Hi everyone. I'm at the end of my tether here and I've got a pretty long story to tell.
I switched to Orange at the start of the year and all was good for a while but then random disconnects started to happen, especially when using the (landline) phone. There was also a nasty crackling / buzzing on the line which, at the time, I blamed on the very old phone. I bought a new phone, only to find the buzzing remained. The line stats on the livebox at the time were around 6.4 Noise Margin, 60db Attenuation and a sync speed of 2884kbps - we used to get at least 3 / 3.5 meg.
Okay, classic line fault, right? So I called out BT and their engineer replaced an old cable further up the street. On an unrelated note, all the BT engineers have been great, no issues there. Anyway, the phone seemed a lot better but the line stats were unchanged.
Fast forward a week or two and the buzzing was back on the phone line! Cue the second BT engineer who found...nothing. The noise comes and goes and it wasn't bad at all when he was here.
Again, a few weeks later when the buzzing was back we had BT engineer no. 3 out and he said that there were several faults on the cable running down our street and at the box - we were told that the street would be dug up and both would be repaired!
Well now that's done, the phone is great, absolutely crystal clear but the livebox stats have got worse! At the moment we're on 5.6 Noise Margin, 64db Attenuation and the sync speed has dropped to 1792kbps. My friend who lives maybe 2-3 minutes walk away gets a stable 6 meg at around 14db Noise Margin and 30db Attenuation. One of the BT engineers told me that my line and his take the same route to the exchange so I'm sure the difference in speed shouldn't be night and day.
I'm worried that the fault lies further up BT's network and that it'll be difficult to get anyone to take us seriously now the phone line is clear. I've tried a new faceplate filter, the XTE-2005 one from adslnation but all it did was drop the noise margin by about 1db. What can I do!? Who do I talk to about this?
Edit: Oh yeah, and I remembered something that might be significant. I think I'm correct in saying that if there's no phone connected to the line, there's no need for a filter, right? I tested that at my friend's (with 6meg) house and his line stats improved slightly. I tried the same at my house (master socket, test jack, no extensions, no filters) and the stats went to sh*t: 3db NM, 64db Attenuation, 406kbps sync speed. That strikes me as odd!
Sounds like the problem is in the exterior cabling up to the BT linebox.
But BT will say the phone signal is OK so you'll need to raise the Broadband problem with your ISP.....and that is where your problems really start because it's Orange.
_________________ An ex-Orange guinea pig
"The first third of our lives is ruined by our parents, the second third by 0range then along comes 02 and you die happy."
IP profile for your line is - 1250 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 1632 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1133 kbps
Could you clarify what you meant when you said to connect to the test socket? Before I bought the XTE faceplate, I tried the test socket with the Orange-provided filters but that made no difference since there aren't any extensions in the house. Now that I've fitted the XTE plate, the livebox does essentially have a direct connection to the test socket, via the filter.
Okay, I tried the test socket before I bought the XTE faceplate and there are definitely no extensions. No difference with the test socket. I've lost the cable I used to connect the livebox directly to the line (it's a different sized plug on one end).
Now this is strange! With no other changes to the setup I turned off the cordless phones. Bam! The sync speed is now 3648kbps but the strange thing is, the line quality hasn't changed at all.
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My friend who lives maybe 2-3 minutes walk away gets a stable 6 meg at around 14db Noise Margin and 30db Attenuation. One of the 
