ADSL Nation NTE-2005 Master face plate

[nimitron]

HI thanks for your reply well thats is the master one we had when we moved in i did my own extension to get it upsatirs ill have a look at the socket you recomened thanks.

[shady]

Hi chaps

I have a standard BT socket in the hallway, but the builders also wired in two extensions to the study and living room - which work fine for the 'phones and also (for a while) with Sky Broadband max in the study (having an issue with Sky - which is a story for another day...).

My question is this - if I replaced the master socket with an XTE-2005, does this also mean the extensions are also 'filtered', or would I still need a micro-filter or additional faceplate for this location ?

As I do not want to plug the router into the hallway master socket I really need to use the extension wired in (behind the wall) to the study.


Any advice ?


Thanks

[cazzbar]

On the front of the XTE-2005 is an ADSL socket and a phone/voice socket (both filtered accordingly). And you can then hardwire 'filtered for voice' phone extensions to other rooms (which then do not require filters on their ends) and/or completely unfiltered extensions to other rooms (which will require extra filters dependent on their intended use)

Personally I've a 15 metre twisted modem cable plugged into the ADSL socket on the front of the XTE-2005 going to my router and 2 voice extensions hardwired into the back (which do not need filters in the rooms they go to).

This method has given me my maximum sync rate possible of 8096Mb/s

Instead of the 15 metre modem cable, I could have run an unfiltered extension (using high quality twisted cabling of course) to the room with the router in and fitted a filtered extension socket for the router to plug into, but this seemed too much like hard work for no performance increase!

Also I actually needed 3 extensions hardwired into the back of the XTE2005, but this proved troublesome as only the first 2 extensions inserted worked properly. So if you need more than two extensions I recommend using the phone socket on the front and getting a standard splitter if it's already being used.

[shady]

...but that was what I was trying to avoid - having to plug a cable into the front of the master socket when I have all of the cabling installed by the builders behind the plasterwork.

Of course I cannot vouch for the quality of this work - however the 'phone line works OK as did the Sky Broadband (although at a maximum speed of 1.5mb) - albeit when this was working (currently down and waiting for Sky to cap the line at 3meg).

As the lien is already in place - would I get any decent results from replacing the faceplate in the study with an NTE-2005 ? Or will this have no improvement without the master socket being replaced ?

Apologies for the newbie questions (why oh why did I leave BT )...

[cazzbar]

Well, first of all you need to know if any of this is going to be of any advantage to you! ... to check whether it is, you need to use the test phone socket hiding behind your master socket (if it's a new style BT master socket (NTE5) the bottom half unscrews revealing the test socket... if it's an old style master socket you won't have the removable bottom part, so you would have to fit a new style one to perform the test if you feel up to it)

I would suggest dragging your router to the master socket and connecting it to the hidden test socket using the short modem cable supplied and via one of the soap on a rope filters supplied by Sky. Then set up a wireless link between your PC and the router (if you haven't got a long enough ethernet cable to connect the two of course)

It doesn't matter if you have a weak wireless signal between the two because you just need one figure! The Connection or Sync speed found on the router's home page via your web browser (typically 192.168.0.1). If this connection speed is significantly higher than usual (so you need to get that figure now before you move the router!) then it really is worth ordering some new boxes. This of course is reliant on the quality of the extension cable, ideally it should be twisted pair stuff, if not it may attract noise.

If you decide to go ahead and order the boxes, then you'll need the XTE2005 faceplate (it's better than the NTE2005 apparently) and hardwiring the router's extension cable to the unfiltered A&B sockets at the back (and the voice-only extension to 2&5). You then need to order an XTF filtered extension socket for the other end of the router extension (ADSL Nation - XTF-68/85 - Pre-filtered Telephone Socket)

I'm a bit rushed but hopefully that all makes some sense!

[ricopico]

You think you have problems?

i have moved house within the last month, and found this house to be of somewhat of a distance from the exchange.. (2.8km to be exact), without tweaking, the line generally settles at around 352kb down, 700kb upload.

I have replaced the BT drop cable with cat5, replaced my old style bt socket with an nte5 and used an adslnation front plate on top of that, and to my supprise, I see no change, - there is no change in line antenuation (63.5) and no change on margin (6db) both of which totally suck.

I have used the modem tweak tool to manually change the margin to as low as 1.5, and the modem syncs at peak of 651kb, which to some extent is aceptable. It apears the the modem is working fine synced at this speed, I am able to dl at ~70k/sec.

hrmmm sorry to grumble here.. I really dont think theres any advice that will help me. I have done pretty much all that can be done included breaching my bt contract (ooops)

[stephens]

It seems that your are connected to a very poor line. I'm sure that you understand although you are 2.8km from your exchange this can be much longer due to roads etc. It really is pot luck about whether you are connected to a shorter distance line. Some lines go the shortest route to the exchange, but others go around the world. BT will issue you with a new line at a cost, but there is no way of knowing whether it will be a better line. Although I am sure you can not get much worse with them stats

[brianc]

Originally Posted by cazzbar

If you decide to go ahead and order the boxes, then you'll need the XTE2005 faceplate (it's better than the NTE2005 apparently) and hardwiring the router's extension cable to the unfiltered A&B sockets at the back (and the voice-only extension to 2&5). You then need to order an XTF filtered extension socket for the other end of the router extension (ADSL Nation - XTF-68/85 - Pre-filtered Telephone Socket)

Great post cazzbar.

Is there any advantage of installing one of the Prefiltered sockets on the end of an unfiltered extension instead of one of those "dongle type" filters.
I get the same speed on my extension now (6.5Mbs) after fitting an XTE2005 faceplate as I do at my master socket. So would fitting a XTF-68/85 only be a cosmetic issue with me.