Broadband query

[Roger Chapman]

I made a complaint about this to BT on 9th December. This afternoon I got a telephone call about it. The conversation lasted some time with him trying to persuade me first that I didn't have a second master socket wired as a secondary socket and then to adopt his solution of plugging in a filter into the secondary socket and taking the broadband from there. He just wouldn't have it that since the broadband signal was filtered out by the first master socket a second filter could not restore the missing signal. He was so adamant about it that I am beginning to doubt my understanding of the problem. BT of course are happy to send out an engineer to fix the problem but "there may be a charge" and I am not going to give them a chance to make me pay for their past errors. I never did get round to pointing out that when I upgraded to Infinity the instruction was to remove all the filters from the secondary sockets and throw the filters away.

[dennis]

The filters stop the telephony signals not the ADSL/VDSL signal. They are there to stop the impedance changes caused by using a phone from changing the line characteristics.

Assuming you fitted a filtered plate then the rj45 connector for the modem is on the unfiltered side. All the other wiring should be on the other side of the filter.

[Roger Chapman]

Are you saying that BT's solution of putting a filter on the secondary socket's output would actually work? If so why on earth did we have filters on all secondary sockets under the old (pre-infinity) system in order to use a telephone on those outlets?

The fitting was all done by the BT Openreach engineer when I upgraded to Infinity a year ago. The only identification on the face plate other than BT, etc. is 'MK 2'.

I have a double socket as the master socket. Infinity is plugged into the upper socket and a normal phone into the lower socket. The second double socket is wired as an ordinary secondary socket and so is the other side of the faceplate filter AFAICS.

ISTM that if I could only find one of the discarded filters I could test the BT solution by plugging the filter into the telephone socket on the master socket and then plugging the Home Hub into that filter rather than relocating the whole shooting match to the second double socket. So what, if anything, have I overlooked this time?

[dennis]

In the olden days you had a filter on each phone. With the filtered face plate you only needed one filter provided all the telephony stuff was on the filtered side. If you have two face plates connected to the incoming line you need two filters.

If you don't have any phones you don't need any filters if that's any help with your testing.

The filters are low pass filters and allow the telephony through, you shouldn't use one on the modem. The modem does its own filtering using a DSP to filter each of the channels it wants to use. The other filters are to stop the phones changing the line characteristics when you pick one up or it rings, etc. If you try it without the filters then the modem will drop the signal and retrain when the phone is used.

[Roger Chapman]

snip

I have two double face plates but only one is connected directly to the incoming line. The other is connected to the terminals provided for secondary sockets.

No sure but see below.

Have I got this correct? The modem socket on the face plate gets the unfiltered signal in all its glory. Both the telephone socket and any secondary sockets connected in the approved fashion get a filtered signal.

But given your explanation that the filter is there to isolate the effect of a phone on the operation of the modem does the filter actually take anything out of the incoming signal? And if not why does the modem not work when attached to the modem connection on the secondary socket but would, according to BT, if an old style filter was added to the line down stream of the filtered face plate?

[charles]

When, a couple of years ago, I had problems with my internet connection, a change of filter resolved the problem. This implies the filter affects the ADSL signal.

[dennis]

Yes, so can any faulty or incorrectly installed item.

[dennis]

If its the same BT socket I have there are two sets of terminals, one filtered for extensions and stuff and one unfiltered that can be used to extend the modem.

The filters are low pass so the ADSL signal would be seriously attenuated to the point it wouldn't work in most installations. It might still connect if you are only a few metres from the exchange.

The BT guy probably thinks the second socket is connected to the unfiltered side and wants to find out.

[Dave Liquorice]

I'd rather go with "not all ADSL filters are created equal". I tried a faceplate filter here after reading reviews and selecting a "good one". Yes, during the day it consistently allowed a higher sync speed than the BT branded MF50 "soap on a rope". Trouble is that speed couldn't be maintained overnight. The MF50 is a bit slower but stable...

[Ernest Clark]

I had the same problem or near enough. I wanted my master socket changed fr om downstairs to the termination (historical when I had a home office with another line) upstairs. I have BT Infinity. I just asked to move the termin ation/master socket so the only one is upstairs. The person was able to tel l me as I placed the 'order' what the cost was...zero! If you are ok with o nly one termination point in the house (all my connections are wireless or via the power cables) then maybe try just asking for move. They should have a record of your request before so you can point out that the wiring shoul d have been done.

[charles]

As a matter of interest, how close is he to the cabinet?

[CB]

According to Google maps 755m

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I get around 45 Mbps here in central London with the master socket fed direct from the incoming line where it enters the house - and the incoming line was replaced recently.

[Dave Liquorice]

Theory says he ought to get the upper end of 30 Mbps at that distance.

Still if he's happy with 26, and I'm not surprised moving from less than 2 Mbps, let sleeping dogs lie.

[Lawrence]

I've just had FTTC from talktalk. They sent me the new VDSL modem/router (HGH35) last week and even on the old system my speed doubled from 2.5 to 5 Mbs. On switchover they estimated 38 but in fact I've got 39 Mbs. I have no master socket and I've got rid of all the ring wiring. I used to lose my connection around 5.30PM every day because of noise on the line. No problem now.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Good luck with talktalk. Hope they have improved - they were perhaps the worst company I've ever had dealings with.

[Timothy Murphy]

As a matter of interest, how do you all measure the speed?

[Tricky Dicky]

Yes can anyone recommend a decent broadband speed checker. I have the same one on the iPad and the laptop and it gives two different readings usually slower on the iPad?

Richard

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I use the one on the BT site. Not quite sure if it is BT customers only, though. It's interesting to compare the figures for cabled versus Wi-Fi, and such like.

However, once you go above about 10 Mbs or so with just one computer on your LAN, it doesn't seem to be any faster in practice. And plenty of sites still buffer - unlike what the BT etc ads suggest. ;-)

[CB]

I use this site

(other speed checking sites are available :-))