ADSL / Phone Issue - I hear voices in my head

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shall0w

76 posts

Master Geek

#89495 3-Sep-2011 12:34

Hi,

I've had an ongoing ADSL / Phone issue since I moved into my house and I'm stumped as to the problem so I thought I'd come and ask some people who know stuff

History:

Moved into the house (Johnsonville, Wellington), prior occupants had ADSL (not sure who with, prob Xtra). Signed up with Xtra and basically couldn't get a stable connection with the supplied modem. I had checked the place out prior to purchase and Telecom had thought I'd get about 12mb on ADSL2.

Purchased a Draytek V120N and could get 1mb relatively stable, the modem would sync at 8-10 and then throw a bunch of RX CRC errors until it dropped and then resync'd at a lower stable speed. Also while on the phone we could hear another persons conversation going on faintly in the background! Tried a wired phone to be sure it wasn't interference and yet it continued so logged a call with Telecom (luckily it occurred while on the phone to support so they heard it) and we had Chorus come out to do a bunch of checks.

After all the tests the guy said that we have very high resistance on the line and it was likely the cable going from the external box into the house. I told him not to worry about it as I was intending a rewire to move some bits about. After he re-terminated the connection at the cabinet and at the demarc on the house we were getting about 3mb stable.

Since then we had an alarm installed and I put a master filter in place at the time and ran a dedicated adsl point. This got us up to approx 3.5-4mb stable.

I've now replaced all cables from that point into the house (found some great stuff like the sky jackpoint had a staple straight through the cable!), and as it happens chorus put a new pole outside our house for some reason and ran a new cable from it to the demarc box on the house. We now sit at 4.5mb.

We still hear a neighbours phone conversation every now and then plus I'm not crazy about only having 4mb, I'm about to ring up and log another fault but figure someone might have some advice before I do.

Here's a shot of the current modem stats:

Edit, can't post links as I'm new

adsl status
--------------------------- ATU-R Info (hw: annex A, f/w: annex A) -----------
DSL Modulation : ADSL2+(G.992.5)
State : SHOWTIME
DS Actual Rate : 4553729 bps US Actual Rate : 372363 bps
DS Attainable Rate : 4696000 bps US Attainable Rate : 372000 bps
DS Path Mode : Fast US Path Mode : Fast
DS Interleave Depth : 160 US Interleave Depth : 1
NE Current Attenuation : 28 dB Cur SNR Margin : 12 dB
DS actual PSD : 16. 6 dB US actual PSD : 12. 2 dB
ADSL Firmware Version : 321311_A
-------------------------------- ATU-C Info ---------------------------------
Far Current Attenuation : 10 dB Far SNR Margin : 12 dB
CO ITU Version[0] : 00004244 CO ITU Version[1] : 0000434d
DSLAM CHIPSET VENDOR : < BDCM >

Thanks in advance for any help!

Cheers
Sam

TLDR; I can hear my neighbours on our phoneline and my ADSL speed is crap, please help

BarTender

3530 posts

Uber Geek

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Lifetime subscriber

#516113 3-Sep-2011 13:06

I would just log a call, if you can hear your neighbors even if you're not using a cordless phone (assuming it's not RF interference on a cordless phone) Then I would ring up and say you're getting echo on the line.

Hopefully there are still spare pairs at the demarc on the pole, swapping the pairs over may solve your problem.

and

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DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#516120 3-Sep-2011 13:16

ya my first question is 'split pair' somewhere between you and the exchange...

you mdf mdf mdf exchange

so if they change the pair between in InterMDFCable1 but the problem is in cable 2 or 3, then the problem doesn't go away.

But I'm really shooting in the dark... as it could be a host of things including a faulty line card in the exchange.

Not all techs are the same.

I guess what I'm really saying is that this sounds like a 'complex' fault. So you need to just 'work it'.

This means you might have to just keep chipping away at your providers to keep making changes and attempting to fix it for a while.

I've had pstn faults that have taken weeks/months to sort out. I also don't think this is unreasonable. The cables in many areas are 60 years old, the exchanges are 20 years old and ADSL has been bolted on top.

Also 4mbit... the Telecom undertaking is 10mbit, so I wonder where you are with getting a cabinet closer to you?

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shall0w

76 posts

Master Geek

#516121 3-Sep-2011 13:18

Yeah I'm going to log another call, we hear the voices both from wired and wireless.

I'm not complaining about Telecom's response, they have tried and to be honest I gave up on it for a while due to new job, baby, etc but now I've got some time I'm looking into it again - I just replaced the last segment in the house today with CAT5e which gave the bump to 4.5mb.

My other thought was that in the initial days of troubleshooting my very unstable connection I was put onto a slower more stable port profile and now that I've fixed a bunch of wiring issues I might see if they can change it to something more aggressive... I'd be happy just to get up around 8mb.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#516123 3-Sep-2011 13:21

ya, but the dsl wouldn't be causing the ghost calls I wouldn't have thought?

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shall0w

76 posts

Master Geek

#516124 3-Sep-2011 13:23

No but one theory was that high resistance was causing an induction loop somewhere which would explain the voices and poor dsl.. I need to get the resistance test done again since all the cables have been changed and see if it's resolved I guess.

shall0w

76 posts

Master Geek

#516129 3-Sep-2011 13:37

Apparently the line test is showing open circuit currently, guess I'll re-check all my terminations before getting them to send someone to check outside the house...

matt45

311 posts

Ultimate Geek

#516296 3-Sep-2011 23:38

shall0w: Apparently the line test is showing open circuit currently, guess I'll re-check all my terminations before getting them to send someone to check outside the house...

you will generally get a open circuit result if none of the jacks in the house have a capacitor but varies depending on the devices plugged in ... an excessive battery reading would be a red flag.

if you hear voices with a standard phone ... report it has a fault

shall0w

76 posts

Master Geek

#516323 4-Sep-2011 07:58

I put a brand new jack in when I first moved in, pretty certain it has a capacitor on it. Got someone coming out at 1pm today to check the port / cabinet / etc.

I got through to a level 2 tech but he couldn't / wouldn't do a port reset, he just kept saying that I was on an ADSL2 profile..

Bung

5445 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#516358 4-Sep-2011 10:22

matt45: you will generally get a open circuit result if none of the jacks in the house have a capacitor but varies depending on the devices plugged in ... an excessive battery reading would be a red flag.

if you hear voices with a standard phone ... report it has a fault

That's only true for the old Master jacks with the capacitor referenced to the other leg of the line with a 470k resistor.

When 2 wire jacks were introduced the capacitor is hanging isolated if there;s no ringer connection. The master test function was shifted to an encapsulated capacitor + resistor test module.

If you hear voices it will be a cable fault off your property. If you can talk to the neighbour get them to ring faults as well.

shall0w

76 posts

Master Geek

#516442 4-Sep-2011 13:45

so no free ports and apparently a check on someone else's connection in the neighbourhood and they only get 5mb so they didn't sound interested in investigating any further...

No resolution for the crosstalk, just call back and log it again when it next occurs. bah.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#516682 5-Sep-2011 09:14

shall0w: bah.

ya, that's a good outcome.

Each time it happens you just log a call.

If Telecom dispatched a truck every single time someone rang up about a complex fault like this then the cost of services would be off the charts... not to mention waiting times to get stuff fixed.

All you need to do is keep logging the fault. Once you get a few records, Telecom will action it a bit harder. It's a balancing thing... if you're going to cost them helpdesk time all day calling up to complain about something they haven't fixed... see where this goes? Most providers have KPIs to monitor this stuff.

It's just like those cash back thingo's. The provider assumes that a bunch of people will just never get round to sending in the cash back.

Same applies here.... the cross talk may just clear up with something else that's done to the network... (as you say... 'bah')

:)

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shall0w

76 posts

Master Geek

#557406 13-Dec-2011 12:38

Thought I'd just post a follow-up as the issue is now fixed!

More voices, continuing abysmal ADSL performance and another few calls logged. Convincing the phone reps that the issue was not inside my newly rewired house was fun :P

The wife got a call from a Chorus tech saying he had replaced a "part" at the exchange that should fix the problem.

Result: no more voices (so far), very minimal CRC errors on the line and after a cold boot of the modem 8.5mb down and 1mb up stable.

Even though it took a while I'm very happy to have it finally resolved :D

Though I am curious as to what he replaced...