We are on VDSL, rural but less than 1km from urban.  When converted to VDSL a year or two ago, Chorus installed a new VDSL master splitter, with a new Cat6 cable running directly from the splitter to our modem (we fortuitously had installed but not used the Cat6 for other purposes a few years previously)

I know landlines are not the flavour of the month here but I (and the other two in the house) work from home sitting in front of a PC most of the time so a landline is convenient and economical.  Plus some older family & friends only have, or predominantly use landlines.  Hence we still want the landline even though all three in the house have mobile phones as well.

A few months ago Vodafone switched our landline to VOIP.  We agreed to that as our then existing landline had annoying background static that we had not been able to resolve.  We still need to sort out the now non-functioning alarm system but knew that would occur.

To enable VOIP we switched back to the original Vodafone supplied HG659 modem, and Vodafone provided us with new Panasonic digital handsets designed to work with VOIP.  So we have a very clean wiring/phone setup;  new VDSL splitter, single Cat6 directly from splitter to Vodafone supplied modem, and Vodafone supplied phones plugged directly into the modem.

However, since switching to VOIP our landline service has been very intermittent at best, more time not working than working.  I have phoned Vodafone support 3 to 4 times regarding the issue.  'Unfortunately' when not working, the landline service can be reinstated by resetting the modem, so Vodafone support have been content that the issue has been fixed by getting us to reset the modem.  But hours or a day or two later the service no longer works.  Then at random times comes back into life for some period before failing again.

Throughout this period, we have had nil problems with our internet connection.  Not great, but a fairly stable ~27Mbs down, and ~1.9Mbs up.  Unfortunately, presumably because the cabinet that supplies us is within urban, it still has an IKANOS line card so no vectoring here.  A separate annoyance - because of the line card more than the vectoring. 

Symptoms when the landline is not working are:

  + Incoming calls: the caller hears normal ringtone but nothing rings at our end (tested and confirmed many times by us by phoning from mobile to landline)

  + Outgoing: Get a short 'message waiting' type sound (below) followed by normal dial tone.  Phone dials out making all the rights sounds but then get a 'phone not in service' type beep-beep-beep sound.

Re the short 'message waiting' type sound. That occurs all the time, even when the phone is working.  In that case, everything is the same for outgoing calls, except we get normal ringtone instead of the beep-beep-beep at the end; ie. get to speak to the person at the  other end!  I gather the 'message waiting' type sound indicates that we have a waiting message(s) but when we follow instructions to try and access, just get a cannot access message.  Appears to be a common issue.  Anyway, at this point I am more interested in getting the phone system working reliably.  Will then try and sort the messages issue.

Until a week or so ago, we still had the (jumble of) old landline wiring connected into the master splitter and we suspected that the old burglar alarm system may have been implicated in the phone problem.  Access to the master splitter is not simple but about a week ago I cut the outgoing 'phone' wire leading out from the splitter to see if that would fix the problem; ie. old wiring and alarm system now completely isolated from the DSL feed to the modem.  As usual, everything worked fine after resetting the modem but a day or two down the track the phone system is still failing. Sometimes can make calls out, sometimes can't.  Ditto incoming calls.

I have been reluctant to cut the master splitter out and directly connect the incoming wires to the Cat6 cable as the splitter was installed by Chorus and am not certain who owns it.  Also, not certain which wires should be connected.  Assume white-white, colour-colour but do not want to risk our internet connection without being certain (is polarity even important?).

Any suggestions?