fibre optic and master socket

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25 Aug 2014
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Our master socket is in a spot which does not have any plugs near it.

Is it okay to run a telephone extension cable>filter>hub?

Will this degrade the line quality? Or do you need a 'special' extension cable.

Cheers!
 
The socket will have a filtered faceplate so no need for the filters.
Usually the openreach guy can move the master socket for you, but barring that then yes a decent cable will be fine
 
I had fibre installed last week..the master socket was down stairs but I had an extension from it in the upstairs bedro0m...the engineer made the upstairs socket the master socket instead of moving the original master socket. He said it was just a case of swapping a few wires around in the original master. I am running at 74 mb download at the moment so the extension cable is not having a bad effect on performance...hope this helps.
 
Not all extensions are the same. Flat, untwisted cheap cable made of aluminium or copper clad aluminium will not help give maximum speeds.

What about a set of homeplugs? At least until you can sort a decent extension.
 
Thank you for your insights. These are my results, which have been roughly the same over the last couple of days:

3824816142.png


This seems to match my download speeds in steam (3.5 megabytes)

Do you think it is worthwhile chasing sky up to see if they can improve speeds?

It has only taken 15 years for me to be able to use the LG and RG (accurately) in q3a. In that time my connection has evolved from: 56k (barrysworld!) > isdn > dsl > fibre.

And I'm still playing the _same_ game.
 
Speeds are not wonderful are they for a FTTC product. Are you quite some distance from the cabinet? You'd need to be in the region of 1km away from the cabinet for those sorts of speeds.

http://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/2013/chart-bt-fttc-vdsl2-speed-against-distance

Have you tried plugging the router closer to the master socket (use a mains extension) and seeing if there's a difference in line stats. If you notice an increase in speed or noise margin or a decrease in attenuation then the extension is affecting your speed.
 
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Hi Tealc.

I did the mains test:

3827317777.png


Using telephone ext:

Broadband Link
Downstream 33160 kbps
Upstream 6179 kbps

Line Attenuation
27.8 dB
0.0 dB
Noise Margin
D5.7 dB
U6.6 dB

Using Mains:

D35770 kbps U9995 kbps
Line Attenuation D22.5 dB U0.0 dB
Noise Margin D6.3 dB U6.6 dB

Bit of an improvement U wise.

What would be the next step? Homeplugs?
 
If you're losing that much over the extension cabling then it's junk.

I'd suggest:

  • Get a BT 'vDSL Interstitial Faceplate' for the master socket. If you haven't got a NTE5 style socket post a picture of what you do have.
  • Use a length of solid core Cat5e for the extension wiring.
  • At the master socket end you can use the IDC terminals on the back of the faceplate (use the blue pair, the other three can be ignored).
  • At the other end connect the blue pair to pins 4&5 of a standard network faceplate (the other pairs can be ignored).
 
isnt self activation supposed to include a faceplate in the pack to fit the master socket... sure i read that was how it was going to happen but wasnt quite launched when fttc came to my area so had to have installed by an engineer.
Call your ISP and tell them to send you one as you are supposed to use one as per the terms of connecting to the openreach fibre network (as well as bt approved modems only)

What package have you got? those speeds would be considered acceptable for a 38-40mb package if stable and getting engineers out to look at it would likely end up in call out charges. if a 78-80mb package then your on a long line, have a fault or just a poor quality line (maybe some aluminium lines which are bad news for VDSL)

VDSL is great but it is more sensitive to interferance, cable length and cable quality then ADSL. No extensions and a propper BT vdsl faceplate is the way to go if possible.
If you have any other old unused extension disconnect them too.

Is the sky hardware a combined modem and router or still a separate modem and router?
 
That improvement certainly suggests a lower quality cable. The 5dB extra attenuation, at least with old ADSL figures, is equivalent to around 400 metres of additional copper.

Homeplugs may be an option. I've recommended their use for quite some time now but only have actually started using them myself quite recently. I bought some £25 small TP-Link AV500s and they allow a 200-250Mbit link, which I think is limited to 100Mbit by the ethernet interface. You can pay more for faster versions with wifi/gigabit/AC passthrough. Mine add 3ms to my ping time.

As above make sure your internal phone line is totally clean and everything else disconnected, apart from a telephone if you need one which should be filtered via a filtered faceplate or at least a decent filter right at the master socket. Any extensions you use will add noise to the line and reduce your speed. If you have to use an extension for your phone use CW1308 twisted pair or ethernet non stranded.

You might also want to try removing the lower faceplate off your master socket and trying the test socket with the router and seeing what difference that makes.
 
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Okay currently running hub directly into master socket and using a homeplug via ethernet cable:

Connection Speed 39209 kbps 7198 kbps
Line Attenuation 22.5 dB 0.0 dB
Noise Margin 5.2 dB 9.9 dB

3828904633.png


So what I can see is an increase in noise margin and an increase in upload.

Is there anyway of checking that this has stabilised my connection other than playing games?

Is it worthwhile keeping the TL-WA850RE (300mbps) or should i refund and get a 500mbps?

We never got a faceplate and it looks like an nte5. Our master socket is an old style one - so old it has yellowed.
 
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So are you in the test socket or just in the master socket? You may find the upload stabilises higher than 7198kbps given some time as it has some margin available. That's nearly the max you'd get on the 40/10 Sky product so I'd be happy with the result. I wouldn't recommend upgrading to the 80/20 package though as I doubt you'd see any extra speed.

If you are getting more than your broadband speed when connecting via those 300Mbps then I don't see a point in upgrading, unless they are causing an issue.
 
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