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Local Telephone, Broadband, Internet, Data and Wi-Fi engineers/Help and advice

Professional Independent Broadband, Internet, Wi-Fi and Telephone engineers, Landline repairs, Emergency same day callout

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Help and advice, Telephone, Broadband and Wi-Fi can be found on this page, firstly, its important to know, independent telephone engineers are only allowed to repair faults within your premises, and beyond the NTTP, (network test and termination point) usually the D.P or NTE master socket, we are forbidden to work on telegraph poles and underground external line plant in the public domain, as this is only currently Openreach or their contractors responsibility.

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Every part of your wiring and telephone points, help and advice is included in this page, inside your property are usually your responsibility, the MASTER telephone socket is normally the ISP’s, however you may be liable for charges if damaged or broken through circumstances other than ‘fair wear and tear’

Expect a charge from your service provider with situations e.g Lightening damage (classed as ‘ACT of GOD’), malicious damage, dampness etc. The RESIDENTIAL callout fee BT currently charge is around £130 plus parts and hourly rate thereafter, this varies from different providers, the BUSINESS rate is much higher, these cost’s may escalate out of hours or weekends.

You may also be charged if there is damage to the wiring BEFORE the MASTER socket, this would apply if within your ‘boundary’ i.e wiring cut (gardener,strimmer, building work, new windows or doors etc), wiring damaged, damp etc, if normal wear and tear, the ‘TEST POINT’ behind the ‘master socket’ is the demarkation point. The NTE5 is the master socket which the BT/Openreach line is terminated to and in most cases they will repair or install lines to only this socket.

Non branded self fit NTE5’s (DIY) may also be chargeable if under fair wear and tear. You will be advised by BT when logging a fault of the instances where Openreach may raise a charge.

If you are a customer of BT, SKY, TalkTalk, Plusnet, Zen etc they will all use the external line plant within the BT/Openreach network, only BT/Openreach or their contractors are able to work or repair/install lines within these ‘ducts’, manholes, cabinets (green street boxes) and poles. Independent engineers are NOT allowed to climb BT poles or work on external line plant.

VirginMedia do not use the same infrastructure as BT, they use ‘coax’ cabling for broadband (as a bonded pair of cables) and twisted pair  telephone cable, Virgin cabling is different from BT, as the cabling for phone and broadband is direct from the cabinet to the customer underground, without joints (continuous cable), this is one of the reasons why Virgin cabinets are more prominent than BT as their cable runs are shorter, and cabinets are more local to the customers. BT cabling is distributed from the Telephone Exchange via manholes, joint boxes, primary cross connection points (green street cabinets), and DP’s. Some ‘pillars’ are still around, these serve the same purpose as cabinets, but are a smaller version, usually located in more rural areas.

Business property especially with multilines are more likely to have an NTTP (Network Test and Termination Point) or more commonly known as a D.P (Distribution Point) at the cable entry point to the business.

Domestic Telephone cabling

Over the recent years telephone wiring has changed dramatically, many houses still have lead cable insulated by paper or even cotton and rubber ‘Pernex’ internal wiring, although rare, I see now and again! The most common cable is CW1308 twisted pair, the GPO (pre BT days) originally used ‘4’ wire for most inside wiring installs, colour code was BLUE, ORANGE, GREEN and BROWN and came either in ‘cream or grey!

Later BT changed from solid colours to ‘speckled’ and 2, 3 and 4 pair cable for most domestic installs. The colour code remade the same but added additional colours e.g ‘SLATE’ (light grey) RED, BLACK and YELLOW, Ironically BT/Openreach have recently reverted to using solid colour 4 wire using Blue, Orange, Green and Brown colour coded cable! Help and advice finally can be offered with a reasonable charge to visit and rectify your telephone or broadband issues.

Broadband faults

Most broadband faults are usually within your property, the signal usually arrives at the incoming point where it then becomes ‘corrupted’ either with faulty equipment or wiring, the ideal solution is to always plug the router into the ‘master socket’, however this may not always be convenient. There are thankfully ‘work arounds’ where the router can be relocated in another room to where the master socket is. Personally I prefer the VDSL filter plate on the incoming point (Master Socket) with a RJ45 plug connected directly to the top outlet, with Cat5/6 cabling to a female RJ11 socket which the router attaches. This method will then give a ‘clean’ digital signal to the router, as the analogue signal has been ‘separated’

The worst router connection is where several extension telephone sockets are ‘STAR’ wired, and a filter is used at the distant end with the router, especially if burglar alarms, Sky boxes etc are connected which are not filtered.

Poor quality extension leads, low quality telephone wiring and badly installed cabling all contribute to weak broadband, I have also had experience where cheap cable under the regulation 0.5 mm diameter has been used, this reduces bandwidth and does not terminate correctly, as all connectors are designed to accommodate 0.5mm, so if your electrician has installed 0.4 mm aluminium copper coated wiring then this will present faults.

Obviously ISP’s can also be to blame when broadband faults occur, by plugging the router directly in the ‘test port’ of the Master Socket. you should be able to diagnose the problem, sometimes ISP’s can ‘CAP’ your line, its always worthwhile asking if this has been done, as this may be removed once internal wiring faults have been fixed.

L.T.O.K

Line test O.K, doesn’t mean you don’t have a fault, NOISE is one problem that can elude testing, its possible to have a line that appears to test correctly, which can still be unusable with excessive interference, the normal cause of noisy crackly lines are poor joints, corrosion or weather related issues i.e rain, also drop wires from poles to homes can work loose from the connections in high wind.

The method of connecting wires externally, is by ‘crimp’, they are small grease filled ‘jelly crimps’ that are squeezed using special pliers that apply the correct pressure to connect. If the crimps become corroded, due to lack of protection i.e junction box lid not replaced etc, a noise fault will occur over time. The same can happen internally to your property, poor connection/dry joints or telephone line jacks that have corrosion (verdi green particularly on copper/circuit boards) are some examples.

Incoming ring faults 

If the phone isn’t ringing on incoming calls, this is not always an internal or telephone equipment fault, check master socket at test point with a known working handset and micro filter, faults can manifest in the telephone exchange equipment where the ringing current (usually about 75/80 volts A.C) fails, the line itself will test o.k but no calls will be heard as the power to activate the bell is not sent, your caller may hear the ‘ringing tone’ but this doesn’t necessarily mean the phone will be heard!!

Wiring faults either internal or external to the premises can also affect incoming calls, the most common are DIS or RING TRIP, broadband can work over faulty wiring, although at a reduced rate, and its not uncommon to have a ‘dead phone’ but working broadband.

LCR and CPS  (reduced cost calls)

Least cost routing (LCR) and carrier pre select (CPS) are methods of choosing alternative carriers for telephone calls, LCR is becoming outdated, early LCR, by means of ‘digit strings’ and ‘route lists’ were more common 10/15 years ago.

Smart boxes that intercept either PSTN (public switch telephone network) or PBX multilines by prefixing dialled numbers are also uncommon. The modern method is via CPS at the local exchange set up by your service provider, however sometimes outgoing dialling faults can occur with third party line providers, a ‘force code’ of 1280 can be used to prove network problems. If you suspect an issue with your provider, prefix your outgoing call with 1280, and this will force that single call through the BT network, therefore diagnosing the problem.

if you’ve purchased a ‘RING’ doorbell and your experiencing poor quality audio and video, it’s probably due to poor UPLOAD speed of your broadband, typically a minimum of ONE Mbps upload is necessary for this to work properly and without delay.

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