Extension fault - callout charge?!?!

[James Vertigan]

Just spent at least an hour on the phone to NTL (trying to get through to 2 different departments) enduring hours of that tinkly piano music interspersed with "great offers from NTL!" On my first mission (the second being getting through to Disconnections to cancel the TV service) I managed to get through to someone in Faults regarding one of our extensions not working properly (we need it for Sky next month!) and the man said there would be a £50 callout charge as NTL have only been dealing with this sort of thing for a certain amount of time (think he said 6 months) and as we'd had the line for 9 years, would have a callout charge of £50... was he having a laugh?? If he was, then I'd probably be better off doing it myself!

Haven't managed to get through to Disconnections, yet - unsurprisingly, they're "very busy"!

[Nemesis]

Is this a main box, or an extension off the main box ??

[zoombini]

Its far cheaper to go to Poundland & buy a very long extension cord or 2 & refit them than get cowboys to do the job

[zoombini]

Who fitted the extension in the first place?

They generally only accept the 1st socket as being thier responcibility, anything else & you pay for it.

[James Vertigan]

The extension was fitted by Videotron in 1995... I'm not sure which is the main phone on the number, but it is just the one extension that is not working... I believe it may be a broken connection in the white box on the wall (probably badly bashed by a hoover or something!)

[Neil]

James-you don't 'need' your Sky box fitted to a phone line (despite what Sky tell you! )

According to Oftel, a service providers equipment ends with the Mastersocket in you're house. Anything after the master is you're responsibility, and will cost you to fix or replace.

[James Vertigan]

Ya do if you want the latest movies, Neil! I can't tell you how many times i've seen Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on the main Sky Movie channels - at least SBO has more recent films that change fairly often - and of course there's all the interactive stuff that I'll probably use - some of which would need a phone line!

[Neil]

Originally Posted by James Vertigan

Ya do if you want the latest movies, Neil! I can't tell you how many times i've seen Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on the main Sky Movie channels - at least SBO has more recent films that change fairly often - and of course there's all the interactive stuff that I'll probably use - some of which would need a phone line!

I have used the interactive over the weekend (nice that it doesn't crash the STB!), & the only thing that needs a phone line is if you are going to vote for something (Big Brother for example), I wasn't aware that you need it for Sky Box Office (which I don't plan to use anyway)

[zoombini]

A cheap extension lead under the carpets is still the cheapest option.

[James Vertigan]

Hello all...

Realised yesterday why I was having problems with the extension nearest the TV - it was "unplugged"!

Now this is probably going to sound very strange and confusing, bu for some strange reason we have two white boxes on the wall in our sitting room, linked under the floorboards and when the lead going into the phone socket furthest away from the TV is unplugged, the one nearer the TV does not work...

And while the connection is plugged into the socket furthest away from the TV and the phone plugged into the one nearer the TV, the phone does not seem to disconnect...

Would this prove to be a problem for the Sky box when it tries to contact Sky to send information, or get information from Sky?

(I think the reason why that line was unplugged was because there seems to be a nasty crackle on the extension - I'm not sure whether this crackle would cause problems for the Sky box, so would I need an NTL engineer to look into why there's a bad crackle - or would that still result in a callout charge?)

[Pritch]

OK, I'm not entirely sure what's going on here; are you saying that the extensions are terminated in jack plugs? What I'd say is that the socket next to the TV has issues. Probably a defective cable run.

As has already been said, the connection is only guaranteed up to the master, so a rewire of this extension would cost you.

That said, it's not a difficult job to do yourself:

http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wi...telephone.html

[James Vertigan]

Right, well I've found out this morning that the one with the fault does actually appear to be the master socket (ie the one that I believe is causing the extension to not disconnect properly and the one that seems to be causing the crackling on the line)... I had an argument about it this morning as my dad seems to think it's fine but I know very well that it's not... I want to try and get this sorted out before the 22nd July, as the Sky engineer willl probably agree with me... but I don't want to waste an NTL engineer's time by him turning up looking at it and saying he can't do anything about it - It would just be a lot easier if I sat down with my dad and an NTL engineer and explained the problem...

Of course if we did get an engineer in it would probably also mean taking up the floorboards which my dad isn't too keen on, but I suppose we might have to do that when Sky come along anyway - or at least move quite a bit of furniture out so we don't have cables running all over the floor!

<sighs> Life isn't easy!

[scrotnig]

The simple answer to this is that if the master socket is faulty ntl will attend and repair it without charge as long as it's just faulty and has not actually been damaged by someone.

[SMHarman]

The cable under the floor is possibly OK, or 3 intact cores can be found in it. There is probably a loose / touching connection in either of the sockets. Unscrew the covers and take a look.