Calling All Broadband Users/ BT Engineers.

[Pulse]

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).

 

[Pulse]

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.

 

[Pulse]

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?

 

[Pulse]

Simple: Remove the face plate on the master socket, and plug a brand new filter and possibly a different router into it, nothing else.

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?

 

[Pulse]

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.

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.

 

[Pulse]

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