Static Noise On House Phone Line Affecting Internet. Phone Co Doesn't Care!!

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by superstar, Mar 13, 2008.

  1. superstar

    superstar Major-Superstar

    Ok first off I'd like to say how cheesed off we are. With that said you can understand that this won't exactly be a happy thread for us at home.

    Okay well we've basically had a house phone line here for the past 20 years or so without any problems. We got high speed dsl internet for the first time 3 years ago from Netscape. The modem has worked fine all along, and as you know the modem gets its signal from our house phone line.

    Now I don't know if this has anything to do with it but about 7 days ago I was eating lunch when I noticed a couple of guys from some unmarked van that only had a phone number on it with no logo [the logo seemed to be old and faded] doing some work for our neighbor taking taking down most of the lines that run from the street to his house. I don't know what those lines were for but they were dangling close to the floor, and they also seemed to take down the lines that run to our house as well. We're separated from our neighbor by a small alleyway, and all the lines meet in between on the sides of our houses. I was checking the mail that day and had something cooking on the stove and ran back to get my food and eat. I was going to come back out after eating and ask them what they were doing, but by the time I came back out they were gone. I don't know what they were here for but they did touch a lot of stuff out there. Thank goodness I have a photo graphic memory because I remember the phone number from their van. I think I'll call it later today to find out what company they were from.

    Anyways about a few days after that I noticed that my net would cut on and off. I'd surf the web and pages would load erratically or everything would be fine and than the net would stop responding after half an hour or so. The modem lights that always stood solid would blink signifying no connectivity, and than go solid again when the net problems would happen. Than came time for me to make some telephone calls to order pizza, talk to some friends, and family. I picked up the phone to make calls and what did I hear? STATIC, nothing but STATIC. Yes you can hear the other person but there is an obvious sound of static and uncleanness when you call someone from our house phones. You can even hear the modem dialing as if it were a darn 56k modem from 1995 right in the background while your talking to someone on the phone. Sometimes when you pick up any phone in the house the darn phone will whistle this loud sonic noise that can rupture your eardrum. So now this problem obviously goes hand in hand with my net issue. Of course I than called my isp [netscape], and told them about the issue. They tested my modem from their offices [they didnt actually come here] and everything checked out fine from the stats they saw on their computers. They actually said that the problems are related to our house phone line. So they instructed me to contact our house phone provider.

    We called our house phone provider which is ROGERS Canada and told them that we're hearing static on our house lines and this is affecting our internet because we have a high speed dsl modem. They didn't even care about the issue and just gave us the run around. We called again and they said that the problem could be related to a bad phone plugged in the house. So we did what they said and unplugged every phone in our home and everything plugged into any phone jack in the house and left just one phone plugged into one jack without a dsl filter. They called us back in three minutes and the static was still there. They than said to unplug that phone and plug in another while all other jacks in the house have everything unplugged like before. They called back in three minutes and the static was gone. The tech told us "see it's got to be the phone you plugged in before, it's probably bad, just buy a new phone, and problem solved". I told the tech that the static comes and goes and the net does the same when this static comes over our line. I let him know that he may be right but it's possible that it would return. He said no it won't and hung up on us. So me being smart I left one that one phone plugged in for 30 minutes without having anything else plugged in our home. I than went to pick it up and sure enough the static was there again. This time the phone whistled loudly too. I called them back and let them know the issue was not resolved and they went off and said "we can send a tech to your home, if he does come he's going to go on the outside of your home and find the demarcation box and open it, and if he plugs in a phone to that master jack on the outside of your phone and hears static than it is an issue related to our service and we will fix it, but if he comes there and plugs in his special phone and hears no static you will be charged $65 just for that". That is obviously a ripoff, and I said "well all we have is his word what if he lies and says he here's no static, or how about the fact the static comes and goes what if he comes and tests it out when the static is gone and charges us and when he leaves the static comes back?". The tech on the phone didn't care and said I could test it myself by going to check the demarcation box which should be on the side of my house or in the basement by the electrical panel.

    I went in the basement and looked for a demarcation box where the master jack should be and found none. I than went to the side of our house and looked for a box and found none. All there is outside is a secure cable box that cannot be accessed because it needs a special tool, even so it has nothing to do with our phone line since that box is just for cable tv. So I called them again and told them there is no demarcation box for our phone and they just said "ok well we'll call you back later to resolve this". They didn't even call back so we called again and they hung up on us. Than finally the anger came out and we called and asked to speak to a supervisor or manager and they put us on hold and actually didn't put us through to a manager or whatever, but did put us through to someone of seniority over them. That person said they were sorry about the run around they'd given us and that they'd send a tech over the next day, and if any charges were to be made by the tech that they'd credit us back for it. In the end we called this damn company 10 times in 7 days... Anyways...

    So 7 days now and we're still experiencing phone problems and net problems. The darn guy knocks at the door and identifies himself as being from BELL Canada not ROGERS Canada. We asked him why he's here from BELL and he says "Well ROGERS uses our lines, they've actually only been in the house phone business for a couple of years, and well the line belongs to us but they can rent it to provide you service, so when theirs problems we actually have to come not them because it's BELL Canada's property". Jeez... Anyways he went in our basement to look for a demarc box and found none, than went outside to the side of our house and found none again. Than he walked down the block to see if there is a small phone tower or major neighborhood demarc box somewhere and phone none. He than came back and told us "well your house is so old [about 60 years old] that the house line has no demarc point. Your line actually goes straight to the street terminal and that's nothing more!". So he than climbed the street terminal on the sidewalk, up the pole with his ladder, and opened up a terminal box. He came down and told us "I just opened up the terminal box and well as you know we just got this major meter and a half snow storm this same week while you've been having these problems so I actually found ice and corrosion in the terminal and cleaned your line up, check your phone and net and let me know if you hear static". We told him that the static was still ever so present. Than he went to the other side of the street and replaced some wire on that pole. He came back and asked us if the static was still there, and we said yes. Than I asked him "can't you come in and test the jacks in our home?". He said "no I cannot because your actually not our customers so I can only service what is BELL property outside, but if you were our customers I could do so". He than said he'd be back after his break and he'd go and test some stuff at their headquarters. He called back after about an hour and said "well I finished checking some stuff at our headquarters and alls well so your good to go". We picked up the phone and the line sounded clean and said "ok well I guess you know what your doing since you actually came and did some stuff and than went to do some stuff there so thanks bye."

    The net actually worked all night and so did our phone line. The net didn't even cut off once!!! & than I woke up today to surf the web and seen that the net wasnt responding and the lights were flashing on my modem meaning no connection. I picked up our house phone to check the sound and sure enough the darn static is back.

    What the heck should we do? It took us a week to get someone here because our phone company doesn't even care, they don't even own the phone lines they rent it from another company. Even the BELL company guy that came told us "ROGERS always blames us for their problems". I don't know what to do and the net just works every now and than. I need the net as we have a home business and are losing a lot of money from this. They don't care and we don't know what to do. What could be the problem and how could we check it? Has anyone ever gone through this??? Please someone help, offer advice, or let us know how you solved this if you ever did have this problem.

    THIS IS WEEK #2 now. I'm barely even able to post this.



    Thank You
     
  2. rickmd03

    rickmd03 Private E-2

    Ask your provider to check the "signal to noise" ratio on your line. Speak like you know what you are talking about. ;- During the fall and spring this can be a problem with phone lines. They shrink and expand with the seasons.
     
  3. noahawk

    noahawk Corporal

    We recently had this issue here at my house. We found one very old phone line connected to one phone, and after replacing it, the static mostly went away. Our internet had been going on and off frequently as well, but now it hardly goes off, and there is much less static on our phones. You may want to make sure that there are no loose connections in/at the wall jacks, and that pets can't interact with the wall jacks so that this doesn't happen again.
     
  4. sosaman

    sosaman Sergeant Major

    they should be able to tell if it's got static or not (i think they can tell when they run their tests).

    i don't know if they can do a signal to noise ratio? however, the part about the lines expanding and shrinking has merit.

    do you have static on all of the lines in your house? alot of times (not sure about all), they run 1 line, then run the other lines from there (1 connected to another), etc, etc. maybe you could disconnect the other lines from the main 1 coming in?

    where the line meets the house are you able to get at it? maybe try running 1 new line from there, to see if the static is from inside the house? i'm sure they would charge you for installing a new line. basically, it's 2 wires, the two inside pins (looking at your telephone wire) are line #1, and the outer 2 pins are line #2 (if you have 2 lines). i believe it's 40-48 volts for your tip and ring, but very low current. here where i'm at, i can buy the wire for like .06-.08 a foot, and connectors are like .15, i'm not sure about the phone jack (where you plug your wire into). but, i bet (if you are able to do yourself) you could do it all for $10-15 or less. anyway, see if any of these links help. g/l - sos


    http://www.doityourself.com/stry/newphonejack <-- Install a New Phone Jack

    http://www.doityourself.com/stry/addphoneline <-- How to Hook Up a Second Phone Line

    http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=129694 <-- Rewire telephone jack for 2nd phone line

    ps - i have installed a few new lines for family.

    also, i don't know if the filters (out on the street, or wherever) can cause static? you have 2 filters on your phone line, 1 is for voice, and the other is for data. i'd say about 2 years ago or so, i started to have connection problems with my dsl (pages not loading, or taking 5 min or so to load), and it turned out the filter was bad out on the street (well, box out there).
     
  5. superstar

    superstar Major-Superstar

    @sosaman

    Hmm interesting advice... I'll have to see if I have the skills to do it when it's not so cold outside because it's -2c right now and I'd have to get on the roof to do that. & yes we do have static on every single jack in the house with every phone plugged in.

    By the way do you think that I may be damaging my pc by having my modem [which has the net going on/off periodically due to the house line issue] connected to it? ESPECIALLY WHILE I'M ON THE NET even though it doesn't work and cuts off so much.

    & could I also be damaging my modem by keeping the house line plugged into it while this problem is occuring?


    & hey if anyone else has more advice on my first post please do leave it!!! We're up in arms here!
     
  6. sosaman

    sosaman Sergeant Major

    i don't know if it could be damaging anything, but do you have a surge protector with a phone line? i know they make them, and it wouldn't hurt to have your phone line going thru it.

    also, as i mentioned earlier. for a test, see if you can find where the main phone jack is (the one coming from the outside). if you can find the main one, see if it tees off (goes to another jack), and maybe disconnect the other ones. and check for static, on the main one. i don't know if you can do this because of your business (only having 1 line). but, just for a test. g/l, sos
     
  7. superstar

    superstar Major-Superstar

    I found the demarcation point where the phone companies wire ends and our house phone wires begin. It's inside our house in the basement. That was the first thing the BELL canada tech was looking for when he knocked on our door yesterday. It's usually outside on the side of your home and sometimes inside by the electrical panel in older homes. Our basement is not renovated and this is an old house [about 50 years old] so that's probably why he didn't see it. Theres quite a mess of wires and cobwebs downstairs in the basement. Not to mention some poor lighting since no one spends time down there. I found it and it's not even remotely close to the electrical panel as some would suggest it would be.

    I'm taking pictures of it and showing you guys because there is a black wire that is not even connected and I don't have a clue where it would connect to. It seems as if it's an old style demarcation point. It's not close to the electrical panel as I mentioned before. I think the reason for that is because it's close to a copper pipe where it's actually grounded with a wire wrapped around it. The wire even says "Bell Canada". It has to be the demarcation point. Geez I'm lucky I got on the net now... I'll post the pictures in a bit once I take them. It has to be an inside problem because the Bell tech checked all the outside wires on the street and came back saying everything was mighty fine out there except for some corrosion on the wires he fixed.


    For those of you who don't know what a demarcation point is here's some brief knowledge as to what it is. It sure would help you to know so when I post my pics you can say "wow can't believe you found it!" Theres some pics in the following link to so it looks just like it there:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_point
     
  8. sosaman

    sosaman Sergeant Major

    hey superstar, thx for the link, i actually learned something. i had no idea wtf you were talking about (demarcation point), but i knew (if that made since).

    you only need to worry about 2 wires, unless you have more than 1 line at your house. i'm guessing the black wire is the ground wire? i'm not exactly sure where it goes. most of the jacks i've seen are labeled inside (letters of the different colors). since you found your demarc box, i'd disconnect everything from there, and put a jack there for testing purposes. g/l, sos
     
  9. superstar

    superstar Major-Superstar

    Okay well the following pictures were taken today. They're shot's of the demarcation point in my basement. To my surprise I also found another demarcation point that seems to be out of use. I guess they upgraded from a old 1945 style demarcation point to a newer one which I bet is still probably as old as the other. All of the shots I took are in large 4Megapixel size so feel free to click on the links to see them in full size.

    This is the old style demarcation point which which I assume is out of commission because the colored phone wires aren't even plugged into it. Wikipedia.org states these demarcation points as pre 1945 models.

    [​IMG]

    This is the actual demarcation point that has to be in use because the colored phone wires connected to it go up all the way to our working phones in the living room and kitchen. I notice some sort of green corrosion on one of the screws and the unit looks quite dirty too. There is a black wire with a copper end that isn't even connected to the unit for some reason. Maybe it broke loose? I'm assuming that would probably be part of the problem but I can't tell why, and where it would connect to. There is no master jack on the unit which is usually used to plug in a phone right on it and see if the problems are from the phone companies end or your home wiring.

    [​IMG]

    Any help or suggestions would be great! The phone company is coming again tomorrow since I called them and said I found the demarcation point. I need to know what he should be doing and what I should ask of him other than just "Fix the darn static on my phone". Each visit is costing me $65.00 and I can't afford to lose anymore internet/phone hours since I make money at home with my own home business. If anyone knows please tell me what I should ask him to do, or if there is something he should install, remove, change, etc. & like I said before if you know what I can do instead of having them come here please say so. I'd also like to know what to look for after he's gone... Just in case problems arise in the future.

    Oh one last thing... The colored wires that are on the unit that go to our living room and kitchen are split as you can see below.

    [​IMG]

    Thanks
     
  10. sosaman

    sosaman Sergeant Major

    superstar, nice pics. your gonna be an expert after this!! :p if it were me (make sure you know exactly where everything is at prior to disassembly), i'd try disconnecting the wires for your line at the demarc box. i'd use a telephone line extension (link below - or something similar), i would cut the male end off (ouch), strip the wires, connect it to the demarc box, plug a phone into the female end, and see if you have static there at the box, with everything else disconnected. if you say it doesn't have static all the time, then wait a decent amount of time. this should tell you if it's your internal wiring, or if it's coming into your house like that. i'd clean up any corrosion, if it's on the wire(s) itself. g/l, sos

    http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...kw=telephone+cord+extension&parentPage=search <-- RecotonĀ® (T-29WH) 25-Ft. Phone Extension Cable (White)

    http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...kw=telephone+cord+extension&parentPage=search <-- Recoton 25-Ft. Telephone Line Cord (White) <-- or if you need a male/male (to plug into your phone)

    edit - i'm not exactly sure if canada has the same specs as usa (ie - color codes, etc). but, i would think they would be.
     
  11. superstar

    superstar Major-Superstar

    In the end the phone company found out that it was their line from the street to the demarcation point in my home. They replaced their cable with a new one and now all is well. They believe that the old cable probably got pinched somewhere inside my houses side paneling. Back in the old days they would put the phone cable line on the side of the house outside, and staple it there. When paneling was invented they covered the phone cable on the side of the house by putting it right over. That's probably how it got pinched. They also changed the fuses on the demarcation unit, placed a master jack attached to it, and a new NIC box next to it too.

    Thanks for all the help people! All is well now it's been a week with no problems!
     
  12. Colemanguy

    Colemanguy MajorGeek

    A bit of advice i have from working at a dialup isp helpdesk. Most of the connection problems were on the phone company end, which is difficult for them to put time into solving, unless your phone company is the same as your isp. The reason being is they dont have to provide dialup service quality, but phone service quality is mandated by the government. One trick i have had customers in the past tell me helped, is not even mentioning the dialup part of the issue but instead saying, my voice line has lots of static. This being an issue the phone company "should" be required by law to fix whereas as far as i ever known, isn't required by law to be functioning at full speed. Good luck and do keep us informed.
     
  13. sosaman

    sosaman Sergeant Major

    lol, that's kewl. if you had ever gotten around to what i said (not too much work), you would have figured it out (hopefully you didn't get charged much - besides all your downtime). anyway, cheers - sos
     
  14. superstar

    superstar Major-Superstar

    I did test out things as you said. I even went as far as cutting the male end of a corded phone, stripping the cables back, and wiring them to the demarcation point. I could heard the static coming from the phone company line not my home. They said the same thing when they came in and tested it. Geez they even offered me a job for knowing so much.

    Hahahahahahaahha


    :major
     
  15. sosaman

    sosaman Sergeant Major

    lol, i was wondering if you ever tried it. glad things worked out!! :cool
     

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