telephone - masters, extension and broadband.

[adiwillow]

Hi all, i've got a quick prob.

I want a decent braodband speed on ADSL max, currently only getting around 1.4 mbps which is low by any standards. I'm not that far from the exchange. But, my telephones are a bit weird.

I've got a box outside the front door, which splits off into two cables on the outside of the house, one goes upstairs, one goes downstairs. The downstairs has a master socket on it (currently not working since i had to disconnect it whilst decorating, but hope to get it working again soon). The upstairs has a normal extension socket on it..

Now, i want to get the broadband upstairs and i believe the best way is to fit the router next to the master socket via a short lead and filter. I'll then run a network cable up the house and inside to the computer room.

But, what about the upstairs extension? remember this is coming from the outside box into a normal extension socket, so even though i'm going to fit a filter on to it as normal, wont the presence of it detract from the ADSL quality? Should i be thinking about ditching this extension and running everything from the master socket?

ta..

 

[MasterAbacus]

Have a look at this post if just posted on, might be of interest ..

//www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=76013


Also, Your on ADSL max, but what speed has your provider said you can achieve? Makes no difference how far away you are form the exchange if they have limted your connection.

How are you measuring your connection speed?

As for the box you disconected, you say its a master socket??? when you disconected it, how many wires were connected? Im thinking its a master being used as a slave box, as your upstairs ext would not work at all if you didnt have a master installed, the outside box must be the master.

Any pictures of the boxes? explinations of the wires you disconnected?

are you going to re-connect it your self?

 

[sm1thson]

on ADSL max the provider monitors your line for a while (1st week or so) and then caps your max speed (to prevent it trying to get more and getting errors). i recently got a new router so phoned them to reset this. they did it whilst i was on the phone, i unplugged the router and he tested the line and set my new max speed there and then. so once youve sorted the wiring out it may be worth a call for them to recalculate and set your top speed.

note that they may not look too kindly on you messing with their master socket as that and everything before it is generally theirs and only to be touched by them.

 

[Spark123]

Your phone probably won't ring either without your master socket connected.

 

[bernardgreen]

Im thinking its a master being used as a slave box, as your upstairs ext would not work at all if you didnt have a master installed, the outside box must be the master.?

Most micro-filters do not pass the ringing wire from the master box to the phone. Instead they have a ring capacitor and create a local ring wire for the phone plugged into them.

This creates the confusing situation where a phone plugged into a socket doesn't ring due to a missing ringing wire ( terminal 3 in the socket ) but does ring when plugged into the same socket via a micro filter.

 

[adiwillow]

I'm trying to work out exactly whats going on with the phones to be honest.

The master socket had three wires connected. I had to take it off to re-route the cable to the next room (it was coming into the kitchen and positioned in the middle of a wall, what use is that !! ) . The socket was just the normal socket with the capacitor attached across, so i'm assuming it was a master.

The upstairs is just a standard socket which comes directly from the box by the front door..
The downstairs master is now not working, even though i've connected it according to the standard wiring rules, so either i've broke the cable internally by moving it, or the cable colours are wrong. I've got to meter it out this weekend to check.

I ran the upstairs portable phone for a while with just open cable on the downstairs master (not even a box connected), and it worked fine. I was running the broadband off that one (and still currently are).

the plan is to get the master working again, and put the router downstairs on the master, and run a network cable to the computer upstairs. I was also considering to remove the upstairs extension from the setup completely (ie disconnect it from the outisde box totally), and route everything from the downstairs master in order to squeeze as much out of the broadband as possible. I realise that only BT may be able to do some of this though.

Oh, and just to reassure people, i know a BIT about what i'm doing as i work in office/network computer support, and i worked for a few years as an intrinsic wireman. I just dont know much about the UK phone system !!