What Will An Engineer Actually Do ?

[plance]

I'd like to know what tools a BT engineer has to diagnose faults on an ADSL line e.g. do they just plug in a laptop to the socket or do they have specialist ADSL test equipment that they use ?

I have a pretty severe _intermittent_ fault on the line that may have been caused by some workmen who did some work on the house some time ago. Basically I don't want to call in an ADSL engineer and be charged £200 if they don't actually do very much - I'd rather spend the £200 on some "timescale" work based on my guesstimate of where the damage to the line is. :s

[JamesL]

depends on where the fault lies. If they see it drop and there is a line falt between the NTE and the exchange shouldn't cost a penny. If its internal I would not suggest a BT engineer at all.

[paulbacon]

While on the subject, can errors (Loss of link, framing and errored seconds) be caused by an ISP?

When i was on Pipex 2mbit everything was fine. I then got shifted to Tiscali ADSL Max and was having all sorts of problems. Random disconnects, errors all the time (could get 20,000 errors a day according to my modem stats). I migrated to ADSL24 2mbit and everything been great since.

Could it be my line cant support ADSL Max (i have good line stats tho) or that Tiscali are just so poor they were causing the problems?