A customer of mine lost their DSL connection while I happened to be onsite recently. I noticed that a BT engineer was working in the building's cabinet and I mentioned to him that the downstairs company had lost their broadband. He insisted that nothing he was doing could be responsible and offered to show me his test meter thingamajig as proof!
Suffice it to say that when my client's broadband was restored a few days later upstairs lost theirs (or their fax -- they lost *something BT wise). I sortof *knew* they were stealing pairs and I now feel vindicated that you guys (Chris and Andy) are confirming that!

Another thing while I'm thinking about BT... I see a lot of cases that go like this, the fault is: DSL present on line (according to router) but no Internet, no "bad logon" reported by router:
1. Customer reports fault to their IT provider (my company)
2. We we report problem to BT reseller
3. They check for DSL logins etc
4. We check (and sometimes replace) router
5. Reseller reports fault to BT and BT supposedly test the line as NFF
6. BT threaten a fee for a wasted site visit if we make them attend
7. BT attends site, line NFF
8. Customer's DSL starts working
9. No charge.

It's happening more and more these days. So much so that we're starting to 'pretend' we've replaced the router etc. until BT have been to site. I know that's wrong but over 95% of the time we get a NFF and the DSL starts working again.

Purely OOC, any idea what's actually going on behind the scenes here?