My wife broke the internet

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

I had to rush off to help my daughter a few days ago and that first evening there was a power outage back at my rural house. OH did quite well to remember that she had to find and plug in an old simple phone into the main socket to be able to call me and leccy Co and dig out the emergency lights and stiuff. Anything like setting up our emergency genny was beyond her but the otage was only 2 hours.
The internet failed to come back on when power was restored with the router dsl light staying dark.

Over the years we've had a few internet issues and every time its been line faults, tree branches or exchange switch gear and a heck of a time getting providers to chase up Openreach. I tried emailing the internet provider from daughter's house and wife spent 2 days trying to get a call-back by landline. (we have no cell service around here). And when she did get a response they refused to authorise any help because the account is in my name and not hers.

I got back home last night and had a quick look and another reboot of systems and a change of adsl filter etc to no benefit. Just now as I came down stairs i spotted the old style phone she had plugged into a spare phone socket still plugged in. She had simply exceeded the Ring Equivelence Number by not unplugging it. One of those things I didn't think of when trying to help remotely…

pgk

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

REN matters – a cautionary tale

[clogsParticipant @clogs]

aint modern life so complicated….?

on computors I always wait for the new Apple update before loading the previous one….

seems safer to me….but those little note that appear on the screen telling u about the update drives me nuts…..

hahaha….

who's got time to write and wait for letters anymore……?

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Interesting. I thought REN was a measure of the power drawn down the line to operate old style line powered phones and their bells and ringers.

As routers are independently mains powered and don't draw power from the line surely exceeding the REN shouldn't make any difference.

Clive

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

If a phone is connected without DSL filter, it will seriously degrade the DSL signal.

The router doesn't need DSL filter.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Posted by David Jupp on 20/08/2020 08:26:55:

If a phone is connected without DSL filter, it will seriously degrade the DSL signal.

The router doesn't need DSL filter.

Tat i didnlt know.. thanks. When wife's back is turned I might try plugging the old phone in with a spare in-line filter to test that but life wouldn't be worth living if I stop it working again.

pgk

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi pgk, I can plug this ole ring-a-ding phone into my DSL filter and it doesn't stop the internet working, can't dial out on it, cause it's the old pulse dialler but it will ring if someone phones me and we can speak as normal.

Regards Nick.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

The other alternative, to preclude a future problem, would be to replace the master socket faceplate with an ADSL one, assuming you have conventional copper broadband, and your ADSL router is plugged into the master socket.
This new faceplate includes a filter, so all downstream phone wiring no longer requires a filter.

Further to that, the incoming cable pair terminates in the backbox and has a test socket; the new faceplate plugs into that test socket. The internal house wiring to your extension socket(s) is connected to the faceplate.

This means, that should you suspect a line fault, i.e. no dial tone, you can remove the ADSL faceplate, and plug a test telephone directly into the test socket. If the phone now works, the incoming wiring is OK and your fault is internal to the house.

If you just called out an engineer to fix the line, and the fault proved to be internal, you would likely be charged for the visit.

Also when fault finding, note that the ADSL will work down one leg of the phone line, albeit at reduced speed, whereas dial tone needs both legs.

Bill

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Sadly the master socket in old house is absurdly located half-way up the staircase wth no convenient power point and it might be a mare to figure out which order stuff is daisy-chained. There are some dozen legacy telephone sockets here without surface wiring and no neatly simple way for me to extend the incoming line to a more sensible place. Educating the wife might just be an easier challenge ….?
"Tech support" was trying to get her to undo the normal phone socket to look for a filter without even asking if it was an ADSL socket or if it had a filter splitter plugged into it. She was neither capable of kneeling to do that or aware of whether we had any spare filters and what they look like (a spare filter splitter was on the windowsill next to the router)

I have instructed her to unplug any and all phones from the system if it ever goes down again (and reboot) If that fails then she'll have to run an extension lead to the stairs and try it there. If it works then replug stuff in one at a time.

pgk

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Pah! Think yourselves lucky.

Until 2017 I had my data delivered daily by a runner carrying a floppy disk in a forked stick.

At least these days he gives me a CD ROM…

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 20/08/2020 15:14:37:

Pah! Think yourselves lucky.

Until 2017 I had my data delivered daily by a runner carrying a floppy disk in a forked stick.

At least these days he gives me a CD ROM…

Ha! Wind handle, Lad, and ask Blodwen in't exchange to tie 800baud modem to t'other cocoa tin lid…

pgk

[Alan VosParticipant @alanvos39612]

Did enybody ever actually manage to exceed the REN limit and experience an adverse effect ? From what I recall, the stated limit was 4. The daftness was that no device was allowed to state less than 1, even if, as mentioned above, it was seperately powered and put very little load on the line.

[Author]

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