I am trying to be precise, but I'm talking about things I do not pretend to understand, using terminology that until a week ago I'd never heard, have but the vaguest comprehension of which of the dozens of terms and statistics I'm encountering have any importance and why, and getting occasional wild-cards like Orange telling me I'm launching a DOS attack when I'm not and a grunting BT engineer who appears to have ignored your advice I passed on to him, so it's not surprising if I'm not getting it right all the time!

' what did you mean by splitter. I took it to mean a phone splitter that splits 1 phone line into 2 phone sockets.' Exactly that, in that case.

'Or by splitter did you mean a dangly filter? I thought you meant the "ADSL splitter faceplate for NTE5 units" as in that Kitz Page. So just which type of socket is in the study?' Sorry, meant the filter. Socket is, as I said, the NTE5 as shown on the Kitz page.

I'll sort out pics later and post a link.

Edited by deleted (Thu 06-Sep-12 08:55:05)

4M2 - Yep, all of that is spot on.

I've just read on another site that that 'every 3db of NM over 6db will cause between 0.4 and 1.2mb/s speed loss'. Now if that is true, the c15db NM I have would indeed account for the speed loss - take the average 0.8 x 3, another 2.4mb/s would give us about what I'd expcect - and that NM figure is if anything creeping up, not going down, 15.4db now.

Doesn't explain why I have that NM, but as xray says, could be the route to a solution. I'll give it another day, then put that to Orange.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

!

In reply to a post by telnolies:

I think we need to see pix of all your sockets both exterior and internals with the faceplates removed.

Master - Front & Inside. Currently with one phone and router connected direct to test socket, via ADSL filter.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2wf0aad.jpg
http://i45.tinypic.com/2lur8y.jpg

Extension, Front and Inside. Nothing connected to it, and not working when test socket is being used.
http://i49.tinypic.com/2i0c6cl.jpg
http://i49.tinypic.com/347wr9z.jpg

And for fun - I know it's irrelevant, but the state of the nearest BT box, been like that for weeks. I'm beginning to think the string holding it together is actually part of our line.....
http://i50.tinypic.com/1hezxf.jpg

The master doesn't look like a standard NTE5. I'm guessing an NTE5 with a BT Broadband Accelerator/I-Plate built in (removes the ring wire).

Notice that it has wires off the faceplate. They must be for the extension, tho' of diff colour (???). That is why the extension phone doesn't work when you remove face plate, not cuz it's filtered as 4M2 suggested.

So that suggests that the extension isn't wired all the way back to the pole as you thought or the eng did change some wiring. Did the previous NTE5 master in the hall have wires off the faceplate?

Rang Orange. They now also agree there is something badly wrong BT side. They are getting BT to check the exchange, and arranging an engineer to give us a Broadband Health Check. Earlier stats had shown NM reaching 34db at one point, for no apparent reason, which does seem way wrong.

It also higlights the value, if you're pig ignorant like me, of getting some basic understanding of the issues from people on this forum. Even if people here can't solve it for you if you can talk to Orange, even vaguely, about your router stats, NM, profile etc, they pay MUCH more attention to you. Had I known more to begin with, I think I could have reached this stage weeks ago

Ignore It still might be worth connecting router to that socket's ADSL. Was confused by move of master and study does not have an ADSL socket anyway.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

The master doesn't look like a standard NTE5. I'm guessing an NTE5 with a BT Broadband Accelerator/I-Plate built in (removes the ring wire).

Notice that it has wires off the faceplate. They must be for the extension, tho' of diff colour (???). That is why the extension phone doesn't work when you remove face plate, not cuz it's filtered as 4M2 suggested.

Yes - green and black from the "master" faceplate, red and white at the extension? I don't think we are quite "out of the woods" yet!

What range of downstream sync speeds would one expect with adsl2, 44dB attenuation and 15dB SNRM, fast path or interleaved? I've had no experience of adsl2

I agree the wiring is puzzling. Remember this was the installation where it was said that both sockets were wired back to pole b4 eng came.

7 Meg @ 6 dB NM; perhaps 4 Meg @ 15 dB NM.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

The master doesn't look like a standard NTE5. I'm guessing an NTE5 with a BT Broadband Accelerator/I-Plate built in (removes the ring wire).

Notice that it has wires off the faceplate. They must be for the extension, tho' of diff colour (???). That is why the extension phone doesn't work when you remove face plate, not cuz it's filtered as 4M2 suggested.

So that suggests that the extension isn't wired all the way back to the pole as you thought or the eng did change some wiring. Did the previous NTE5 master in the hall have wires off the faceplate?

A standard NTE5 - no it doesn't look like it does it,that's why I was dubious...shape of the front of the box is slightly different too. He said it was the 'latest one'.... whatever that means.

I'm sure the extension is wired back to the pole - you can follow it all the way there, it's wired straight out through the wall and round the house. Previous NTE5 wires - think so, but I'm not sure, sorry. But that would make sense - main line comes into master, then feeds BACK to pole via the same cabling (cable but not wires obviously), where it connects to extension line and comes back to house again. I can't see how else you connect the extension so that it is affected by the use of the test socket - which we know it is. Sounds an odd way to do it, but maybe because the cabling was already there for the original second line? Or is it just how it's done....

That means of coures you're sending a signal down the large diameter cable from the pole to the house wall, through a smaller cable to the master box, then through the small internal cables ... then back through the same cable to the pole, then same again down the second cable from the pole (where the two cables must connect) for the extension. Now from what I vaguely remeber from doing electrics at school, that isn't always a very good idea if you're repeatedly changing cable types and resistance... but maybe that's fine for phones? Unless of course the signal goes all the way back to the exchange or some other junction before they make a connection and come back to the extension! I've no way of seeing what hapens at the pole, the cables are covered.

Here's the diagram, way I think it is - I've just shown a cable as a single line in a single directuion, I appreciate that's not how it works but it's easier to see what's going on..

http://i49.tinypic.com/2lut2ro.jpg

As above - Broadband Health Check and exchange check now happening, will update with results....

Edited by deleted (Thu 06-Sep-12 13:25:32)

!) The Master is Standard NTE5 main unit on the wall, with 3 wires(?) to the detached bit, indicating one extension, and the big lump is the latest Openreach interstitial filtered faceplate as fitted to FTTC master sockets, so presumably these days to ADSLx as well. Nothing special about VDSL2 v ADSLx filtering. Saves the engineer having to play with the extension wiring when fitting it. The original NTE5A faceplate with the phone socket is on the front of it.

In a way it fits like an iPlate, but isn't. Though of course it incorporates the iPlate ring wire filter.

2) Then how do you explain the wires to the master faceplate and the fact that removing the faceplate stops the extension working? Doing so must break the connection to the extension.