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On 21/10/2013 20:03, Gordon Henderson wrote:
It wasn't a script as such, just our process of elimination; simplest thing was to check the filter - in those days it often was a dodgy filter and the customer usually had a spare - then if it wasn't the filter start looking elsewhere. Actually 'process of elimination' does sound like a script, but then if there are several possibilities you need some organisation of what order to test them or you risk missing one out by mistake. For instance if a customer called and said 'I can't get my email' (back in the days of dial-up) I had colleagues who would just rebuild the email account and send them off. My questioning went along the lines of 'Can you connect to the Internet?' and if yes 'Can you get webpages?' so I could determine exactly where the problem was. You'd be surprised how many customers presented what they wanted to do ie I can't get my email and not the underlying cause, ie I can't get my email /because/ I can't connect to the Internet. That could be called a script, or eliminating potential causes of the reported problem :)On Mon, 21 Oct 2013, Julian Hall wrote:When I was working ISP Tech we were told that all devices on the same circuit need filters, so if you had two phones, a fax machine and an answering machine on the same circuit, that would be four filters. Our first step in diagnosing problems was always to disconnect everything else in the house, and only connect the modem/router. If you still have a problem then try a new filter, and if it persists that exonerates the filters. Of course the more filters you have in use the more chance one of them could develop a fault. That's a spit under 10 years ago so things may have changed since then and less needed, but even so I agree with those who said it's the first thing to check.It's fine advice and easy to script and take someone through...
But in Neils case, his line maintains sync. speed so issues are more likely to be remote to his house.
That's true enough having read the rest of the thread.
Why people go down the route of checking filters first rather than line speed, SNR, etc. beats me. It's probably easier when dealing with Joe average, I guess.Yep.. at least from a TS perspective we always worked from the simple solution first, partly because it was easier to talk the customer through, and partly because we'd found the simple things were the most likely to go wrong. Plus of course when you're being told to keep call times short (which I generally ignored with an 'It'll take as long as it takes to do it right' attitude) there is an incentive to suggest the simple test first, in this case 'try a different filter' and move on to the next call, having of course noted that you told them that so the next tech doesn't say the same thing and get an earful of 'I've already done that!'
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You don't strictly need one filter per device, it's one filter per wire pair from the master socket. So you can fit a master socket filter, then all the phones in the house are filtered and don't need local filters. The master filter plate has a separate (unfiltered) socket for the ADSL modem to connect into. This is by far the best way to do it. It keeps the wires to the modem as short as possible and makes sure that any internal phone wiring is pre-filtered, however you can only then plug a modem into the master socket, but it really is the best way to do it.Fair enough.. sounds like you know a lot more than me, and anyway as I said my knowledge/experience is getting on for ten years old now :) When I was working the filter was a dual plug that plugged into the socket and you plugged the phone in one side and the modem in the other, that's why you had to have separate filters for each non-Master socket.. I think.. my memory's not that good tbh :)
Sadly, some houses have shockingly bad phone wiring, so the advice of one filter per phone socket is the easy way to do it - and in the early days, master socket filters were few and far between.My Dad worked for BT as a domestic installation engineer so that side of things I used to know fairly well.
Anyway, this isn't rocket science - it should be obvious to those on the list at least.
Agreed. Kind regards, Julian -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq