Quality? ADSL filter and phone cable

[Ruperts Trooper]

Like many people, my broadband uses my landline connection via an ADSL filter - recently my internet connect has been dropping out quite frequently - specifically when the phone is being used.

Currently I have a 5m phone extension cable from the BT master socket + ADSL filter + 2m phone/ADSL cables. No other extension phone sockets exist.

Q1) The 5m extension isn't in good condition so will get replaced but what with?

Q2) There's a big price difference between cheap and expensive ADSL filters - does that indicate a difference in quality?

Q3) Should I fit the ADSL filter into the BT master socket and run two seperate cables to the equipment, or is that pointless as the master socket still has 3 miles of shared cable to the exchange?

Q4) Are shielded phone and ADSL cables useful and/or available?

Thanks for your patience with all these questions, I'm a real numpty on this.

[Sean-2.2Direct]

I had this issue they had to come swap my line over from the telephone pole then it took a couple of days for confidence to build up on the line pain in the arse

[GazVXLINE170]

Personally, connect the router to the phone socket via the Filter - any phone socket it doesnt matter. Bearing in mind that every phone socket in the house should have a filter.

By a wireless card or wireless USB adapter for your pc and use a wireless connection - saves all the cables and provides just as good a connection than cable.

Long cables (unless they go over 90m which wont be the case in a house) wont affect the connection.

If the cable is in poor condition then I would bet this is the cause of the troubles if not most likely it is a filter that is packing up.

My solution is wireless and means the router is as close a possible and eliminates unecessary cabling:


PHONE SOCKET>>ADSL FILTER>>ROUTER>>WIRELESS CONNECCTION>>WIRELESS ADAPTER>>PC

Gazza4

[Ruperts Trooper]

Personally, connect the router to the phone socket via the Filter - any phone socket it doesnt matter. Bearing in mind that every phone socket in the house should have a filter.

By a wireless card or wireless USB adapter for your pc and use a wireless connection - saves all the cables and provides just as good a connection than cable.

Long cables (unless they go over 90m which wont be the case in a house) wont affect the connection.

If the cable is in poor condition then I would bet this is the cause of the troubles if not most likely it is a filter that is packing up.

My solution is wireless and means the router is as close a possible and eliminates unecessary cabling:


PHONE SOCKET>>ADSL FILTER>>ROUTER>>WIRELESS CONNECCTION>>WIRELESS ADAPTER>>PC

Gazza4

Thanks for that - the router is wireless but it's not practical to position it any closer to the master socket as it's in a narrow hallway. I swapped ADSL filters (same brand) but that made no difference.

I'll replace the phone extension cable ASAP - are they all much of a muchness?

[GazVXLINE170]

I would say the cable is the problem bud

Gazza4

[PeterVV]

You can now get an I plate which is supposed to boost your DSL speed by cutting out inteference :

http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cf...&p_faqid=13176

[Birchy63]

Phone extensions act like huge great big RF aerials and RF has a drastic effect on ADSL..... Cordless phones can be a nuisance too.

Using any extension on my phone line, drops my sync speed from 8200kbps down to 6000kbps. My mates ADSL phone extension was routed around the outside of his house (because his parents didn't want the carpet taken up) and he connects at just 1800kbps (or less) because of it.

If you have to use an extension keep things like power supplies, phone chargers, fan heaters and most electronic equipment well away from the cable.

Remember too that sync speed doesn't equal download speed/bandwidth. While I may sync at 8200kbps, my actual bandwidth is closer to 3000kbps.

Finally, if your connection is dropping when people use the phone then you must have some device that's not connected through a filter OR has a faulty filter. I once went round to fix someone's DSL and found a fax machine connected with no filter despite me asking if their was anything else connected to his phone line.

Also!! if your on wireless and haven't change the routers wireless channel, you'll be getting wifi interference from other wireless networks nearby. Those ******s who drive around in vans with ad-hock networking kit switched on are a pain in the arris!!!!!
Also again!! (last one lol)..... Windows has a service called "Wireless Zero Configuration", this service for some reason disconnects and reconnects wifi every 60 seconds, making online gaming etc almost impossible until it's turned off.

[rockh]

The best solution is to have a filtered faceplate at the master socket. Provided you have an NTE5 (big socket with a removable lower third) then get either a NTE-2005 or XTE-2005 faceplate, have a look here.
These have terminals on the back to allow you to run a separate ADSL feed to the router, use either cat 5 cable or CW1308 then either put a normal telephone socket on the end of the cable (you'll need to use either an old dialup modem lead or a plug in filter) or a RJ45 socket, you just need pins 4&5 (the RJ11 lead from the router will plug in). No need for any other filters with this setup.

[Ruperts Trooper]

It's nice to get input from those who seem to understand these things, thanks.

The master socket doesn't have a removeable section, it's the older type converted by BT from a hard-wired input installed when the house was built in the 1970's. Just to compound things, BT aren't my landline supplier any more, it's all done through TalkTalk, although the circuit uses the original BT copper cabling back to the local (3 miles) exchange.

It's not the wireless connection, that's usually switched off, so I use the Cat5 cable - it doesn't matter which I use in this respect anyway.

I know there isn't a filter missing - there's a single phone cable from the master socket to the next room where the ADSL filter/splitter is - with direct cables to the router and cordless phone base station - no other phone/ADSL cables.

Is this the problem? - The base station for the cordless phone is about 1m from the router and both are about 1m from the ADSL filter/splitter which itself is about 5m from the master socket.

Is it a good plan to:-
1) Plug the ADSL filter/splitter into the master socket.
2) Run an ADSL cable, as short as possible, directly to the router.
3) Re-position the cordless phone base station as far away as possible using a seperate phone cable from the ADSL filter/splitter although it will have to run parallel for the first few metres.

[James24]

Is it a good plan to:-
1) Plug the ADSL filter/splitter into the master socket.
2) Run an ADSL cable, as short as possible, directly to the router.
3) Re-position the cordless phone base station as far away as possible using a seperate phone cable from the ADSL filter/splitter although it will have to run parallel for the first few metres.

Yes, these are all good ideas.

You could also call TalkTalk and see how much they will charge for Openreach to come out and install you a new NTE5a (this like the NTE5 but has the Openreach logo on the front and the iPlate / Broadband Accelerator built in). This will give you some extra filtering on the line as well as disconnecting the now-unused bellwire which just acts like a great big aerial these days and causes interference which can lead to broadband drop-outs and slow speeds.

You can also but an NTE5a from someone like Mr Telephone on eBay and fit it yourself if you know what you're doing. Strictly speaking, the line into your house and the master socket on the end of it are rented from Openreach (via BT or TalkTalk or whoever) and so you shouldn't really be touching them as they're not actually yours.