With no prospect of even being able to report the line issue until business hours on Monday, and then another 2-3 days to dispatch a tech.. I got out the ladder today.

Pruned away a neighbour's evergreen from hanging on the telephone line, and then had a closer look at what was revealed underneath at the pole.

The main bundle, consisting of perhaps 30 pairs, was without the external rubber sheathing for the last 50cm or so before it entered the protective splice enclosure (or whatever one calls that plastic cylinder thing).

It still had the inner metal sheath on it, though, nicely oriented with the open channel facing the sky. A really great water funnel, that!

Given that we have, in the past, observed a direct corelation between rain intensity and line quality, I figured that this wasn't a good situation for the bundle. Yes, it has been raining here for the past couple of days, including today.

So I twisted the metal sheath around such that the open channel mostly faced down, for drainage, and then added a similar open covering of really wide electrical tape, fastened firmly in a couple of spots.

There was also a hole visible in the metal conduit that led from the splice enclosure to the local (pole) distribution box, so I taped that up as well.

Back in the house again, reset the modem, again, and..

Full connectivity, full speed, full noise margin.

Maybe I can find work as a telephone techie if/when this Linux gig ever runs out.