Do i need microfilters ?

tang0 · 16 May 2006 at 16:39

Hello

I had my adsl installed in 2003 (i think) a bt engineer came round and installed a newfaceplate next to the pc, and wired it up directly to the main socket where the phone line comes in downstairs in the room directly under the pc room.

And i just wondered do i need microfilters on the other phones around the house and the 2 sky boxes?

thanks

Burbleflop · 16 May 2006 at 16:42

It depends. Some of the engineer installs I've seen have had the extentions coming out of the filtered side of things, others are unfiltered.

tang0 · 16 May 2006 at 16:44

I'll take some pics, might make things clearer

Burbleflop · 16 May 2006 at 16:47

Good idea. Pics of the inside of the socket will be most useful.

tang0 · 16 May 2006 at 16:54

Heres the main socket, the wire running along the edge of the window skirt bit is the wire that goes upstairs to the pc room.

The phoneline coming out goes to a filter i just put on it, and that goes to the phone in that room

This is the box upstairs with dsl connection on the left which goes to my router, and sky wire on the right

Burbleflop · 16 May 2006 at 16:57

Yep, you need microfilters except for the sky box that is plugged into the socket next to your ADSL cable. I (wrongly) assumed that it was your mastersocket that the engineer played with.

tang0 · 16 May 2006 at 17:01

Thanks for that, so, microfilters for all phone sockets? but how about the actual ADSL cable (the blue one on the bottom picture) ?

Burbleflop · 16 May 2006 at 17:03

The face plate that the ADSL cable is plugged into does everything you need, no need for filters for anything attached to that face plate.

Edit - Yep, filters are needed on all the other sockets.

isthisusername · 16 May 2006 at 17:08

Filters benefit things when *speaking* on the phone?

Burbleflop · 16 May 2006 at 17:09

isthisusername said:
Filters benefit things when *speaking* on the phone?

Filters benefit things using the voice portion of the line, not necessarily speech. A sky box making a data call on an unfiltered line will upset the ADSL.

tang0 · 16 May 2006 at 17:19

So not having filters will affect the phoneline but not adsl ? i dont reall understand.

Or does not having filters affect noise on the line or something

Burbleflop · 16 May 2006 at 17:23

It'll affect both. The ADSL can drop if an unfiltered device uses the line and an unfiltered device may hear screeching sounds if the ADSL is active.

WOMBATWILSON · 16 May 2006 at 17:28

that is an adsl frontplate so if installed correctly as in extns off back of face plate no filters are needed. did you install that filter downstairs? if not take it out and plug the phone diredctly into it and pick it up and see if the adsl connection drops, if it does then yes you need filters but personally the adsl frontplate wasnt installed correctly then

csmager · 16 May 2006 at 19:23

WOMBATWILSON said:
that is an adsl frontplate so if installed correctly as in extns off back of face plate no filters are needed.

But if you actually look at the pictures, the master socket is downstairs and all the extensions run off that. So the frontplate is on an extension socket, so has absolutely no effect on any of the other extensions.

WOMBATWILSON · 16 May 2006 at 19:25

csmager said:
But if you actually look at the pictures, the master socket is downstairs and all the extensions run off that. So the frontplate is on an extension socket, so has absolutely no effect on any of the other extensions.

depends could be back feed. i know we arnt really allowed to back feed it but we do

any chance of taking the downstairs socket off and taking some pics?

tang0 · 16 May 2006 at 21:25

Heres whats inside the main socket downstairs

Dont know what u can make out of that, bit of a jumble

WOMBATWILSON · 16 May 2006 at 23:50

cant really work out what is going to what in that pic. are they same colour wires from the black box going through the socket(using those little connectors) and upstairs then back down again?

Phemo · 17 May 2006 at 07:57

WOMBATWILSON said:
cant really work out what is going to what in that pic. are they same colour wires from the black box going through the socket(using those little connectors) and upstairs then back down again?

That is what I would guess is the case. When I got my ADSL installed about 5 years ago, I had the engineer install a new socket upstairs in my house which obviously has the BT faceplate fitted. This socket upstairs is now the master socket, and the old master socket is piggybacked off that as an already filtered extension.

I am guessing exactly the same thing has happened here. The socket with BT ADSL faceplate located upstairs is the new master socket and the socket downstairs is wired up to the socket upstairs as a filtered extension ... meaning that filter on your old master socket is pointless.

Still, if you've gone 3 years without using a filter and you've never had any disconnections or problems using the phone then I would say it's safe to assume that you don't need a filter at all

WOMBATWILSON · 17 May 2006 at 17:21

and looking at the photos again there is no capacitor in the downstairs socket and looks like that grey wire is going to postion 3 which is the ringing circuit so more than likely the main socket is the adsl fronplate one