Calling All Broadband Users/ BT Engineers.

Pulse

Pulse

Pulse

Soldato
Joined
25 Jul 2006
Posts
3,529
Location
Taunton
If you disconnect your router from the internet completely. (i.e. Remove the telephone cable from the back of it) Then turn the phone on and put it to your ear and reconnect the router, can you hear the dial tone on the phone?

I've been having a lot of problems with my internet over the last year and one thing I've noticed is that, when you're on the phone you can hear the router dialing the connection to gain access to the internet, after it's connected there is a fair amount of crackling on the line.

I know our line especially broken from the fact that we have to have the phone engaged 24/7 to have the internet. (It will only connect when the phone is off the hook).
 
ADSL doesn't dial in the first place, so it sounds more like you've got some voice fault (or broken filters) than anything else.
 
LOL - either that or what you think is your router is really a dial up modem.....

Make sure you've got filters in all your telephone sockets. One that's easily forgotten is your Sky box - that will usually be plugged into the telephone line but frequently overlooked when installing broadband filters....
 
ADSL does dial, it just does it much quicker than dial up use to. It still has to initialise the same handshake protocol.

Definetley sounds like a filtering issue, easiest way to rule it out would be to remove all other equipment from the phone line and connect the router and phone directly to the master socket with a single filter and try it from there.

If your still having the same issue contact your ISP as there might be a fault on the broadband side of your phone line.
 
It doesn't dial - it does sync up, but a) it's happening at a frequency above what you can hear and b) with working filters, the voice side should have no trace of the ADSL.

If you've got to leave the phone off the hook you've probably got a split pair, in which case anything is possible.
 
I deal with this kind of issue everyday and I have heard routers syncing up while watching the port initialising in the exchange, as soon as the line has gained sync the noise disappears.

The frequency may be above human hearing but once it goes through a filter tha may be incorrectly setup it will add an impedance to the voice line which is audible. Add to this a split pair or high open and anything is possible.
 
I thought that when it was synching, It tested frequencies accross a wide (broad) range so that it could find parts of the audio spectrum that had a good SnR. and then made several kind of channels, where it communicate well, or something similar to this....
 
Sorry for the really slow reply, but thanks for the info. I've tried it with only the router connected to the master socket which has a BT installed, BT filter. At that point it does connect without the phone needing to be on. But all of the upstairs extensions to my room were put in by an BT engineer when he installed the master socket.

The strange thing is how much our connection speed has dropped. Roughly a month ago it was about 2100kbps, now its just 768kbps. And the 2100 is down from the 4000kbps we were getting when we first connected to Sky. The strange thing is no matter how bad the line gets how crackly or how poor a download speed we get the upload has NEVER changed. It's been a constant 412kbps since last year when the problems started.
 
Right, hoping to get a bit more help with this. It's started playing up again, which means that it's nothing in the house. I've had everything disconnected and sometimes it won't connect, sometimes it will. Either way the speeds have got even worse and are now down to 450kbps.

We've also now changed over to BT after they were persisant that the problem was to do with Sky's hardware in the exchange, so now they have to look at our broadband and line as it's all theirs. If they say it's something to do with our line in the house I will be fairly peeved. As we've had 3 BT engineers out over the last year and none have found a problem within the house, but the problem has still remained. BT cocked up our line at the exchange in Feb '07 and it hasn't been the same. Where do I stand if I wish for them to check the exchange for the fault?
 
Simple: Remove the face plate on the master socket, and plug a brand new filter and possibly a different router into it, nothing else.

If you're still having issues, raise a fault with BT, explain to them that you've tried it in the test socket, with different hardware, and that it cannot possibly be anything to do with "your own" wiring, as test socket back is BT's.
 
Pulse said:
We've also now changed over to BT after they were persisant that the problem was to do with Sky's hardware in the exchange, so now they have to look at our broadband and line as it's all theirs.
Click to expand...
Sorry if you were hoping for that to be an easy option, BT Broadband have to escalate faults to BT exactly the same way as every other ISP, and in most cases are even less willing to do so than a competent ISP would be.
 
MikeHiow said:
Simple: Remove the face plate on the master socket, and plug a brand new filter and possibly a different router into it, nothing else.
Click to expand...

Tried this earlier, had the same problems. It wouldn't connect even in the test socket so plugged in a pants phone and listened for the dial tone, sure enough it was there, then after a couple of seconds I could hear the broadband dialing up and after it does there is quite a bit of crackling on the line. This was a BT installed wallsocket with the BT master socket ADSL filter. Tried 3 different types of filters and all the same problem. I'm guessing if I can hear the broadband dialing in the test socket then it surely isn't to do with our internal wiring?
 
What speed does it sync at if you have the router plugged straight into the test socket (no filter)? It's possible but unlikely that you have 3 dodgy filters, but this will eliminate them as being an issue.
 
Caged said:
What speed does it sync at if you have the router plugged straight into the test socket (no filter)? It's possible but unlikely that you have 3 dodgy filters, but this will eliminate them as being an issue.
Click to expand...

Well I need to have the filter in so that I can connect the right wire to the socket. But either way we had an engineer out this afternoon actually and he tested everything, in the house and at the exchange and can't find a problem. It can't be the router as we've had 3 different ISP's with 3 Different routers all with the same problem. We're now having to book a specialist BT broadband engineer to come out with more specific equipment to test it.
 
Just use a standard phone cable (the line cord off another phone), you don't need the filters for ADSL to work if there's no voice devices on the line.
 
Ah right, I see what you mean, managed to nick the one from the phone. I'll report back with testing in a second.

Edit: Results

Even whilsts connected straight into the test socket the connection is still crap. It still says it's syncing at around 1MB and yet to my pc and my laptop I'm only recieving around 330kbps. This is ridiculous, and whats worse BT still haven't got back to me after I called them asking for a Broadband engineer to visit. I shall be following that up with a letter of complaint. After a year and half of messing around we're starting to get really ****** off with this ****.

Some broadband stats to go with it -

Noise margin (Down/Up) 10.1 dB / 16.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 48.0 dB / 30.0 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 16.9 dBm / 11.9 dBm
 
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The speed you get in real terms will depend on your IP profile, which won't increase instantly.

In all honesty, just migrate to an ISP that doesn't suck...
 
Did you get a solution to this problem?

I'm currently experiencing very similar problems. I did a speed check a couple of moments ago and my D/L speed was less than a dial up connection. I'm with Pipex and they are as much use as an ash tray on a motorbike.

Because of where i live and the distance from the exchange, I usually get around 4 meg from an 8 meg connection, which I've been more than happy with. A couple of weeks ago we had a major power surge in our house. My router got frizzled in the process, as long as a lot of other house hold electronics. I replaced the router with a Belkin G+ Mimo and noticed my speeds where toilet to say the least.

I got on to pipex who made me do the usual checks to see if it was a problem with my configuration. New router, new filter, you know the drill I'm sure. Any how, my connection has gotten slower and slower, up to the point where even browsing becomes impossible because of the slow speeds. Pipex say the are giving me 1.7 meg because this is the safest speed before instability creeps in. Oh how i wish for 1.7 meg right now, hell even 1 meg would do!

I've been and and bought another router tonight just to be doubly sure it isn't a problem my end. I plugged it in to the BT test socket and noticed my speed did increase slightly, i downloaded a test file at 17kbs :eek: Lightning fast you'll agree. BT want £100 + to come out and do a home call, I'm buggerd if I'm paying that. I've been thinking of leaving the Hoff for some time, do you think changing ISP will help?

Sorry for high jacking your thread, I was curious how you'd got on.
 
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