Phone issue, BT unable to sort!

[Steve]

At work we have 4 working BT phone lines. 3 of these are data only. One is voice.

The voice line terminates into a dual master socket in the office. From here is a BT extension to the front of the store at the checkouts, where there is another dual socket.

Here, one of the data lines terminates into the other socket, so it must be a master. I understand the voice socket here though, must be a extension-only socket.

Now, the voice line keeps going down. The other 3 lines work fine, as i've plugged phones into them and called them.

BT have been 3 times now, over 4 months. They keep fixing it, but it keeps breaking again! The problem is the caller rings in, gets a ringing tone, but the phone itself does not ring. And on picking up the phone to dial out, there is no dial tone. Have tried a different phone etc.

One time, the engineer came and pulled a junction box from the ceiling in the office, where the black dropwire enters (with all lines on it), and said something about a battery wire going down?

Any ideas guys?

 

[bernardgreen]

and said something about a battery wire going down?

That is the B leg (or wire) of the pair from the exchange, it should have negative 50 volts to ground when the phone is on hook. It is connected to negative side of the battery via a resistance of around 200 ohms

The other wire is the A leg and at the echange this is connected at the earthed side of the battery normally via a resistor of around 200 ohms.

If the B leg shorts to ground then at the exchange the phone appears to be in use ( off hook ). Callers would get busy tone.

A short of the A leg to ground may go un-noticed other than noise on the line.

The problem is the caller rings in, gets a ringing tone, but the phone itself does not ring.

Indicates one or both legs is open circuit.

Colour codes of various drop wires can be found here

http://www.buzzhost.co.uk/colourcodes.php

There may be damage to the incoming drop cable that the OpenReach technician has not found. Follow the cable as far as you can and visually check for damage or sharp bends or stretch marks.

 

[simonpolly]

When you lose dial tone and it does not ring is it the same at the master and extension socket ?,When you say data lines what are they used for ?,and do your lines go via a system ?

 

[Steve]

Its just 4 straight lines.

One is voice only.

One is broadband for chip n pin, order transmission and email.

One is POTS redcare, for the alarm only (not seen a seperate line for redcare before, at least it eliminates that chirruping on the line).

One is POTS with a paypoint terminal on it, 56k modem in it.

Bernard, the cables are all hidden in trunking and above the ceiling with suspended spans across the huuge cavity above the shop ceiling (used to be 2-storey building, upper floor knocked out to make way for air con units and suspended ceiling put in at 8ft)

Wouldnt the BT Hawk find any cable faults? I know it can find distances to joints etc.

 

[bernardgreen]

Long suspended spans of cable ?

Is this drop wire or indoor cable ? Drop wire has non circuit steel cores to take the strain of being suspended. Indoor cable doesn't and the copper circuit cores can fail due the tension in them. Temperature changes, vibration etc that affect the strain can open and close a break in a core.

I do not know how accurate the distance to fault equipment is.

 

[simonpolly]

Do you lose dial tone on the master and the extension socket at the same time ?,forget about the other 3 lines they are totally separate and will have there own routing from you back to the exchange,depending on how far you live from the exchange each line will be crimped/terminated at least 50 times.Keep it simple
Q1 do you lose dial tone on both master and extension socket ?
Q2 What have the 3 other engineers told you the fault was ?
Q3 How long ago did openreach fit the extension ?

 

[TicklyT]

Steve, I have had the dubious pleasure of working on the phone installations in some of your company's stores. IIRC the internal wiring is provided by an independent contractor, not the service provider. They stop at their maintenance boundary (not always on an NTE5 in commercial premises).

The standards of the internal wiring I have seen varied between bad and appaling, and your company's records of their own phone services was slightly worse. The biggest surprise I got was when it DID work.