Upgraded to "Unlimited" from "Everyday" - connection now slower

[dmn1968]

Hi neilmcl.

Many thanks again for taking the trouble to look into this for me. Its greatly appreciated.

Yes, we do have a number of other devices connected to the telephone line in the house - from the master socket there is what I assume is an ADSL splitter (ACC-107-012). From this, there is a connection to my router (about 3 ft cable) and two telephone lines (in a splitter) - one line goes to my telephone and the other goes to a Sky receiver downstairs. Upstairs we have another telephone socket in which is connected another Sky receiver (connected to the phone line as we have multiroom). We used to have NTL cable. When BT installed the line, they ran a cable from the rear of the master socket into the NTL box outside which connected the upstairs socket.

I have managed to take the master socket to bits as described in the tutorial to access the test socket. I am a little bit unclear as to what I should be poking in where to test it, but describe what tests I have done. Was this what I should have done?

I removed the ADSL splitter from the front of the master socket, and plugged it into the test socket that was exposed when I removed the faceplate. I have removed the telephone lines from this splitter, so the only device connected to it is my router - the cable from my router is the wrong size to plug directly into the test socket. I have then measured the stats (wirelessly from my desktop) as follows:

System Up Time: 00:04:06
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 13 10 0 8 14 00:01:22
LAN 100M/Full 120 0 0 63 0 00:04:01
WLAN 11M/54M 366 476 0 652 190 00:03:48
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 4091 kbps 798 kbps
Line Attenuation 34 db 18 db
Noise Margin 14 db 12 db

The speed tester on this site reported download of 3488, and upload of 533kpbs.

Putting it all back together again, with the faceplate back on and the router/phone lines all back as normal and cycling the power on the router I get the following stats:

System Up Time: 00:02:39
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 13 10 0 11 19 00:01:02
LAN 100M/Full 100 0 0 84 0 00:02:34
WLAN 11M/54M 180 275 0 375 183 00:02:21
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 4091 kbps 798 kbps
Line Attenuation 35 db 19 db
Noise Margin 14 db 12 db

The speed tester on this site had download of 3232 kpbs and upload of 520 kpbs.

Noise margin appears the same, line attenuation slightly less when directly into the master socket, connection speeds the same. I estimate we are around 1 mile from the exchange.

Again, many thanks for the advice.

Dave

[neilmcl]

I'm slightly concerned about what you said about the NTL line coming from the back of this master socket, just to be clear are you saying that BT took the existing NTL phone socket and wired it directly to the rear of the master socket? Is this old NTL socket the only other telephone socket you have in the house?

When you removed the faceplate was there any wires connected to it? If not, it very much sounds like BT have incorrectly wired your master socket. Only the incoming BT line should be connected to the A and B terminals at the rear. All other phone sockets should then be wired off the 2 and 5 terminals of your removable faceplate. Using your test socket should completely isolate the BT line from your internal wiring but it doesn't sound like this is happening.

If you remove the faceplate again is the socket upstairs still working?

Also, just to be sure, are you using another ADSL microfilter/splitter in the upstairs socket?

[Isitme]

Just to add to Neil's contribution, if the other socket is stil 'live' when you remove the faceplate on the master, remove the backplate from the master. This will expose the main A-B terminals. Unscrew these and remove the wires going to your upstairs socket, re-tighten the screws on the main wires. Take your stats. You should see a large increase in the noise margin.

Can you also confirm you do not have an alarm connected to the phone line?