R.A.I.N issue.

fozzy · 30 May 2009 at 23:45

I've been with Sky since September and all was well up until a couple of months ago. I live in a small village with approximately 400 houses, around 49 of which were affected by a neutral electricity fault, which basically sent around 480v through everybody's power supply. This blew most major appliances in our homes, It wasn't a great experience, but the compensation and what not, is now sorted.

However, since this happened the broadband for all of the 49 houses (those who have it) has been absolutely pants. I used to get around a 4meg connection and since the neutral fault this went down to around 1meg. I opened up a support ticket with sky and went through the usual rigmarole......New router, filters and 5 Bt openreach visits.

It's got that bad, that I'm capped at 123Kb's. After speaking with CST on many occasions, they tell me I have a R.A.I.N issue. It was explained to me what R.A.I.N actually stood for, but I've forgot. I sort of understand what the issue is and what causes it, however I can't find any information on the net (google skills are very weak). I guess I'm posting on here to see if anybody has ever come across this problem? I went out for a pint before the game last week and got talking to a friend of a friend, he works for openreach, but he'd never even heard of the R.A.I.N issue before.

smogsy · 31 May 2009 at 00:36

i googled for you, i found some broadband R.A.I.N project to give africa broadband. :rolleyes:

But i found this

We copped a big rain storm yesterday, probably the best lot of rain in one go since I got ADSL some 6 months ago.

Anyway line kept dropping out and became slow as.

Checked figures speed was about 100kbps!!.

Checked modem figures, Attenuation had gone up slightly 43 to 48db. Noise margin had gone from 37db down to 7db!!. I guess soemwhere along the 2ks of line (rural) there is now a Telstra pit (maybe a couple) full of water.

I know you had electrical surge & they had Rain but could cause the same problem.

Maybe the The Current has serverly damaged the Copper in the Telephone Cable Circuity Around your town & this is why you all have simlar problems.

i would Check your Router Attenution see if its increased.

Trouble is BT wont fix it,
There is no guidelines & they don't care if you broadband was 4MB and now is 100kb.

I have seen simliar cases before where people have contacted BT because there connections have got slower they basically said Its not our Problem.

aslong as you got internet Access They will not worry.

I have also seen other sites state the R.A.I.N Issue is where water has got inside the telephone cable.

fozzy · 31 May 2009 at 12:18

Thanks very much for that Smogsy.

I guess It's not looking good then then, I suppose I'll have to wait until Friday to see what they say.

.Andy · 31 May 2009 at 13:29

We had RAIN on our line last month, someone down our street had plugged a dodgy powersupply in which was sending noise out onto the phone line, everyone on our street was effected. In Leeds there are only 2 vans that conatin the equipment to detect RAIN so getting an engineer that understands what it is isn't always possible. I just perserved (plus mine is a business line and I have found support etc to be much better)

Once detected its simply a matter of removing the offending appliance from the power and it should subside pretty quickly.

Good luck!

Carter · 31 May 2009 at 17:37

Do you mean REIN? Random Electrical Impulse Noise

I have a bad REIN issue with my line, I had 2 visits from special faults, funnily enough from Leeds, they were useless. Basically shrugged their shoulders and said they couldn't do anything. Lazy gits.

fozzy · 31 May 2009 at 20:05

Yeah it probably is R.E.I.N

Either way it doesn't look to good. I guess I live in hope that it's a simple fix like Andy had.

.Andy · 31 May 2009 at 21:06

Carter said:
Do you mean REIN? Random Electrical Impulse Noise

I have a bad REIN issue with my line, I had 2 visits from special faults, funnily enough from Leeds, they were useless. Basically shrugged their shoulders and said they couldn't do anything. Lazy gits.

The issue is theres nothing they can do without a) the correct equipment and b) access to the property thats causing the issue. In our case this tool 2 days just to get access!

Amazing that something liek this can take down the infrastrucutre when you think about it!

Carter · 31 May 2009 at 23:19

.Andy said:
The issue is theres nothing they can do without a) the correct equipment and b) access to the property thats causing the issue. In our case this tool 2 days just to get access!

Amazing that something liek this can take down the infrastrucutre when you think about it!

Yeah, I've heard about quite a few cases, a dvd player taking out an entire neigbourhood, same with sky boxes. Once located, the BT guys can only offer advice, they have no power to force the owner of faulty equipment to replace it.

The guys who came to look at mine were quite simply not interested, stinking attitude. They had all the whizz-bang equipment, just not interested.