Wires crossed at the exchange... Literally?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Wires crossed at the exchange... Literally?

TheHoss

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#139480 10-Feb-2014 21:16

Am currently on Snap UFB plan at my address meaning my phone line is VoIP.

However, when I happened to plug an old phone into the telephone jack in the house I got a dial tone when I picked up the receiver. Furthermore, I could call the Telecom Service Express number (0800 000 000) and get the account number and account balance of the number I was calling from. I then called my own phone which went through and I then I called the number back and could get back through. Lastly, I left the phone plugged in and it began to ring the other day. Too afraid to answer it, I left it and then picked up the receiver after it had finished ringing and on the other end I could hear a lovely old lady having a conversation with someone she had just called. They could also hear me as they remarked on the noise of my picking up the phone.

Remember, my phone line is VoIP so I assumed the copper lines in my home would be inactive...

Best person to contact about this? I'm not brave to sit in a support queue on the phone. Would logging a fault online through the Telecom website do the trick despite the reasonably convoluted story behind this situation I've found myself in?

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#983690 10-Feb-2014 21:27

Flick me an email with the phone number "pl at telecom.co.nz" and we can get someone from Chorus to fix it.

Zeon

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#983693 10-Feb-2014 21:31

its so easy to connect into anyone's phone line. Fibre has a leg up on that.

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TheHoss

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#983695 10-Feb-2014 21:35

plambrechtsen: Flick me an email with the phone number "pl at telecom.co.nz" and we can get someone from Chorus to fix it.

Thanks! Flicked you an email now.

raytaylor

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#983758 10-Feb-2014 22:33

This happened at the internet cafe/repair shop that I worked for.
Our ISP was orcon. We lost internet for about 5 minutes one morning.

Ten minutes later the DSL sync's back up but we cant authenticate a ppp session.

As a typical technician I like to rule out any fault on our behalf before I call a support desk so I swapped the modem with a thompson I had lying around. And hello... instant connection before I had programmed the ppp. It had the default user@xtrabb in there.

We also didnt have our static ip address - we had a telecom one. Someone at the exchange had screwed up and probably soldered or scotchlok'd the wrong pair.

So I had to go and see a customer pretty urgent, and didnt have time to call orcon so I figured telecom's customer would call and get the chorus fault ticket lodged via telecom. So I said to the woman behind the icafe counter "when it stops again, swap the modems back over"

She said she swapped them back 3 days later.

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chevrolux

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#984010 11-Feb-2014 12:38

This happens all the time. Not really a big deal as it is just a jumper that needs swapping. Often it will happen in the main exchanges with multiple MDF's because EN's are duplicated on both (or all) MDF's meaning on one side it could run to one cable pair and the other side it could go to another cable pair. The end result is the same line in two completely different places - often a very long way away geographically.

coffeebaron

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#984019 11-Feb-2014 12:46

I guess you could have just left phone off the hook and customer of that line would have eventually logged a fault.

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alvstar2001

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#984180 11-Feb-2014 15:11

plambrechtsen: Flick me an email with the phone number "pl at telecom.co.nz" and we can get someone from Chorus to fix it.

Not a Telecom Issue.

Could Cost Telecom (If request sent from Telecom) if the Tech happens to find "No Fault"

Just saying.

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tardtasticx

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#984190 11-Feb-2014 15:22

A friend of mine said that at one point their phone was swapped with their neighbours next door. Eventually they both figured out after getting each others calls. I thought that was quite funny, probably not for them but still interesting that it could happen.

overkill

222 posts

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#984236 11-Feb-2014 16:04

Could be a number of things....

Doubled jumpered in the exchange/cabinet.
Using the same cable pair, this happens alot when the intact pair is not "broken down" when an installer is connecting another customer or when the cable feeding your property is in full multiple with a cabinet and someone changes the "E-side" of the cabinet without breaking down the multiple.

Just resist the urge to make any 0900 calls :)

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CYaBro

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#984238 11-Feb-2014 16:17

Same thing happened to us when we moved into this building about 4 years ago.
Phone line got connected and it was working but we could listen in on calls that were actually meant for another business down the road.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

overkill

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#984249 11-Feb-2014 16:24

I had a fault a few years ago, where a client moved into an apartment and started using his cordless phone and complained he was receiving peoples private calls for the apartment next door, when I arrived to site, his "phone" was not even plugged into a phone point, they had the same old style cordless and he was using their base-station....luckily this doesn't happen now with the handset pairing on the newer cordless's.

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hio77

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Lizard Networks

#984271 11-Feb-2014 16:43

i had this happen with our dsl pair a few years back.. landed a telecom IP.. disconnecting not long after (i assume the port auth was picking it up or their modem was reconnecting and shoving us back offline)

took about a week for chorus to work it out, i thought it was pretty obvious, something had been messed up and simply needs switching back.

in the end, line card was replaced, connection was rejumpered, and we never could get back to the profile we were on before that (netted a 1.5mbit drop on a rual line, which was basically halving it.)

the bit that really got me though, is throughout the fault and after, it was always claimed to be our side, and never was possibly any confusion at the exchange.

really does leave me questioning though, how easy is it for this to happen? why does it happen? is it simply lack of proper documentation on which pair is which?

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Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

overkill

222 posts

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#984290 11-Feb-2014 16:59

hio77:

really does leave me questioning though, how easy is it for this to happen? why does it happen? is it simply lack of proper documentation on which pair is which?

It can be very easy to happen and for all sorts of reasons. But it can be mostly avoided by the technician working on the network testing before removing/adding jumpers in an exchange/cabinet, or testing the cable pair before "chopping" it when working in a DP. It would be great if the cable records where updated for every change, but it doesn't quite work out that way.

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hellonearthisman

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#984316 11-Feb-2014 17:38

It must have degraded your DSL connection.

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#984327 11-Feb-2014 17:58

overkill:
hio77:

really does leave me questioning though, how easy is it for this to happen? why does it happen? is it simply lack of proper documentation on which pair is which?

It can be very easy to happen and for all sorts of reasons. But it can be mostly avoided by the technician working on the network testing before removing/adding jumpers in an exchange/cabinet, or testing the cable pair before "chopping" it when working in a DP. It would be great if the cable records where updated for every change, but it doesn't quite work out that way.

so for the most part, one could put it down to arrogance or lazyness then?

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

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