Hi

I lost my BB connection on Wednesday last. I spoke with my ISP on
Thursday and after running through various tests they passed it over
to BT Wholesale who called me back later that day.

The guy I spoke with said that the SNR was only 4dB so he felt that it
needed an Engineer out to check the line into the house, which is very
old (25 years plus) and is the old twin flex type. However I've had a
perfect 1Mb connection for over a year and its worked fine up to now.

I wondered if there may be something in the house that could upset the
SNR that BT could pick up with their remote test?

I have a BT NTE socket with two self intalled extensions each of which
are fitted with the ADSL Nation filtered faceplates. I'm just
wondering if one of them could have gone up the pole and be affecting
the SNR?

Or should I just leave it now to BT who are coming out Thursday
afternoon?

Incidenatlly, my Router is also reporting a SNR between 3 and 4 dB.

--
Best regards
Barry

On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 18:26:04 +0000, BJH wrote:

Just about anything! Disconnect the extension sockets (or plug into BT
test socket) and measure SNR again.

--
Nigel M

BJH wrote:
So the cable is 25 years old, yes it could have gone faulty in
length...
Well, have you tried plugging into the test socket on the NTE5a? That
way you would find out whether it's any of your kit or whether you
have got a problem on the BT network. Unless you test you won't know,
remember it's a self install product so you are expected to do testing
for yourself up to the NTE. If you want Openreach to do it it will
cost you.

So it's up to you. Do you expect Openreach to check your filtering &
extensions? They won't object but you will be charged.

On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 19:17:30 -0000, Kraftee wrote:

Yes, I've been doing some testing this evening and I've found that my
2110 DECT phone pulls down the SNR by 2dB to 3.5, with it unplugged it
goes back up to 5.5dB and at that point I can get a connection.

My main phone which is downstairs on my other filtered extension makes
no difference to the SNR whether its plugged in our not.

As I've got face plate filters I can't check at the NTE so I'm going
to try and borrow one tomorrow to I can connect my router to the NTE5.

What would you normally class as 'acceptable SNR' at the NTE5? IIRC
the guy from BT said he expected 8dB.

Looks like my DECT phone has reached the end of its life?

--
Best regards
Barry

BJH wrote:
Make the lowest acceptable SNR as 10dB, yes I know it's alittle bit
higher than some would say but it gives you a little leeway as in your
configuration you may get fluctuations depending on the time of day.
Check the filter before you throw the dect phone as they're cheaper to
replace, mind you the prices of dect phones appear to be coming down
in leaps and bounds ahyway.

The other thing you have to check is whether your extension wiring is
causing you problems, that will mean plugging your router into the
test socket on the back plate...

On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 21:36:41 -0000, Kraftee wrote:

Hopefully tomorrow evening...

--
Best regards
Barry

On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 21:36:41 -0000, Kraftee wrote:

Just out of interest I've checked the SNR on my Office connection, next
village, different exchange 2 mile from the Office, and I get an SNR of
35.5dB!

Can this be right?

Its the same make and model of Router.

Makes me more determined to accept nothing less than at least 15-20dB.

--
Regards
Barry

BJH wrote:
& why not?
Don't mean a thing, if it was the same router then it would be more
relavent to the whole discusion. As no routers have been calibrated
the results can & often do vary from one to another
& if that's not possible what are you going to do next? Think
carefully before you answer.....

On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:43:37 -0000, Kraftee wrote:

OK, I've had a very interesting learning experience and I've eaten my
share of 'humble pie' and I've cancelled Mr BT!

Being better organised today I started at the NTE and got a SNR of
30dB. Going back to my first extension in the hall which has a
filtered face plate I got a SNR of 29.5dB. So far so good.

Upstairs in my office the SNR dropped to 5dB and if I plugged the DECT
in it was down as low as 3.5dB. No wonder I was having connection and
speed problems.

I had a roll of 1308 cable in the car so I ran a new cable from the
second extension up to the filtered face plate in my office.

The SNR at this point is now up to 7dB, still low I realise, but my
router now connects cleanly and holds my connection and internetfrog
reckons I'm getting 99% QOS.

And plugging in the DECT phone and my modem makes no difference
whatsoever.

So I'm a little happier..

The question is:

Should I replace the extension wirng up to my office with some CAT5
(or whatever) cable?

Will I see any noticeable improvement?

Thanks for your input which steered me in the (hopefully) right
direction.

--
Best regards
Barry

BJH wrote:
Won't say I told you so but you've still got a problem between those 2
sockets, either the connections aren't quite right, one socket is
faulty (or indeed both) or there is something very (electrucally/rfi
wise) noisy between the 2. Sorry but only you can track it down but
you should not have that much of a drop over such a small distance.

You could try using Cat5 cable to see if there is an improvement (any
good quality solid core twisted pair cable should do, don't use
stranded as it can cause problems), but at least we got you on the
right track & saved you the cost of an ADSL health check charge.

On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 21:32:10 -0000, Kraftee wrote:

I agree; at my work I have about 50 metres from the BT Test Point to
the router which includes an overhead across a yard and passing close
to some 3ph mains power and still get 30 odd dB.

I forgot to mention that I measured the SNR using both the filtered
faceplates and replacing them with a 'standard' secondary phone socket
and a loose filter. I got the same results whichever way so I was
happy that the filters and sockets were OK.

Gawd knows where any RFI could be coming from and the cable doesn't
run along side any mains and there's no fluorescents, so I'll try the
CAT5. Do you think there's any point in using shielded? Bearing in
mind there's nowhere to ground the shield at either end.

--
Best regards
Barry

BJH wrote:
Exactly if the shield isn't grounded all it does is look pretty, well
that is until you get a strand straight up a finger, then it's bloody
annoying if not painful. Good quality solid core cat5 should be ok.
Whilst you're running it use a mains detector to see if it runs close
to any mains, the other things to ask is whether you've splashed out
on a large screen TV as some apparently give out a lot of RF (never
come across it yet so maybe it's just certain models/makes), any
electronic relays/switches on or near the run etc etc etc....

Best of luck finding it & if you do post on here & it will become
another piece of the jigsaw.

Oh by the way, you may have cancelled but don't be suprised if you
have a visit or an attempted visit, the cancellations rarely, if ever
get to the field force in time.

On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 23:37:46 -0000, Kraftee wrote:

OK, I give up!

I've tried wiring up in CAT5e today and it made no difference at all,
in fact it was marginally worse by 0.5 so for the moment I'm stumped.

I'm beginning to think that I'd be better having the router down by
the Master and running an ethernet cable up to my office!

Can't find any trace of any mains so I'm at a loss.

--
Best regards
Barry

What colours are you using on what pins of the sockets?

Pins 2 and 5 should be from the same pair (Usually the blue pair)

Sparks...

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 13:35:34 -0000, Sparks wrote:

Yes, that's correct.

Anyway, I hope not to be beaten so I'm going to go through it again at the
weekend and see if I can bottom it.

Oh and Kraftee, you were right, BT did contact me this morning.

--
Regards
Barry

"BJH" <barryh@nospam.kentra.co.uk> wrote in message
news:yf3zoz7q2yu3.dlg@ID-158254.user.individual.net...
Just a stab in the dark, you are using 2 wires only on the extensions and
ditched the orange(3) ring wire?

It may also be prudent to not use any additional filters to start the ball
rolling. They are the most frequent cause of all problems. Don't just assume
that because they are recent or expensive that they have not failed. It is
NOT uncommon for every filter on a line to fail or breakdown.

In nearly all cases, and Kraftee will probably tell you this, it is usually
something plugged in to the line that causes the issues, second only to
ratty internal wiring and finally a line fault. The black magic reasons like
'induction' and 'interferance' are really rare. No matter how good you think
the filters and phones are you have (including any sky boxes that are often
forgotten) assume them all to be at fault until you can prove otherwise.

You should be able to get a good working connection in your home on ordinary
phone cable without resorting to cat5 and wasting your time with it. ADSL is
a forgiving technology and in a nutshell something has to be screwing with
it to kick it off.

Sucuba Dude wrote:
I've known cases where it's been one filter one week, another the next
etc until all filters in the house were replaced (5 in total, which
equates to 5 visit charges, very expensive filters those were). If
one is faulty, sometimes it is prudent to change them all, taking
things like electrical storms etc into account...
Normally it's the forgotten thing plugged into the line or the old
extesnion bell out in the back garden which is just taken for
granted..

Not neccesarily ratty, but split pairs or even burglar alarm cable
(untwisted & stranded) don't do it any favours...

Can't dispute that. although it's been proved that you can recieve a
useful DSL service over a pair which is so faulty that you can't
deliver dial tone, but it can work the other way as well.
I'd dispute that, as a lot of problems I have met up with are not due
to ratty internal cabling but the fact that the bell wire is picking
up so much RFI & inducing it onto the ADSL signal (I don't go a day
without that one rearing it's head, how you go about curing it is the
debate, not that it's rare). The common symptoms are the ADSL service
dropping synch early evening & then coming back later in the evening
this is not because the ISP is busier but because the SNR dips below
the mimum stable level (which some will say is 8 or even lower but I
tend to work to 10dB or above)...

CAT 5 is useful, indeed the digi extension kits which Openreach do
have have a 3 pair cable which is twisted to the same spec as the
twists in CAT5 (BT/Openreach actually call it 3pr CAT5 type cable),
what isn't useful is using a stranded patch cable. So if it's what
you've got then yes use it but if you're buying then a normal twisted
pair telephone cable will do.

ADSL is a forgiving technology, normally but not always...

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 19:44:56 -0000, Kraftee wrote:

I've ordered two new filtered face plates which I should get today/tomorrow
so that I'm starting with 'known' good kit (hopefully)

Yes, well I can definitely eliminate this one.

And this

Well, I did cancel the Engineer visit and I'm still confident the problem
is internal.

Now, this bell wire issue is interesting. Yes, I had got it connected (as
per the fitting instructions supplied with the face plates) so I
disconnected it last night and SNR went up to 9.5dB.

But I'm now in a quandary in that I've got two 'TwinTalk' devices and I'm
guessing that they use the bell wire to talk to each other. And before
anyone asks, yes, I have tried with them unplugged and it made no
difference to the SNR.

But what I'm thinking now is to use one pair out of the CAT5 cable just for
the ADSL and then run a voice extension using some of the remaining free
pairs. Although if the bell wire is picking up RFI, will it, by being in
the same bundle still upset things? I suppose I'll have to suck it and see.
And, if it is RFI where the heck is it coming from?

So my plan is to run CAT5 direct from the master using one pair from 2 and
5 to the first face plate A nd B connections, then split off from there one
ADSL pair direct to the second face plate in my office and also run from
the filtered punchdowns on the first face plate 2,3 and 5 up to the voice
extension in my office.

Does this seem a reasonable approach? I guess I could always run two
separate cables but I'd like to have kept it as 'tidy' as possible. (her
indoors factor at work here)

Thanks everyone for your input, its been very useful to me. At least I've
now got a workable installation, I'm just interested to find out how much
(if any) I can improve it by. Its been a very useful learning exercise.
And, of course, everything had been working fine for well over a year but I
didn't know, or was bothered, about the SNR.

--
Regards
Barry

"BJH" <barryh@nospam.kentra.co.uk> wrote in message
news:q9f0f2555jgu.dlg@ID-158254.user.individual.net...
"now in a quandary in that I've got two 'TwinTalk' devices and I'm guessing
that they use the bell wire to talk to each other."

I would not have thought so, but try them and see. The bell wire should only
be used for making the bell ring, and nothing else. I recall an old baby
alarm that used the phone line and needed terminal 4 wired up some years ago
but that is about as relevant as a rubiks cube ;-)

On Sat, 18 Feb 2006 12:44:37 GMT, Flunkett Clogwheel wrote:

Well, I've finally found the problem. It's the crappy cheap and nasty
3COM plug top switch mode power supply! I don't know why they use
SMPSUs I always thought they were inherently noisy.

And I now know of at least one other site that has got exactly the
same problem (I has put it down to distance from the exchange as the
other site is a marginal 0.5M)

What had thrown me was that whilst I was checking in the other rooms I
was using a regulated plug top power supply out of my bag for
convenience. Of course in my office I was using the existing wiring
which included the existing power supply that came with the router.

With my good Egston power supply I'm getting 31dB SNR, swap to the
3COM PSU and it drops to 6dB!

ISTR that 3COM have a recall on PSUs for routers, I'll have to follow
that up.

Thanks very much everyone, Kraftee especially, for your input it was
much appreciated.

Now I'm going to re wire in the CAT5 cable just for the hell of it!

--
Best regards
Barry