Line problems

[S7wede]

Since Thursday last week I have had a problem with my phone line. Coincidentally this problem started occurring one week after I canceled my Telkom Do Broadband level 3 and went with Axxess 4MB uncapped.

What happens is that my land line does not lose dial tone, but you can clearly hear the ADSL trying to sync while listening on the handset. There is also a lot of static on the line. Looking at my modem status on my mega 100WR router (I have tried also on a linksys) the connection speed is normal at 4096/512 with a DS attenuation of 30 and US of 16. What happens when I start to download anything or talk over skype is modem loses sync and connects each time with less and less speed. The lowest I've recorded is 436/189 and the attenuation goes to 56 DS and 28 US.

I have called them numerous times since the first time it occurred on Thursday at around 4PM and have had 1 techie come over and say everything was fine. He was at my place for a total of 10 minutes and during that time the line was syncing normally. The problem occurs randomly and I cannot reproduce it at will.

I am getting very frustrated as it is interfering with my online gaming (wow) and work. What is my next step?

 

[ponder]

Disconnect all filters and devices (phone, fax, alarm etc) except adsl router and see if the problem still occurs.
Disconnect adsl router and connect phone without filter and see if you still have noise on the line.
Replace filters with new ones.
Report VOICE line faulty with fault description as bad noise on line, do NOT even mention ADSL to them else they will start going through their adsl checklist.

 

[S7wede]

I have tried disconnecting all the filters and even bypassed the built in surge protection supplied with the router. The noise does occur with the router disconnected from the line, but I have not tried connecting the phone straight to the port so I will do that next.

In regards to replacing the filters if they are faulty, does anybody know offhand how much they are from the Telkom Shop?

 

[TonyA]

About R40

 

[Greylor]

I had the same problem on my line for a long time. It turned out that a number of connectors on the line between the house and the exchange had come loose over time and compounded by a tree which fell down and shook the lines. A techie came by and tested each point along the line and replaced the faulty or loose parts and my line has been solid ever since.

The problem is quite possibly not in your house, and they just need to send a techie to climb up a couple of poles.

The annoying thing about this problem is that whenever someone comes to look at it...it works. But the ISP can see that your connection has been resetting regularly, so hopefully they put 2 and 2 together and move away from the "customer must be doing something wrong" default setting that they get on (justifiably as usually it's true).

 

[S7wede]

Ok the problem has been sorted. Technician arrived today and climbed the pole out back where he found the connection to our line was corroded. Line replaced and everything working great now

 

[Greylor]

OMG I was useful. w00t!

 

[S7wede]

Sigh. I though it was fixed but I still lose sync every so often. It's weird, I will have no trouble and then I'll just simply lose sync even though the line sounds much better. Oh well, another day another call out