp but the line tests faulty into your house they'll leave a card for you to ring for an appointment.

They are not usually motivated to charge to correct anything you have done in the house unless it causes the man on site inconvenience. If you have ran the 'wrong' cable through walls and under floors and it's gone faulty meaning they have to install whole new cable from the pole then you might be facing the wrong end of a bill, but if your stuff is causing them no problems with the line test or the auditor (ie their part of the line running through internal cable that goes outside) then doubt they will bat an eyelid. They have targets for charging customers, but in order to charge they have to put it right, and that takes time, and they also have productivity targets.

so called 'bumping off' is a term i have never heard of but the practice I am familiar with, ie using someone elses pair to supply another is definitely something dodgy that does happen from time to time, but it's gross misconduct so you can imagine how uncommon it really is and almost certainly not the cause of the fault.

 

[simonpolly]

When you report a fault the test system tests your line and will come up with a rough fault location estimate e.g exchange,local network or customer aparatus.if the fault is in the exchange or local network you may never see the engineer he will probably just test the line and once fixed phone you to tell you its all now ok.Stealing pairs is not common practise it occasional happens by mistake but most engineers try to do a decent job despite the ever decreasing time openreach gives their engineers to find and fix your fault.

 

[Edfred55]

Fault was fixed early on Tuesday morning. We didn't see an engineer at all so I guess the fault was with the network somewhere. Thanks for all your help and replies!