Connection constantly drops when it is windy and raining

[#1]

Hello Support

My broadband connection consistently drops when it is windy and raining. When the weather is fine the connection is stable but on a day like today when it is raining quite heavily and is windy it drops every few minutes, reconnects then drops again.

I did have an engineer out for this once before but he came to my house and tested the connection when the weather was good and said he could find nothing wrong.

I think there must be a damaged cable running to my house from one of the telegraph poles that is effected when it rains but I am not sure how this can get looked at? There is no point in sending an engineer to my house to look as there is nothing wrong with the internal cabling and the chances are, if the weather is good then he will find nothing wrong.

I’m assume you can see the constant disconnects and reconnects on my broadband to help validate this?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Michael

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @sheavesm and welcome to our forum!

Please accept my apologies for the issue with your broadband connection.

After testing the line, I have detect a potential external fault and raised this to our suppliers. They have advised us of an estimated response time of 24 - 72 hours. You can monitor the progress of the fault via this ticket and our faults team will be back in contact shortly after the estimated response time.

Feel free to get back in touch if we can be of further assistance in the meantime.

Thank you.

[#3]

Great, thanks for your help...

[#4]

Hi

Look to see if the cable is touching / passing any tree branches, this can cause issues.

1. removing the insulation which will then affect the phone service due to reduced voltage.

2. Fibre (well hybrid fibre) uses radio frequencies, trees and metal poles are not good.

[#5]

Thanks for your help.. after two visits by BT they replaced one of the external cables and it has been fine since...

Apparently the cable that ran across the street to the telegraph poll was "50 years old"  and "Brittle"..

[#6]

i.ve had same thing for past 18 months, line checks, engineer on site etc etc but never found any faults, even though broadband drops out at least 10 times a day, in fact today has a record for dropping out 27 times all for a minute or two each time what can be done to fix this intermittent problem as am getting a bit fed up with it now, and being told each time thees no problem, obviously there is a problem or it wouldnt be dropping out on a regular basis, windy rain, passing traffic all knock it out

[#7]

Hi @mojacarkev,

I'm very sorry that you have been experiencing connection drops and for the length of time that this issue has been ongoing.

I can see from your connection log that it's been dropping frequently:

However, testing your line isn't picking up the cause of this from here:

GEA Test Detail
Circuit ID	NA	Service ID	BBEUXXXXXXXXX

Test Outcome	Pass
Test Outcome Code	GTC_FTTC_SERVICE_0000
Description	GEA service test completed and no fault found .
Main Fault Location	OK
Sync Status	In Sync
Downstream Speed	64.2 Mbps
Upstream Speed	16.6 Mbps
Appointment Required	N
Fault Report Advised	N
NTE Power Status	PowerOn
Voice Line Test Result	Not Run - Unable to run
Bridge Tap	Not Detected
Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise	Not Detected
Estimated Line Length In Metres	639.9
Upstream Rate Assessment	Very Good
Downstream Rate Assessment	Very Good
Interference Pattern	Regular Interference Observed on Weekends
Service Impact	Retrains Observed
Interference Duration Longest Occurrence	From 06:15 to 06:30
Interference Location	Unknown
Home Wiring Problem	Not Detected
Downstream Policing Discard Rate	0.0
Customer Traffic Level	Upstream and Downstream Traffic Detected
Technology	VDSL
Profile Name	0.128M-80M Downstream 4dB, Retransmission High - 0.128M-20M Upstream, Retransmission High
Time Stamp	2019-01-15T12:15:00

Parameters	MIN	MAX	AVG
Down Stream Line Rate	63.2 Mbps	69.0 Mbps	64.5 Mbps
Up Stream Line Rate	16.5 Mbps	17.9 Mbps	17.4 Mbps
Up Time	836.0 Sec	900.0 Sec	899.2 Sec
Retrains	0.0	2.0	0.0

Current and Last 15 Minute Bin Performance
Parameters	Last Traffic Count(Upto 15 mins)	Current Traffic Count(Upto 15 mins)
Start Time Stamp	2019-01-28T11:59:54Z	2019-01-28T12:14:54Z
Ingress Code Violation	0	0
Egress Code Violation	0	0
Errored Seconds	0	0
Severely Errored Seconds	0	0
Unavailable Seconds	0	0

If you've not done so recently, please can you run through our troubleshooting guides here and let us know how you get on?  If these checks don't resolve the problem, the next step would be to rule your internal wiring out by plugging the connection into your test socket which is under the faceplate of your master socket and seeing if the drops stop. This rules out internal wiring, face plates and extension sockets as being the cause. Please see the guide here for instructions on how to connect to the test socket.

If your connection continues to drop when the router is connected to the test socket, please report the issue here and get back in touch on here once you've done this - we'll then be able to investigate this further for you.

[#8]

I have the same problem more or less. My fibre broadband drops out when it starts tom rain but returns a few moments later even if it is very wet. Annoying when you are watching catch up. Line test shows no sound.

Can you advise?

[#9]

Can't really advise as been having this issue for over 2 years now and still no closer to an answer after a while Plusnet just close the case and then have to start all over again I would assume it got to be some fault or hairline break in wiring outside property but no one wants to take responsibility for it sorry not much help just keep hounding them

[#10]

Yes, sounds familiar.  Very thorough OR visit ( sig. gen. at skt and signal strength monitored to distribution pole) revealed a bimetallic joint between old and new lines. Immediate improvement obtained.  Since then speeds have dropped from 49 to 43Mb/s in 'rough' conditions so I suspect there are further connection problems. I'm tolerating it so far due to other priorities.

[#11]

Hi @Tandleman, sorry to hear you're having connection issues. Checking from this side there certainly looks to be something out of place somewhere given the drops we've seen over the last few days shown on the graph below.


Upon testing your connection it looks to have highlighted a fault. As it's advised by our suppliers to arrange an appointment to the property we would advise getting your router in the optimal set-up your side and letting us know after doing so. At which point we can re-test and if the issue persists get the fault raised and a engineer out with no worry of the problem being caused by internal wiring.

Test Outcome	Fail
Test Outcome Code	GTC_FTTC_SERVICE_1625
Description	Impairment in copper joint detected most likely in local network. Please continue to submit a trouble report
Main Fault Location	CE
Sync Status	In Sync
Downstream Speed	40.0 Mbps
Upstream Speed	10.0 Mbps
Appointment Required	Y
Fault Report Advised	Y
NTE Power Status	PowerOn
Voice Line Test Result	Pass
Bridge Tap	Not Detected
Radio Frequency Ingress	Not Detected
Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise	Not Detected
Cross Talk	Not Detected
Estimated Line Length In Metres	601.7
Upstream Rate Assessment	Very Good
Downstream Rate Assessment	Very Good
Home Wiring Problem	Not Detected
Downstream Policing Discard Rate	0.0
Customer Traffic Level	Upstream and Downstream Traffic Detected
Technology	VDSL
Profile Name	0.128M-40M Downstream, Error Protection Off - 0.128M-10M Upstream, Error Protection Off
Time Stamp	2019-02-20T14:45:00

Getting the router in the optimal set-up would require plugging the connection into your test socket which is under the face plate of your master socket and seeing if the drops stop. This rules out internal wiring, face plates and extension sockets as being the cause. How to locate the test socket and set your connection into it can be found here:
https://community.plus.net/t5/Library/Testing-From-The-Master-Socket/ba-p/1322242

By all means once in this set-up if you reply to this thread we'll happily re-test and see if we need to raise a fault and get a engineer out to investigate further. Let us know how it goes.

[#12]

Hi @mojacarkev, as highlighted by my colleague, if you could follow the troubleshoot steps and optimal router set-up and if the issue persists to raise a fault and let us know as we'll happily progress this forwards for you.

[#13]

Done everything. By the book had 3 engineers visit no faults found but still screwed up admittedly not as much as before instead of 20 or 30 drop outs a day it down to between 6 and 10

[#14]

Hi

I've been away and it hasn't really rained much here. Yesterday it did around 17.00 and the connection dropped out immediately. I have done the master plate thing and it has made no difference.

Can I have this checked again and I need a fault raising.

Cheers

Peter

[#15]

It has justb thunderstormed and the connection has gone again.