Weird broadband problem

Troezar · 13 Jun 2011 at 19:01

I have had intermittent connection problems for over a month now and so far tried two phones and five different microfilters. BT have been out twice and can't find any noise on the line. They have changed the master socket and checked the connection at the house and the cabinet.

I've now got Plusnet on the case and they've asked for the usual change the micro filter, plug into test socket. While I was doing this I thought I'd test out something I'd noticed. I used all five microfilters and the two phones and found every time I pick up the phone and get a dial tone the connection drops out.

I'm sure all five filters can't be at fault?! I also get noise on the phone line that only I can hear the person at the other end hears a normal line.

Anyone ever come across anything like this?

Other info. I'm on a particularly slow line lucky to get 1.5Mbps
The router is a Thomson TG585v7 supplied by Plusnet.

Tealc · 13 Jun 2011 at 23:33

I had a flaky line that dropped quite a bit, especially when using the phone. I got a rather expensive filter from adslnation and it seems much better in that ive not noticed any dropouts since.

I had tried about 4 filters, two from my initial BT broadband setup and two supplied with sky routers that made no difference.

Not sure why the filters were inneffective but there you go.

It's only been a couple of weeks though so it's still early days.

Worth a try?

Mine is a decent line though with adsl 2+ getting near 20mbit.

Troezar · 14 Jun 2011 at 07:31

Tealc said:
I had a flaky line that dropped quite a bit, especially when using the phone. I got a rather expensive filter from adslnation and it seems much better in that ive not noticed any dropouts since.

I had tried about 4 filters, two from my initial BT broadband setup and two supplied with sky routers that made no difference.

Not sure why the filters were inneffective but there you go.

It's only been a couple of weeks though so it's still early days.

Worth a try?

Mine is a decent line though with adsl 2+ getting near 20mbit.

Cheers, I've ordered an XF-1e microfilter so hopefully that will improve things if only in the short term. I'll report back when it arrives

Troezar · 16 Jun 2011 at 18:31

Well I have installed the new microfilter, about £9 inc. postage and no drop outs since. Still got a noisy line but it seems to be filtering it well. Phonecalls don't kill my connection any more so I think that's a result. Plus rep to Tealc I think, cheers that has helped a lot

Next on the shopping list is to try out a Billion 7800N router and see what improvement I get....

Ryan111 · 16 Jun 2011 at 18:51

Post your line stats

Nightglow · 16 Jun 2011 at 19:22

You could paste your stats in to the ADSL2+ Stats Checker at BlueEther, will give you a bit more info about your line.

http://adsl.tin2tin.net/

Troezar · 23 Jun 2011 at 17:45

Hmm not sure where I get my line stats?

Copied and pasted this from Plusnet, they are checking the line atm. Some might be out of line due to the pasting. Does it mean anything to anyone?!

[Internal]

Unstable connection

Network Incidence Check: Pass
CLT: Pass
TAM:

bRAS Profile: adsl1000
Upstream Link Information Downstream Link Information
Loop loss

35.5

57.5
SNR Margin

12

14
Errored seconds

0

0
HEC errors

0

Cell count

15529

5989
Speed

440

1401

FTR (kbps): 576
Interleaving Opt: I
ILQ: Amber
MTBE Down (Sec): 24
MTBE Up (Sec): 2393
MTBR (Sec): 17

Line is dropping out with several errors. The test results have not identified the cause of the fault. As per flows offering BOOST.

Eu contacted. Message left.

Fault: DCN
Test results: Mean Time Between Errors at 24 Seconds. Mean Time Between Retrains at 17 seconds.
Customer checks: Customer has tried alternative hardware in the master socket
Notes: Connection is dropping randomly throughout the day. Please complete all quality gates, including the following if appropriate: Complete fit new NTE and RF3 (not SSFP), Replace D & E Sides to best possible pairs, Renew drop wire if applicable to EU, Complete L&S or if new ties available, arrange TPM. If suspect router is faulty, please replace from stock carried, configuring to correct details to allow connection.