Telephones Don't Work - Broadband Does?!?

[Smoke Screen]

Can anyone help?

Friday night, everything works fine and has done for years.

Saturday morning, no dial tone, yet broadband is fine.

Tried all extensions. Disconnected all phones and tried a known working corded phone at the master socket - nothing.

Disconnected all extensions from the master socket then tried known working corded phone - nothing.

BT have tested the line from their end and say it's fine. They say they will get an engineer to me, but if it is not their equipment at fault -

[arfur mo]

hi matt,

is it your adsl filter? as both internet and line are on the same pair of wires the filter helps sperate them. i think it might be the phone side of the filter gone faulty. i'm not sure if Maplins are open today but PC world have them to get a new one (

[Smoke Screen]

hi matt,

is it your adsl filter? as both internet and line are on the same pair of wires the filter helps sperate them. i think it might be the phone side of the filter gone faulty. i'm not sure if Maplins are open today but PC world have them to get a new one (

[Service Engineer]

Do you have a monitored alarm system at home..?

If so has the ARC reported a line fault to you.?

At the master socket do you have 50V DC accross the A B terminals.?

[amateurandy]

Disconnected all phones and tried a known working corded phone at the master socket - nothing.

Disconnected all extensions from the master socket then tried known working corded phone - nothing.

Did you take the secondary faceplate off and plug the "known working corded" phone into the "real" master socket, with all extension wiring disconnected AND no ADSL filter?

If so, it's almost certainly a BT fault.

Or could it just be someone has called you and somehow left the line open? Tap the rest once but quickly to generate a recall signal.

If ADSL is working the line to exchange is OK, it's probably a fault in the exchange.

[Guest rjbsec]

Customer of mine had exactly the same problem last week - found it was a problem at the exchange.

[Monteey]

Right its going to be one of two things,

First and probably most likely as RJB pointed out, the exchange equipment, when the line goes through the ADSL equipment there is the odd occasion the dial tone doesnt make it through meaning ADSL is fine but no dial tone. This happens on the odd occasion and is an easy one for someone with half a brain to fix (and before you lot say there are loads of BT guys without half a brain, yes i agree).

Second cause and probably less likely as there tend to be symptoms, is a High Res dis on one leg of the pair, if the line has been crackling recently then that is a symptom of corrosion normally on the dropwire feeding the house, or dampness in a joint further up the line. Broadband can be a funny beast sometimes and will quite happily work on one wire.

Both of the above problems cannot be detected by the line test system so of course the call centre will normally say the problem is at your end, if youve done all the stuff mentioned above ie taken front plate off master and plugged known good phone in, then theres no chance of you being charged.

[engineery]

Both of the above problems cannot be detected by the line test system

does the line test system only find a complete break then.

[Guest]

does the line test system only find a complete break then.

The line test system is generally a 'best guess' sort of test.

[Monteey]

The line test system is generally a 'best guess' sort of test.

Hmm it is a bit more sophisticated than that although with experience we do only use it as a rough guide to locations of faults, it will find breaks, shorts, contacts to earth and contacts to other lines known as battery contacts, also it can detect faulty customer equipment putting what we call rectified loops on the line, this can also be caused by dampness. As i said above it cannot detect hr dis or no dial tone.