Unstable connection

[lovattj]

Hi

I've been a Sky broadband user for about 9 months, for about the first 8 the connection was fine. We are some distance from the exchange and only get ~1500kbps and for the first 8 months the line always synced at just over 1500kbps, it was fast (enough) and rock solid.

In this last month the connection has started to become unstable. It now syncs at up to 1832kbps but has a habit of dropping every few minutes. What happens is that the SNR starts off at about 8db (downstream) and then after a few minutes surfing you can see it spike downwards all the way to 0.1 and long before then, you can't load any webpages.

In an attempt to figure out the problem I disconnected all extensions and phones and have the modem connected directly to the master socket (filtered) with no other extensions and phones. Before then we had a long-ish extension lead to the modem and also a phone. Since making this change it's become far more stable with the SNR holding steady - but still (but less frequently) the SNR drops suddenly and the connection drops still!

But this isn't very convenient as I can't plug a phone in because the room where the master socket is is a bedroom, and the extension used to go to the lounge. But it certainly appears that this is the problem. What's confusing me is why it only manifested itself now (before then the extension and the phone worked fine!) and I don't know any easy way of improving stability.

I've tried leaving the router in the bedroom plugged straight in and connecting the extension to the phone socket on the filter (and through to the lounge and the phone) but the connection drops immediately when I try and do this.

I'm a bit perplexed! It could be the poor internal wiring, or possibly the phone itself? Any hints would be appreciated!

The stats at the moment are:

ds
Speed: 1824kbps
Attenuation: 60.5db
Noise margin :7.9db (fluctuates between 7.4db and 8.3db)

us
Speed: 416kbps
Attenuation: 31.5db
Noise margin: 21.0db

Thanks

[Exdee]

If you are happy to keep your router in the bedroom at the master socket I would recommend getting a filtered faceplate. This would filter out the ADSL signal at your master socket and you would still be able to use your phones at your extensions.

filtered faceplate
IDC tool required for connections

Installing a filtered faceplate at your master socket will give you the maximum broadband efficiency.