CRC & ES errors when calling landline....

Associate
Joined
7 Sep 2012
Posts
956
Location
Lancashire, England
Hi all,

I'm with TalkTalk for my fibre connection (FTTC) and my connection has been a bit flaky lately since I upgraded to the faster fibre with boost (up to 80Mbs). TalkTalk said my line will run at an average of 68Mbs and should never drop below their "guaranteed" 58Mbs.... The fastest I've seen the router sync at is 56Mbs and that's it. I've tried changing microfilters, faceplates and the DSL cable itself from the wall to the router (FritzBox 3490). Nothing changes.

One thing I recently discovered is the number of CRC and ES errors that occur when the landline is being used. The error numbers spike up whenever the landline is used (cordless DECT phone). I initially thought the phone itself was the problem, but the same happened when I completely disconnected the phone from both the phone socket and power.... I tried ringing the home number without a phone connected and it threw up a load of errors again! Both at the exchange and the FritzBox router according to the DSL info page on the FritzBox menu.

Do you guys think it's a line fault for Openreach/BT/TalkTalk to sort out? TalkTalk sent out a phoneline engineer a few months back when some strong wind managed to pull the phoneline from the top of the house. He fixed it in just a couple of minutes using "jelly crimps"... Not sure what they are or if he did a good job or not?
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2008
Posts
12,096
Jelly crimps are the standard waterproof connectors used to join phone lines. If you want to see what they look like Google 'jelly crimp'.

It does sound like you have a line problem that needs looking at. Is there any noise on the line? Dial 17070 option 2 for BT's test and you shouldn't be able to hear anything.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
7 Sep 2012
Posts
956
Location
Lancashire, England
Thanks for the suggestion. I can't really hear any noise on the phoneline besides a very faint continuous fizz/hiss in the background... I think that's pretty much normal though. I tried dialling 17070 and all it did was tell me what my landline number is with no other options to choose from.

I've noticed the crc & es errors seem to occur with incoming calls only and not outgoing calls from the landline.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
7 Sep 2012
Posts
956
Location
Lancashire, England
Sounds like a high resistance fault. Ask TT to send a FTTC3 engineer to investigate.

I'll give them a call and maybe they can sort something out (hopefully) . Talking to them over the phone is never always a good experience so I'd thought I'd check here first.

It should be absolutely silent. You've either got **** DECT phones or a noisy line.

I dial the number and it says something like "this circuit is connected to... " and then tells me my number. It hangs up after that so I don't really get a totally silent moment. The phones aren't anything special and didn't cost much (iDECT Loop).

My FritzBox shows some of the following details which may or may not be useful:

Line attenuation 14dB
Downstream SNR is usually 6dB but sometimes changes to 7dB.
Upstream SNR is always 6dB
Bitswap is enabled for both upstream & downstream.
DSLAM is 80/20
Line length is approx 300m (I'm guessing from the cabinet which sounds about right).

It shows other stuff too but I can't remember off the top of my head (at work at the moment).
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2008
Posts
12,096
Ring and tell them that you have a noisy line (no need to be too specific, and don't mention broadband). That should trigger them to test the line. If they detect and fix a noise problem your broadband issues should go away at the same time.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
7 Sep 2012
Posts
956
Location
Lancashire, England
I'm not sure how old the BT master socket is, but I'll check when I get home. I know it's an Nte5a type with an Openreach Mk3 filtered faceplate fitted. The router is connected to the master socket socket via a 1.5m twisted pair cable (solid core and pure copper... Not CCA). It's RJ45 at the router end and RJ11 at the wall socket (also accepts RJ45 at the wall AFAIK).
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
26,052
If you pick the phone up and dial one digit that should remove the dial tone and give you some silence for a bit
 
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