Confused

Here’s one for Brian. I am no longer sure that it is my telephone that has died. The situation is as follows:

  • current connection set-up – I have the BT home broadband thingy. My telephone (a BT-badged one) is plugged into the back of my answering machine (also by BT) which is then plugged into one of those mousetail adaptor thingies.
  • the symptoms – when anyone dials in, I can barely hear them, and there is an incredibly large amount of noise. If I try to dial out, I can barely hear the dialtone, and there is the same noise. But if anyone dials in and gets my answering machine, they can leave a message without any problems. If I plug my telephone straight into the adaptor – i.e. not through the answering machine – I still get the same noise problems. The broadband connection works with no problems.
  • the puzzle – to my mind, the above symptoms suggest that there is a problem with the telephone. However, being the clever chappy that I am, I thought it wise to check before buying a new one, and today I brought my telephone to the office and plugged it in here. It works fine. And, before you ask, I did try the connection at home with the broadband connection enabled and disabled, and that made no difference.

So is my phone faulty, or is it the line?

4 Replies to “Confused”

  1. dO YOU HAVE FILTERS ON IF SO THEY COULD BE FAULTY

    IHAVE ASIMILAR FAULT AND ITS THE EXCHANGE END AS IT GOES WHEN I DISCONECT HE ADSL

  2. lORD pERCY – disconnecting ADSL makes no odds.

    Following excellent advice from Brian, and more testing this evening, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a line fault. Plugging into the test socket gives the same result. Bah. Goodness knows when I’ll be at home to deal with an engineer.

  3. Make your appointment as soon as possible. Lead times from report to appointment date are up to a fortnight in some areas for residential customers.

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