Thanks to rain...

[Jimk]

It happens after its rained....?

[The Natural Philosopher]

I can now barely achieve 1Mbps download speed. Every three hours or so...

The rest of the time nothing.

[spuorgelgoog]

Disconnect your telephonic equipment and apply a Megger to the line.

This will fizzle off the dampness.

Owain

[Andrew]

Or get someone to phone your landline number. The 50V from the exchange will do the same.

Your Megger will send a much bigger voltage down the line and might do some damage to Openreaches kit, then he won't have any internet at all.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Along with the exchange equipment and any personnel working on the line..

[alan_m]

I've found that ringing my own number from my mobile provides a temporary cure (for a few hours) for a noisy line on the occasions when I've had to report this kind of fault that kills the speed on my broadband.

[T i m]

The 50V (DC) is there all the time (*especially* when the line isn't being used when there is no load on it). I think it's more like 80V AC that is down to the ringing current (that would appear if someone rang the line).

Cheers, T i m

[Nick Odell]

Neat idea: I get the same problem and I'd never thought of that. Nobody ever calls me on my landline these days.

Thanks,

Nick

[Martin Brown]

Junction boxes full of spiders and water this time of year. The beck is in spate but not yet running over the road like it was last Thursday. It has taken 1Mbps off my speed and some dropouts too but so far so good.

We were quite lucky - places either side of us got a lot more rain and to the south are still on national news with catastrophic flooding.

[ARW]

Not killed an apprentice yet by asking them to hold the ends of a cable I am testing.

[ARW]

I'll class myself as lucky as my house has not (and probably could not) flood.

I now have to set off to work 30 minutes earlier than normal to get to work on time, getting home normally take 45 to 50 minutes, it now takes up to 2 hours.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

ARW explained :

Then you are not trying hard enough.

The best result is obtained by meggering them when they are on top of a ladder :-)

[GB]

I rarely carry my mobile phone, so people have learnt to ring me on the landline. :)

[Steve Walker]

Years ago my dad was always waiting to be asked to demonstrate his Megger when going through airport security. They never asked though.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

Hopefully you are right, but I remember driving through Cumbria when I saw a flood sign on the road. I laughed to myself as I was way up a hill. A moment later I encountered a small river running over the road!

SteveW

[The Other Mike]

If adopting this approach removing the spark gap limiter in the master socket helps a bit too.

Needs to be an old wind up or press the button megger though, Sadly my more modern one, maybe 10-15 years old with an lcd analogue display just flashes up a warning that there is more than 50v on the line and terminates the test

1000v up the line might eventually get the attention of openretch and get the line fixed. What a f****ng useless piece of s**te they are.

[Dave Liquorice]

Lucky it was only a small river, Worse is the small river and several inches of marbles. Coming home late one night after it had been chucking it down all day, the bottom of Killhope in County Durham had a couple of council chaps with shovels and brush trying to clear 6" of marbles off about 20 yards road, they could have really used a front loader.

The wise remember where water does run across the road as it washes the salt away and freezes. If there is enough traffic the ice doesn't stay where the tyres run but you can get hefty build ups of hard frozen crushed ice where the tyres don't run. Not enough traffic and you get an ice rink...

[Andrew]

I suspect using a Megger on the BT copper will kill the broadband kit in the green box quite effectively.

[Andrew]

No good. Glassfibre ladders have spoilt that fun :-)

[Andrew]

Don't worry, Labour are going to nationalise Openreach without compensation, so it will be back to the bad old days of the GPO.