Multiple Phone Sockets in House - phone calls work fine... one socket ADSL incapable?

Heofz

Heofz

Heofz

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
3,469
Location
London, UK
Hey everyone,

I'm encountering a bit of an odd problem here...

Due to our house having 3 floors and despite the house itself being only about 5 years old and thus having relatively brand-spanking-new wiring, our PowerLine network is not up to scratch. Predictably, the further the device I'm trying to reach via the Powerline network, the lower the available bandwidth.

It seems that despite more than "sufficient" bandwidth capacity provided by my powerline nodes, they are causing a bottleneck in my broadband connection.

I have 24mbit internet, but at present (with our adsl modem/router installed in the study, where the main filtered BT socket is), I'm getting about 9mbit max. I know where the bottleneck lies because I did the tests on PCs connected directly to the router simply using ethernet cable, and I achieved the maximum broadband in online speed tests.

ANYWAY (:p), to cut a long story short, what I'm trying to do is relocate that adsl modem from the study on the ground floor to the server room directly above my bedroom. The main reason I want this is to enable the server to take care of all our downloads while being able to access the maximum bandwidth possible.

The problem is, if I plug a phone into the phone socket in the server room, I can get dial tone and everything is hunky dorey, however, no matter what I do, I can't for the life of me get ADSL connected using that socket. I've tried several different filters etc but no joy. Does anyone have any suggestions?

For a general idea of what I mean, I've gone to the trouble of drawing a wee diagram:

House%20Layout.png
 
Is it a proper ADSL filtered socket? If so then i think i'm right in saying that's the only socket you can get ADSL. It's best to leave it in the master socket anyway. Can you run cat5 upstairs? I'm guessing not as you're using powerline.
 
Zap said:
Is it a proper ADSL filtered socket? If so then i think i'm right in saying that's the only socket you can get ADSL. It's best to leave it in the master socket anyway. Can you run cat5 upstairs? I'm guessing not as you're using powerline.
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Yes I believe it is :(

I wonder, how exactly do these proper adsl filtered sockets compare to mere standard sockets with a filter/splitter plugged in?

Does anyone happen to know if there's any way I can somehow make the other phone sockets work?

I don't mind a slight bandwidth decrease by using a non-master socket, as my powerline bottleneck is causing me an almost 50% broadband speed deficit as it is. :/

And yeah I really want to try to avoid the cat5 option if possible...
 
You could connect the extensions to the unfiltered (i.e. ADSL) side of the filter, but that completely defeats the point of having a filtered master socket.
 
Tolien said:
You could connect the extensions to the unfiltered (i.e. ADSL) side of the filter, but that completely defeats the point of having a filtered master socket.
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the problem is that the house has pre-wired phone sockets, not actual cable extensions running anywhere :(

Is there anything I could do taking this into account? (preferably without needing to rip open the walls :p)
 
As noted rewire the master socket so all phones are unfiltered and then provide filters for any phones (but not the router)

or

run another phone wire from unfiltered master socket to the new location (internal or external wire)

or run an ethernet cable internally or externally

Unless your home phone wirings particaurly well done you may not do much better than using the master socket.

Should you not be looking to resolve your powerline issue ?
 
errata said:
As noted rewire the master socket so all phones are unfiltered and then provide filters for any phones (but not the router)

or

run another phone wire from unfiltered master socket to the new location (internal or external wire)

or run an ethernet cable internally or externally

Unless your home phone wirings particaurly well done you may not do much better than using the master socket.

Should you not be looking to resolve your powerline issue ?
Click to expand...

Resolving the powerline issue would be great, but I honestly don't know how I can make it better :( and nobody has really been able to help me when asking about this previously (see my previous thread).

The devices themselves are very simple plug & play, so there isn't really anything to tweak, and trying alternative plug sockets doesn't make much of a difference either.

Does anyone know if there is some kind of hand-held diagnostic tool I can use to test the stability of my electricity wiring and/or phone socket wiring?

Also am I right in understanding that ADSL signals do not propogate through a phone filter?
 
The Power line networking depends on the type of cable that runs in your house if its a single core wire type the signal that is sent will be subject to every turn twist and tweak in the cable. On the other hand if its multi core twisted wire there will be less chance of signal degradation. It also depends on how each ring is wired into the main fuse board.

hope that helps. but as for ways of improving it i cannot help these are just some of the factors that will affect the signal.
 
Heofz said:
The problem is, if I plug a phone into the phone socket in the server room, I can get dial tone and everything is hunky dorey, however, no matter what I do, I can't for the life of me get ADSL connected using that socket. I've tried several different filters etc but no joy. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Click to expand...

$ ideas;

1) Change the filter/socket for the same sort
2) Change the filter using an old style socket using the wires for the phone side and use an external filter
3) Drop a ethernet line done a duct
4) Drop a ethernet line down the outside wall
 
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Dropping the Ethernet down a duct of outside is going to be the easiest option, screwing with phone sockets can cause more problems than they are worth.

Have a look in the socket thats not working and see if the ring wire is connected (orange if i remember correctly but dont quote me on that) if it is then try removing it and see if that makes any difference.
 
Is there a way I can find out whether the wiring in my house is single or multi cored?

When you say "duct", do you mean down the wall cavity?
 
every house is wired with solid copper twin and earth, only flex cable is multistrand and your cant wire a house with that

you can check if your server room is on a different ring by looking at the fuse box and seeing if turning off power on a particualr ring affects the whole hosue 1 2 or all 3 floors

unpluging applicances with mores may improve powerline test and if it helps get a filter to smooth out spikes for taht applicance
 
Heofz said:
Is there a way I can find out whether the wiring in my house is single or multi cored?

When you say "duct", do you mean down the wall cavity?
Click to expand...

Duct inside the house or you can get outside cat or if your cheap put it inside a hose to protect it from most of the elements

I did this and lasted 2 years (well could have longer but wemoved) going from 2nd story to about 4ft off the ground (to lower the chance of frost) the out side cat wasnt that much extra iirc
 
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