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WHATS THE DIFFERENCE 512 versus 1MB

Just moved house and subscribed to a 1mb connection with BT, problem is I an getting no signal, (router light flashing constantly), after 4 engineer visits the last fella says I should ask to go down to a half megabite connection because I'm on the "end of the line" and the 1mb isn't reaching me, so , WHY SHOULD A HALF MB REACH ME??, I don't understand the logic ?, can someone explain please. One really strange thing is, if I remove the face of the BT box, inside there is a test socket and if I use this I get a full signal (but no phone cos the face plates off) but if I put the face plate back on and plug in the front NO SIGNAL!!, any ideas please, rog
 
Higher speeds require lower line attenuation (signal loss) - I believe if the attenuation is much greater than about 60db a 1 Mb/s connection may not be reliable, where as a 512Kb/s may still be fine.

As connecting direct to the test socket gives you a connection, I'm assuming you must have phone extensions wired into the faceplate, either these are adding too much noise (picked up from your house wiring/appliances), reducing the SNR to a point that you can't connect or something plugged into them lacks a filter or is otherwise causing a problem.

Plug your router into the test socket, let it establish a connection and check the line stats shown by your router.
 
Um..
The fix is.

Remove the face plate.
Remove the wires from the back of the plate you removed and wire it up (i dont know which pins to what) to a phone socket.
Put face plate back on with the new "phone plug" hanging out with enough length to plug it back into the front of the face plate.

Plug in the filter
Plug in the router
Plug in the cable which you just created into the filter.

This means you take broadband as the first thing then the rest of the phones in the house are filtered from that point onwards.

This is how we have to run our broadband to get 512! (again we are right on the line length limit).

Hope this helps.

The other thing they can do is install a Service Specific Face Plate.. it does EXACTLY what doing the above will do.. but it doesnt require solder and also looks better.. Ask the engineer if he can do this (filtered master socket).

The down side to all of this is broadband is ONLY possible to be used at the master socket and not on any of the extensions.

Tom - www.mouselike.org
 
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Is the ADSL connection reliable when you use the test socket?


I use a set of DECT phones with the base station connected via a filter to the master socket, so I don't actually need all the telephone sockets I've connected up over the years except for the fact that I've got the ADSL router plugged into one on the other side of the house. Pluging my router into the master socket with the extension wiring removed improves the signal to noise ratio by about 5dB - partly because I wasn't too particular about not running the phone line closely parallel to mains wiring when I fitted it years ago.

If I didn't have a fairly good SNR margin to start with, I'd either run a replacement telephone cable to a single filter plugged into the master socket using a twisted pair Cat5 cable (I understand that the ring wire adds noise so is best left disconnected) and probably install the modem next to the master socket with Cat5 network cable run to my PC. Or if pulling up the floorboards again was too much hassle, I'd get a wireless router and DECT phone and plug them both into the master socket and diconnect the old wiring.
 
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Many thanks for everything so far, so, as the main BT box is about 4feet from the main electric fuseboards can this be an influence, if so, could BT simply do away with the first incoming box, join the wires back up and make the first extension (lounge) into the main box?,would this help or would I still have to keep taking the front off to access internet? thanks again, rog
 
I doubt the electric fusebord itself would cause a lot of interference, running the internal phonelines along existing mains cable runs (often the easiest place to put them) can cause interference as will electrically noisy appliances (washing machines,shower/central heating pumps etc).

If you want to plug you router into one of the extension sockets and are reluctant to fit a dedicated cable for it, you could try disconnecting the extension wiring's ring wire and the other spare orange wire from the faceplate that plugs into the master socket so that only terminals 2 and 5 are connected.

see http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/UK_telephone/uk_telephone.html

This can (so I've read, I've been meaning to try it myself) make a fair improvement to the SNR margin - the downside is older phones that don't have their own ring capacitor won't ring (I believe this can be fixed by fitting a master socket in place of the slave socket that the phone plugs into).

You can pick up the special service plate drsox mentioned here -
http://www.clarity.it/acatalog/ADSL_Installation.html (although it is nothing more than a standard filter with IDC terminals).
 
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Hmm, I forgot to ask if you'd checked that you have filters fitted to all your telephone equipment (including sky boxes, alarm system auto-dialers, external bells etc)
 
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Mel said:
Hmm, I forgot to ask if you'd checked that you have filters fitted to all your telephone equipment (including sky boxes, alarm system auto-dialers, external bells etc)
Good call, however it might also be worth disconnecting the lot of them as well, so the only device that's connected to a wall telephone socket is the filtered router.

Does essentially the same job as Mel's, but you know what it's like, sometimes it's something really trivial :o
 
Thanks everyone, the upshot is that BT are reducing me to half meg next wednesday, I don't think this will make any difference because I have convinced myself the fault lies in the box, to re-cap, I was told today that I can plug the phone and router into test socket behind faceplate and it should work and yes it did. I had the line tested at 1.1 megabytes using the test socket and I was using my mobile to engage the phone and computer was on, I replaced the faceplate and plugged in the same filter with phone and router and ZILCH, yet its only 2mm difference! There are 2 extensions but they are pucker BT ones not diy plug ins and all the equipment is BT, I'll let you know the result next wednesday, many thanks to everyone, rog
 
" I DON'T BELIEVE IT"!! Woke in a sweat, what if I needed to plug a phone AND router into the first box to make a circuit (remember I'm not technical), well bugger me you do, everything is now working as promised to me by BT a Month ago, thats 3 engineers visits and around 6 hours of phone calls and not one of the incompetents suggested it, so, I'm up and running and just need to cancel next weeks downgrade to half meg ! (oh god , this could just be the beginning), many thanks to all, rog
 
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Please ignore previous self congratulary post, I called BT to be told the downgrade took place yesterday (nice to let me know), so my solution was a complete coincidental fluke!, very sorry BT. They were right, I was too far away for a full blast of broadband but broadband lite seems OK, thanks everyone, (very embarassed) rog
 
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