Yeah my own Huawei modem has its modem cable router underneath a pair of mains sockets and above/on 2x8 way extension then over the router...space limited so it's the only way I can

The new smarthub has an NBK fitted cat5e* extension run around the top of the skirting board...past a PC, above an 8 way power strip, underneath mains sockets to where it lives...but again needs must :| (although that'll be shortened a couple of feet when i get a different 2 gang wall socket and telephone module!)

On ADSLx, on a fairly new master > 8 metre wire to gable junction > new drop wire to pole, I bought an ADSL Nation XTE-5 and one of their better quality ADSL cables hoping to improve my ~5Mbps connection to O2 LLU.

At the time I was using a dangly filter, one of 8 or 10 from many router supplies, and one of the associated DSL cables. I was able to test exhaustively as on O2 LLU DLM was not enabled after the initial few days.

By exhaustively I mean methodically changing the filters with the same DSL cable, then with the top one changing the DSL cable.

I then compared this result with the XTE-5 plus posh DSL cable, and XTE-5 with all DSL cables.

I did this twice on different days.

The XTE-5 and posh cable have been in their received packaging in a drawer ever since. It wasn't worth the hassle and possible cost of returning them for a refund. I used the best cable/dangly combo until I got the VDSL2 interstitial filter for FTTC and IIRC used the HG612 DSL cable. I consistently got 170-200kbps better on most combos. A few were below the ADSL Nation variants.

In particular the posh DSL cable was a liability.

Very near by is the DECT phone base station. the power for that is from a 4-way socket on something like a 10m lead from the mains socket, and the modem is plugged into another 4-way fed from the first. Printer and shredder permanently lugged into the first, router into the second. Local laptop occasionally also into the second.

(Hmmm - what else is plugged in? IIRC I have two spare sockets, but that gives three).

wait so the posh cat5/6 cable had worse performance than the standard grey cable?

I guess by posh you mean ethernet? Ethernet cable performs differently to telephone cable on a telephone connection - figures.

I said "posh DSL cable". Not Cat5/6. I can't remember the ADSL Nation blurb, but it was supposed to be better than the ones normally received with modems and modem/routers.

i said cat5 because the current ADSLnation ones say it's to that standard

It's still surprising it would perform worse...strange

doesn't really figure when there's more twists to reduce crosstalk with decent solid copper wire...you'd expect less noise, the only thing I can think of why that shouldnt be the case is poor termination otherwise it doesnt make much sense

The twists aren't to reduce crosstalk, they are to enhance common mode rejection.

Twisted pair cabling is a type of wiring in which two conductors of a single circuit are twisted together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference (EMI) from external sources; for instance, electromagnetic radiation from unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cables, and crosstalk between neighboring pairs.

That's basically what I was taught when I was being trained for data cabling

There's only one pair for a telephone