BE Disconnects and BTs £120-odd call out fee

[shaithis]

Been on BeThere for a long time and was extremely happy with it until very recently......

I started getting disconnects about 6 months ago, at first it was 1 or 2 a month, it wasn't really noticeable and I wasn't concerned.....unfortunately the problem has escalated over time, it got to the point recently where it was happening every hour or so, I rang BE and they upped my signal-to-noise ratio, they have done this a few times now, each time made it better for a while before it nosedived again.

I am now at the point where I cannot be bothered to game online, it's just too frustrating being constantly disconnected.

BE say the problem must be with the BT line and I tend to agree at least in some part....I have tried disconnecting the phone and Sky boxes (the only telephone equipment in the house), I tried using the engineers socket on the BT box (and 3 different ADSL filters).......and the disconnects continue, also when the line drops, if I pick the phone up it is normally very very noisy.

So last night I contact BT about it, they are happy to send an engineer out but they did a line test last night which came back fine and are stating that if the engineer does not find a fault, I will be charged a rather substantial amount.....even though they admit this could well be an intermittent fault.....


Has anyone else gone through this crap? It's almost as if they want to scare you away from having an engineer visit......any tips to handle this in my favour?

[burble]

Is the phone line only noisy when the ADSL drops out?

[Flash477]

TBH from the sounds of things you have done all of the things that you can from your end, and you've bypassed all of your internal wiring by going direct to the master socket. The fact that the phone line is very noisy when it happens definately screams line fault.

The best thing is to put your foot down, and explain all the things that you have already tried, and the fact that the line is very noisy, which points to a line fault. Even if the fault is intermittant they should be sorting it out.

Are there any common factors that occur when you get disconnected? i.e.

• Had it recently rained a lot? (the line could be waterlogged)
• Is it windy? (trees interferring with the line?)

[kidzer]

I can't offer any advice on the fees etc, I was advised the same when I had an issue.

I had a chap from BT Openreach out the day later (a Saturday, at 0900!) - BT Openreach do all of the work on the PSTN Infrastructure as I understand, they're paid by BT and anybody else they do work for - the chap I had was very helpful, and found a break in my line about 10 feet from my master socket on their side, went outside to the wee box, saw it had filled with water, recrimped and the line has been solid ever since!

So with a bit of luck you'll get a similarly efficient, helpful and friendly chap if you do get one called out!

[shaithis]

@Burble: Hard to say, I rarely use the phone.

@Flash477: I don't think there is any common factor in the weather at all, it been happening since the end of the summer, so have seen everything from mild and dry to freezing cold and snowy.....with pretty much everything else in between.

[burble]

@Burble: Hard to say, I rarely use the phone.

Pick up the phone occasionally and see. If you're getting noise on the voice portion of the line then get BT to fix that. In the majority of cases that'll fix any ADSL issues too.

Noisy lines aren't always picked up with the automated BT line tests but an Openreach engineer with a HAWK (one of the various pieces of test equipment they have) should be able to find and locate the fault.

You could also try dialling 17070 and doing a quiet test. If you hear crackling or noise then report that to BT.

[EthanV2]

Have you tried a different router. I have a friend who's with Be and he was getting DC'd every few hours. He bought a new router and everything is fine.

If you don't have one, then maybe buy one from somewhere with a good returns policy? That way if it turns out to not be the router you can take it back. Or you could see if someone you know can lend you one.

[peterb]

It is up to BE to raise the issue with BT - that is who you have your contract with. BT's contract will be with Be (for ADSl). You may get telephony services on the samke line with BT - but that is separate from the ADSL service. If you call out BT - you are liable for the charges as you have no service contract with them.

Escalate it with Be and get them to chase BT.

[circuitmonkey]

When we had a BT engineer out to our old flat I was told that I might have to pay for the call out and any work carried out.
It turns out that my girlfriends stupid house rabbit had chewed through the cable to the master socket.
Anyway, after a bit of shameless flirting on her part the BT engineer said that he'd write it off as a fault outside of the flat!
Top bloke hey!

[eshrules]

It is up to BE to raise the issue with BT - that is who you have your contract with. BT's contract will be with Be (for ADSl). You may get telephony services on the samke line with BT - but that is separate from the ADSL service. If you call out BT - you are liable for the charges as you have no service contract with them.

Escalate it with Be and get them to chase BT.

BE service the BT line with adsl.

you pay BT for line rental. Rental of a phone line, from BT. You have the contract between you and BT, for the line. BE have nothing to do with the phone line bud?

@ the OP, do you know if you're on a dynamic or a static IP package?

Have you completed a quietline test?

A lot of users had a de-syncing issue, not disconnecting, but a loss of routing. This was resolved (as it has been for me) by a static IP.

[burble]

BE service the BT line with adsl.

you pay BT for line rental. Rental of a phone line, from BT. You have the contract between you and BT, for the line. BE have nothing to do with the phone line bud.

@ the OP, do you know if you're on a dynamic or a static IP package?

Have you completed a quietline test?

A lot of users had a de-syncing issue, not disconnecting, but a loss of routing. This was resolved (as it has been for me) by a static IP.

What peterb said is 100% correct. The OP has a contract with Be to supply ADSL so it is Be that should contact BT regarding problems with the ADSL portion of the line.

[eshrules]

What peterb said is 100% correct. The OP has a contract with Be to supply ADSL so it is Be that should contact BT regarding problems with the ADSL portion of the line.

Then I'm confused...

if you pay BT for your line rental and (eg) BE for the ADSL service, surely it's BT's responsibility for the line, why do BE become involved, or rather why would they?

Not questioning, merely curious.

[burble]

Then I'm confused...

if you pay BT for your line rental and (eg) BE for the ADSL service, surely it's BT's responsibility for the line, why do BE become involved, or rather why would they?

Not questioning, merely curious.

Because you're not paying BT directly for the ADSL service, you're not a direct customer of theirs. Be are a direct customer and pay a fee to BT directly.

Paying the BT line rental makes you a customer of BT for the voice portion of the line only.

To complicate things even further even if BT Internet (or whatever they're called today) are your ISP then you still don't have a direct relationship with BT for your ADSL because BT Internet are reselling you services provided by BT Wholesale so for any problems you'd contact BT Internet and they'd contact Wholesale.

[Barakka]

Have you tried resetting the router to default settings and configuring it again from scratch.... I know it sounds daft, but I had a very similar problem with my bb a few months ago.

It kept just dropping and I went through the diagnosis as you did etc, even tried resetting to defaults and restoring the router from a backup, but no difference.

I then did a full restore to factory settings and got the techie gut from my isp to talk me through the exact settings for everything as if setting up from new connection (just so that I had everything confirmed). Bizzarely it worked and has done since even though the settings were the same as in the saved configuration... might be worth a try... Make sure you get them to confirm every setting though, isp's are a pain for not telling you if they change encapsulation/modulation settings etc (had that before too )

I'm not with BeThere i'm with Eclipse so I don't know how the conifg/router setup works with them, but mine is std adsl with a Draytek 2020 router.

HTH

[Antagram]

I had similar an issue. There was slight line noise when using the telephone. As a result I didn't bother going though the ISP, as it was affecting telephone too.

Used the automated quiet line test feature of BT which reported no problem. Spoke to some Indian accent man, who also said there was no problem even though I was having difficulty hearing him. So I requested an engineer call out regardless of the £120+ fee threat.

Previously when I had a line issue the ISP requested I left router connected to a BT test page. Was unable to browse, but it allowed ISP to monitor the amount of drops in a 24 hour period.

This was years before the financial difficulty BT are now reporting, so BT might go out of their way to claw back money.

[peterb]

Then I'm confused...

if you pay BT for your line rental and (eg) BE for the ADSL service, surely it's BT's responsibility for the line, why do BE become involved, or rather why would they?

Not questioning, merely curious.

BT is a group of companies. BT Openreah (used to be BT wholesalke) own and maintain the exchange equipment and infrastructure (except for LLU).

As an end user you cannot contract with BT Openreach. If you order telephony services from BT (retail) you will pay them for the line, but the service will be provided by BT openreach, and BT retail will pay them for that service provision (at wholesale rates). IF you gor for another telephony provider, they will contract with openreach - in each case, you raise faults with your service provider, who will raise it with BT Openreach.

The same is true for ADSL.

This structure was imposed by Ofcom to ensure that BT retail didn't enjoy any financial or competitive benefit, although there were stringent controls in place to ensure that it didn't happen anyway, but the establishment of Openreah made the process more transparent to the individual service providers.