Hi all - I know it's been a while but I thought I'd give an update seeing as there was so much help on here.

End of 2012 I treated the house to a brand new landline. Didn't fix the problem.
I was also moved to EE Broadband (from Orange) but this didn't make any difference.
Over the last few weeks the problem's been getting particularly bad - just dropping out once every two hours or so. Picking up the phone, dialling 17070 #2 and fiddling with the wires around the master box seemed to get a connection back for a while, then it'd drop out again. There would sometimes be very bad noise on the line, othertimes not, and sometimes when I picked up the phone, I could very faintly hear that siren noise you get if you leave your phone off the hook for a minute or two. Is this intrusion from a neighbour's line????
Anyway I got sick of this so I purchased a brand new Asus DSL-N55U router to replace my Belkin one which wasn't supported any more and would occasionally lock up. Didn't fix the problem.
So I purchased 15 metres of brand new RJ11 cable and ran it from the master socket (along with the new filter that came with the ASUS) up the stairs and into the new router.

FIXED

(I hope)

...in that it's not dropped out one single time over a week. This doesn't sound like a very long time to give it but I'd have had a dozen drop-outs by now with my old setup. I think that the old cabling was too long (it went outside the house, up through into the attic, through an extension socket and then down into the bedroom and went through a long coil at some point so it must have been at least 30 metres long), or just poorly somewhere along the line. I had visually inspected what I could of it and it looked ok. Perhaps it wasn't.

Anyway hopefully it's sorted now...!

PS Even though it appears to be sorted, sometimes when I answer a call on the landline there's very loud crackling on the line. Wonder what this is?

Edited by EvoluZion3 (Thu 25-Sep-14 18:01:32)

...but every few weeks or so, for no apparent reason I'll get little or no broadband at all over the space of 2 or 3 days. I'll have touched or changed nothing, I run one filter from a single master socket which feeds one BT landline phone and my Belkin router.

In your very first post you said this. The way you worded it sounded as though you had 1 master socket, with a filter connected directly to that master socket, and a landline and router plugged directly into this filter which was plugged into the master socket.

You now say....

I think that the old cabling was too long (it went outside the house, up through into the attic, through an extension socket and then down into the bedroom and went through a long coil at some point so it must have been at least 30 metres long), or just poorly somewhere along the line. I had visually inspected what I could of it and it looked ok. Perhaps it wasn't.

This sounds entirely different. It sounds as if you were not using the master socket afterall.
YES this is likely the culprit. 1) A coiled wire will create interference and drop outs, also the cabling inside could crack
2) A 30m internal run of cabling could pass by electrical interference such as nearby wiring, a washing machine etc, if the wiring isn't great quality this interference will cause drop outs.

I am glad the issue was resolved but even now I think you would be best to just use the master socket and perhaps disconnect the extension wiring all together. 15m of cabling running inside is still a fair bit and susceptible to potential interference. Was the cabling you purchased twisted pair?

I hope I helped

Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 25-Sep-14 19:26:52)

Thanks for your reply. No the setup is still the same - one BT master socket with one filter splitting between landline and broadband. The only difference is that before the cable was running up the house and then into a box in the attic which literally joined two lengths of cable together (this could well have been the culprit even though the wires were well twisted together) - apologies I called this an extension. Now the cable just runs internally and is about half the length.

In reply to a post by EvoluZion3:

I was also moved to EE Broadband (from Orange) but this didn't make any difference.

Why should it? It's the same BB. Hope you did not pay more for nowt.

In reply to a post by EvoluZion3:

The only difference is that before the cable was running up the (outside of) house and then into a box in the attic which literally joined two lengths of cable together

Have you replaced this? With what? It's before the master socket, isn't it? That's BT's property; you are not meant to touch it.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by EvoluZion3:

The only difference is that before the cable was running up the (outside of) house and then into a box in the attic which literally joined two lengths of cable together

Have you replaced this? With what? It's before the master socket, isn't it? That's BT's property; you are not meant to touch it.

Hi, no it was from the filter to my router. I have now bypassed it with brand new RJ11 which now runs inside the house not outside.

Well I spoke too soon. The crackling on the telephone line is gradually getting worse and can range from being light crackling to someone rustling a packet of crisps in my ear (and that's not too much of an exaggeration). Also, and I don't know if this is significant, I can plainly hear my router connecting and then eating data (i.e. a constant hissing noise which will drop when there's a particularly loud crackle, followed by a few beeps and the hiss again). This problem is consistent across the various filters I have (including the brand new one that came with my new router). Hence my B/B dropout is back to normal, i.e. once every hour or so for a few seconds.

One last check I want to do is swap the landline phone (which is only a couple of years old) with another to 100% rule it out, however the old one doesn't appear to work at all now and the neighbours I know are out otherwise I'd try theirs on my line, or my phone on their line.

Quick question in the meantime - will a faulty telephone kick out noise to a line even if the receiver is down? What I mean is, if the phone is on the hook and the broadband drops again, is the telephone totally innocent because it was down or is there any possibility of it having been responsible?

If I can prove the phone is ok then it's a call/battle with BT I guess.

Thanks all - watch this space.

Noise on the line can affect BB whether the the receiver is up or down. The noise is in the wiring. It is not filtered out from the BB. The filter only filters out the BB from the voice.

You should report a voice fault to your phone provider w/out mentioning BB.

What are your router stats now?

Sorry my question was if the telephone was faulty would it be able to put noise on the line even with the receiver down?

I have reported the crackling on the line to BT, they've put a monitor on it and their tech support will ring my mobile tomorrow. Let's see what happens...

My router stats:
Modulation : ADSL2+
Annex Mode : Annex A/L
Line State : up
Lan Tx : 414528
Lan Rx : 269313
ADSL Tx : 66347
ADSL Rx : 106873
CRC Down : 0
CRC Up : 0
FEC Down : 0
FEC Up : 1660
HEC Down : 0
HEC Up : 0
SNR Up : 9.4
SNR Down : 13.9
Line Attenuation Up : 14.8
Line Attenuation Down : 29.0
Data Rate Up : 984
Data Rate Down : 4544

>Sorry my question was if the telephone was faulty would it be able to put noise on the line even with the receiver down?

Yes it is possible. There is still circuitry connected to the line with the receiver down, otherwise how would the telephone ring for an incoming call.

If you get an engineer out in the end, disconnect all the ADSL kit before they arrive so they can hear the crackling and cannot try and say its a duff filter/modem.