I'm planning on replacing a standard NTE5 faceplate with a filtered one. The master socket is downstairs but the router is upstairs feeding a couple of PC's on that floor over a wired network.
There's a couple of phones upstairs so I need to run both the raw and filtered lines up there. Is there any reason why I can't run a single Cat5 cable from the master socket to the router using a separate pair for each circuit? It would be a lot more convenient than moving the router downstairs and then having to run two network cables back to the upper floor.
It'll probably work but I wouldn't do it. There might be cross-talk between the wires in the Cat5 so interference picked up on the phone wiring could be injected into the combined circuit going to the modem/router. Cat5e would be slightly better, having different twists per inch on each pair, preventing wires from separate pairs running together over a long distance. Just don't take the unbalanced "Pin
3" ring wire for the phones in the same cable. If this signal is required, use a cheap plug-in filter to produce the ring signal local to the old phone that needs it.
Practically, I would personally prefer to run two thinner Cat3 phone cables, one for the combined signal to the router only and the other to the phone-type devices. With the, the pairs can be kept further apart.
Alternatively, run one combined signal cable upstars from the unfitered side of the master faceplate (Check your master filter has unfiltered UDC connectors on the back, like
formatting link
) and install a pre-filtered slave socket new your router, such as
formatting link
. Wire the upstairs phone sockets from this. Again, no ring wires. If you have downstairs phones, then run these from the master- socket filter. In all cases, run the permanent wiring from the IDC terminals on the back of the faceplate.
If not I'd run a single direct feed from the NTE to the router and filter there. I'd not be happy having filtered and unfiltered in the same cable, yes I know others have said no problem but a lot does depend on how good your ADSL is.
If you are close to the exchange and get > 6 or 7Mbps you probably aren't that worried about squeezing the last 500kbps you can out of the line. I'm on about 2.5 miles of line from the exchange and get
4.5Mbps most of the time but any change to the line does affect the speed. Had a fault on the ISDN the other week, the POTS/ADSL was fine but was only running at 3Mbps BRAS. To cure the ISDN fault they changed the drop wire from the pole across the road to us. ADSL is now consistently back to 4.5Mbps BRAS.
It's also worth trying different filters. I bought an ADSL Nation XTE2005 face plate on the basis of good reviews etc. I was using the BT badged MF50 soap on a rope type filter and yes the ADSL Nation did get better sync speeds but only during the day. At night the modem would resync slower and the overall stable rate was significantly lower than that provided by the BT MF50. Guess which I use now...
I fitted a filtered faceplate (Openreach "DSL Adaptor") downstairs adjacent to the router (which also has wireless). I ran a "normal" phone cable and a Cat5 (laid side by side) upstairs into the study. I wish I'd run two Cat5s, but settled on a switch upstairs. The phone setup is a DECT cordless plugged into the phone socket on the adaptor, and a Plan 107 connected into the back of the adaptor; the Plan 107 extension (8 wires) works over the aforesaid phone cable. It all seems to work fine, even with the somewhat less than balanced phone cable. The Cat5 cable is terminated on wall outlets with which I use patch cables.
Similar arrangement but I *did* run the ADSL cat5 from the iPlate about four metres to a secondary phone socket into which I plug the router which feeds a switch. Cat5 also for the phone to a REN extender but that is never the problem. I didn't connect line 3 on the phone line. Despite an attentuation out in the country that suggests a max of 1Mbit/s I currently get 1.5. Others around get 0.5 and I only got 750k before I made the changes. So the message is do as much as you to optimise your system. It does make a difference.
That's similar to what I have here at home but the one I'm planning to do is at my son's house. We live in a bungalow so it was quite trivial to route the wiring round the loft and up and down inside the internal plasterboard and studwork walls. My son's house is 2 storey and all the walls are brick or blockwork so I want to minimise the cable runs.
Despite living in a fairly densely populated part of Birmingham my son is at the end of a very long, poor quality, line from the exchange and gets very low speeds so we're looking to make as much improvement as we can. By contrast I live near a small rural town and consistently sync at
8 Mb/s.
I've been rethinking our options and I'm now inclined to go for an approach based on John Weston's suggestion of running an unfiltered pair to an an Adslnation XTF-85 Pre-filtered Socket upstairs and feeding the upstairs phones off the back of that. With this arrangement I'm not sure whether it's worth installing a filtered faceplate downstairs or just sticking with the existing plug in filter for the downstairs phone.
To add to the problems I'm planning on doing the job next weekend and all these bank holidays don't leave much time for getting things delivered. The advantage of the latest idea is that I already have an XTF-85 on my home system so if the XTF-85 doesn't arrive in time I can take my own one with me and replace it when the new one arrives.
Yes ancient olde system isn't it?. No cable company covering that area then?..
Incoming line to filtered faceplate. All extensions run off the terminals provided on that unit.. Job done...
What's so special about this then?. Specialist ferrite's and perhaps wire formed by Virgins under moonlight?. I expect Russ Andrews will be making them 'ere long and selling them for what he usually does around a few hundred quid each;!...
If the master socket at the end of BT's incoming line had been in a suitable upstairs location that would have been the best approach.
Well I can only take their word for it but it claims to provide better active filtering than you get with the el-cheapo passive microfilters. And at about ten quid it's hardly a rip-off when it would have cost at least a fiver to put together a couple of modules and a faceplate to provide 2 sockets for the separate filtered and unfiltered pairs I'd originally thought of using.
Yes, That's why I suggested two separate 3-pair Cat3 phone cables rather than run both connections in one Cat5. Two separate Cat5Es would be even better, if you have the cable available to use up. It's better to keep the wires physically separated if you have the option.
I've personal experience of cross-talk in a multi-pair phone cable back to the exchange...
I wouldn't do that because you will have one BT socket, the one on the master, carrying the combined sugnal. Fitting a filtered faceplate means all the BT sockets (other than the hidden test socket) are filtered for the phones. All the RJ11s are combined signal sockets.
If a mistake can be made, someone will do it. Last month or so my neighbour's ADSL went low-speed. He'd managed to plug a phone in an unused socket without using a filter - and had forgotton he'd done it... "But isn't the filter an ADSL one that filters the ADSL signal for the modem?" The number of times I've heard a variant of that one...
Thousands in my case, I think our line is around 3,500m long.
I know but ADSL is very fickle. You only have to watch how the signal to noise ratio varies from day to night as the distant MF stations start to interfere after sunset. Anything you can do to reduce losses or improve the SN ratio the better. So installing something in a way that may introduce more noise is not a Good Thing.
WHEN you fit an ADSL adaptor _any_ hard-wiring beyond that is purely telephony; so you don't need to use any "microfilters" at all.
An "iPlate" is irrelevant. The ADSL adaptor has its own filter so that you have on the 'front panel' telephony and broadband. connectors "Permanent" connections at the rear of the adaptor (as in the NTE5) are just for POTS.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.