OT Phone Techo question

Hi folks.

I have a feeling that we have some fairly tech savvy folk about that
might be able to explain something for me.

Our home phone is very prone to stop working.

Each time it ceases to operate, a technician is sent, and he fiddles
about in the pit outside our house, and then, magically, the phone works
again.

But, and this is the puzzling thing, while the phone stops working, the
broadband internet, carried by the same copper string that connects the
phone, keeps on working.

I had thought that the relatively agricultural signaling required for a
telephone would have been more "robust" than the signalling required for
ADSL or DSL or whatever.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

regards,
CrazyCam

 

you are quite right, in testing hundreds if not thousands of copper
lines this I cant remember one that would carry xDSL and not dialtone

the problem is at the exch, I'll say when they go to the pit/pillar
they check for dial tone, there is none, they then get the the
equipment that supplies the dial tone reset.. just a quess

need more info, what exch are you off and who is your phone carrier
and ISP?

mh

 

The broadband signal is sent along the same copper wire (end loop)
running from your master socket to the cabinet in the street. The way
they manage to do this is by superimposing two signals on the wire;
the voice/fax frequencies are in the range 0-4KHz and the broadband
information is transmitted at over 25KHz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ADSL_frequency_plan.svg

The splitter thingy connected to the phone socket is a "low-pass
filter" that lets all the low frequencies past... to the phone. or a
"high pass" filter that only lets the high frequencies past it... to
the ADSL modem connected to your computer. Question: do you have
these? If not, the 'demarcation point' may well be near your premises
(but not inside). As in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adsl#Installation_issues
.. Clearly the problem is with the voice part only.

It appears that the phone+data combined signal travel all the way to
the exchange on the same (copper) wire. This (copper wire) seems to
be the reason why the availability is related to your distance from
the exchange. This is a bit odd. In Communication Engineering (UK
1993) I was taught that the exchanges all used fiber and the cabinets
were mostly upgraded to fiber, all new ones would be fiber. Fiber-
optic does not suffer from electrical noise. Presumably that's not
the case. They told us (1993) that the end loops (between the cabinet
and the phone socket) could never possibly be upgraded to fiber
because there's so much of it; apparently if all the end loops in the
UK were joined end-to-end, the resulting copper wire would be long
enough to to to the moon and back 20 times?

HTH

 

Not knowing the actual fault it's hard to say but the dsl and voice

share the common line but differing parts of the audio spectrum which

can have considerable effet on which sounds pass through the links

It is not uncommon for a wet line or joint to become a type of band

pass filter hence allowing or blocking certain aea of the audio spectrum

Or you might just be unlucky

Remembering of course that at the exchange the voice and digital to

analogue conversions are done at different routers

so the pit fiddling maybe a "just in case" stratagem

 

Agreed - if it was a problem with the physical connection neither
would work, therefore it has to be an issue with the devices attached
to the copper.

I'd be betting on human incompetence as more likely than physical
switch problems though. I know the Upper North Shore has been infested
with Meriton and co apartment blocks sprouting up like mushrooms
thanks to our unlovely state govt bing in thrall to the developers;
any chance a couple of hundred apartments blocks (with the correlated
higher turn over of connections) have been implemented on your
exchange ? A quantum leap in config changes might see you being
accidentally bumped regularly. Just a thought.

JL
(not a Telstra tech, take with a grain of salt, just the usual usenet
hypothesising)

 

Marty H wrote:

Makes sense!

Certainly, tho, any time I see a telecom technician on our street, our
phone seems to turn up it's tootsies. :-(
(Provocative Maintenance?)

Optus and Optus, don't know the exchange info, and have forgotten how to
find out, our phone number is 02 9872 xxxx.

I dunno if it has anything to do with the price of fish, but our house
is now at the end of a wee, dead-end street of 20 houses, but, in the
old days, when the original web of copper was spun, the house was just
one of the many on Pennant Hills Road.

When the main road got relocated, I guess that a fair amount of hacking
and chopping took place.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Question of interest: Does it happen regardless of weather, or mostly up
to 36 hours after it's rained? It's just that years ago, our place in
Granville used to lose the phone over a dozen times a year. Neighbour and
I had a look and found that the totally unsealed cable bundle was under
30cm of water a day or so later for up to a week. We bagged and sealed it


End of problem until Telstra came round for something a year or so later
and removed the bag! Phoned Telstra and talked at length about our
observations and incredible as it seems, they listened, replaced the pit
and installed a waterproof bundle. Cheers

 

A month or two ago I came home after a fortnight away and the Optus phone
was not working but the internet was.

I rang Optus and a guy came while I was out and then I had nothing. Back to
Optus and two days later another guy turned up and said our line from the
exchange was not connected to our house.

He had no idea how we could have had internet but no phone.

Don

 

you are off Carlingford Exch which Optas have their own DSLAM and PSTN
equimpent in that Exch but that doesn't guarantee that you are running
off it.

I am guessing again, but I would say you have a dodgy copper pr (ULL)
between you and the exchange, It occasionally goes faulty like open/
close circuit, short to earth, foreigen battery etc, when this happens
the PSTN port at the exch locks up. the fault either clears itself or
isnt enough to kill the DSL signal

A tech playing with the cables is enough in some areas to effect other
services, pits filling up with water is another

I have a current fault that a SHDSL (SHDSL doesn't share the line with
PSTN thou) connection still works (but with errors) with 52v one leg
of the copper pr to earth and the same leg open circuit a 1/3 away
along the run.. we cant work out how the hell it still working, we
think the open leg is back feeding via the earth..

also I have come across many faults that are not enough to impact on
the service while working, but enough to eventually cause the
equipment port to seize, its amazing what a reset at the exchange end
fixes

anywho..how to get it fixed

if its happening once every 6 months and it gets fixed first time, not
much you can do except change carriers or put up with it, but if its
happening alot, ring Optas, say you have medical condition and you
need if fixed permanently.. or the next time it stops working you will
ring the TIO.. but you really do have to have a medical conditions to
use this with the TIO.

mh

 

simple, in the process of works they reconnected your line to another
port at the exch, your modem will work on any port of the same DSLAM,
when the tech was tracing your line, he started from where it "should
have" been at the exch to your house and it wasn't going there..

If he traced it from your house to the exch he would have found the
problem, which is what probably happen with the whole thing go fixed

mh

 

god you are full of Shit!

in a lab maybe..

mh

 

Marty H wrote:

The tech stuffing about to fix someone else's problem is my main suspect!

Thanks for your comments, Marty.

When you mention the change carriers business, I have always assumed
that, regardless of who I pay my bill to, I'd _still_ be on the end of
the same daggy copper pair, and still attached to the same exchange, so
wouldn't really change much in the real world.

The most annoying thing is that we of the Manson household use phones so
infrequently that we have no great notion of how long the line may or
may not be working, as we only notice it when it doesn't give a dial tone.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

actually you are quite right, the way around that is to order the new
line first and have it delivered then cancel the other.. problem with
that is the extra cost..I think, I am a tech, I dont care about
costs

heh, I haven't had a phone plugged in on my line for 18 months, I have
no idea if mine is working at all

mh

 

sound's like the boys over in records have screwed up again with a
miss-identification of your line or lines group
The tech fiddles and yours drops until they fiddle again ( way to common )

possibly not but I bet some of the copper is very old and brittle

 

One would think so but factually as I mentioned dsl can still work (
see my other post)

Well duh this is helstra
I know the Upper North Shore has been infested

 

aus.comms exists for that purpose.

Same thing happened to me - twice. Always a problem with the pit up the road.
Beats me how it works as the line is used for both voice and data.

--

- KRudd at his finest.

"The Labour Party is corrupt beyond redemption!"
- Labour hasbeen Mark Latham in a moment of honest clarity.

"This is the recession we had to have!"
- Paul Keating explaining why he gave Australia another Labour recession.

"Silly old bugger!"
- Well known ACTU pisspot and sometime Labour prime minister Bob Hawke
responding to a pensioner who dared ask for more.

"By 1990, no child will live in poverty"
- Bob Hawke again, desperate to win another election.

"A billion trees ..."
- Borke, pissed as a newt again.

"Well may we say 'God save the Queen' because nothing will save the governor
general!"
- Egotistical shithead and pompous fuckwit E.G. Whitlam whining about his
appointee for Governor General John Kerr.

"SHUT THE **** UP YOU DUMB ****!"
- FlangesBum on learning the truth about Labour's economic capabilities.

"I don't care what you fuckers think!"
- KRudd the KRude at his finest again.

"We'll just change it all when we get in."
- Garrett the carrott

 

Well this thread served a purpose for outting all the nerds and geeks
in aus.moto. We know who you are.

 

Is that what it is for? <gasp>

But I was happy to get the info and comments from people that I sort of
know, rather than asking a bunch of geeks that I have no way, other than
spending time reading aus.comms, of establishing who knows what they are
talking about, and who is just doing some typing practice.

It was, however, a great comfort to me, that you had experienced the
same situation, and you didn't know why either.

Thanks.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Lo Folky.

Most likely a bad joint in there.

Thats not that unusual. The technology is very different.

The phone needs a reasonably low resistance, the broadband doesnt.

In some ways it is, in other ways it isnt.

The phone needs a reasonably low resistance for the exchange to
notice that you have taken the phone off the hook. Broadband doesnt.

Wouldnt dream of it.

 

You are incapable of it you dunny cleaning reprobate