Are All Microfilters Created Equal?

jbloggs · 27 Sep 2006 at 11:51

Looking to buy 3 Microfilters to replace the ones I have had now for over 3 years, what make do you suggest I go for, ie. not overly expensive, but good quality, something that will hopefully contribute to increasing download/upload speeds, as I live 5.8km (line length) from exchange.

shine · 27 Sep 2006 at 11:59

ADSL Nation XF-1e is meant to be one of the best filters around, they cost about £8 each.

dirtydog · 27 Sep 2006 at 12:18

Unless your current filter is faulty, don't expect a new one to have more than a very marginal effect. You can't do anything about your line attenuation either*.

To see how badly your current filter is working, try connecting to the BT test socket without using the filter, and see how much your stats improve. (* my line attenuation went from 56.5dB with a filter to 56.0dB at the test socket - woohoo

)

errata · 27 Sep 2006 at 13:43

You can find "reviews" of microfilters that will help.

The very cheapest dongles are shoddy and prone to failure or damage from vacuum cleaners etc. BT supplied/branded NTE5 spec are good.

I eventually settled on a master socket faceplate replacment with a filter built in from *competitor!*. This got rid of all my dongles but still let me wire an unfiltered extension to my router. Worth every penny

jbloggs · 27 Sep 2006 at 14:44

Mant thanks for your suggestions.

Avalon · 28 Sep 2006 at 00:21

I spent hour re-wireing the office recently removing a 12 year old self wired extension, cheap ass nasty filter and RJ11 patch and replacing them with a decent filter and one RJ11 run to the modem, it made an amazingly small difference to my stats but it made me feel better.