There’s a buzzing. Has been this way for ages, and has not traditionally affected the broadband which, whilst crap at 3.4MBps is towards the upper range of the speed estimate given on most sites.

But the internet quality has become steadily worse over the last few months and now won’t even connect. The buzzing seems the same. But the weird thing is, when I hang up (by pressing the cradle button) the noise doesn’t stop instantly but fades away over about a second.

Any clues? Seems to be a wiring fault somewhere on the line, but is there a way of telling if it’s on my property or not?

Have you unplugged the faceplate and connected your phone directly?

Yes.

Then that suggests it’s not in your property, unless you’re phone is broken

^ beaten to it.

I would try replacing your broadband/phone filter(s).

Are you in Manchester?

Could be a line fault, you’ll need to speak to your provider and get them to do a line test.

I would try replacing your broadband/phone filter(s).

Try this, I did once get similarish symptoms that turned out to be water getting in where water really shouldn’t about 15 years ago. I can’t remember where the fault was but a visit from a BT engineer sorted it.

Ah, apparently the persistent buzzing is not the source of the problem – EE have a problem at the exchange.