Intermittent - a dirty word in telecomms - part 2

Read the first part of the story here.

Alas, the communication gods were with me and the phone was playing up when the tech got in yesterday. He called me on the land line before he got in, 3 minutes later the line got heaps noisy and then dial tone disappeared. I was so happy. He hooked up at the box outside the house - no dial tone - at last I got some sort of proof that it wasn’t inside my house.

Then he hooked up some device that told him there was a break 123 metres away. He went and fixed it in a manhole up the street somewhere and the line is back up. Fingers crossed it actually is fixed. We’d know in about a weeks time :) So far, though, the internet has been pretty stable.

So I rang iiNet and started the incorrect callout fee dispute again. Hopefully it goes through without any snags. I gotta say I am quite impressed with iiNet support people, they have been very professional and I just got the feeling that the system that they have set up prevents the kind of bouncing between departments that you sometimes get.

This is somewhat backflipping on what I said earlier about dealing with the “machine”, however, the sticking point was that the issue was intermittent and wouldn’t happen whenever a tech would get in. Now that the technical issue seems resolved it’s a lot smoother.

So, lessons learned:

1. Make 100% it's not your equipment. A good ISP should walk you through the steps to ensure that. Google isolation test if they are not very helpful. Try different modems, filters and cables.
2. Make 100% sure that the issue is not on your premises. It's worth paying a technician to come in and verify there is nothing wrong with the wiring at your house/flat/MDF.
3. If the issue is intermittent, keep calling up and tell them to send a tech whenever you confirm that it's still happening. Just about the only shot you got at fixing a fault is for it to be happening when the tech is around.
4. If you have ADSL but no dialtone this means there is a break on one wire. Apparently ADSL can work on a reduced speed over one wire, while the phone needs two.

And here is the graph showing just how dodgy the connection was.