Faceplate vs. Microfilter

Hi all,

Sorry if this has been asked before. Currently my router runs off an extension connected to the master socket in the kitchen. Attached to the master socket is another extension into another room which has a phone attached. I also have a phone on the master socket.

Recently, we have been having problems with our connection dropping out. We have had BT round before to remove the ring wire and around that time I purchased 3 adslnation micro filters, dramatically improving the connection.

I was wondering, is the fact that a filtered faceplate filters the connection 'at the source' likely to provide any benefit to my connection? Due to the awkward location of the master socket I would still have to run the router off an extension, and I believe filtered faceplates allow this to be done by allowing one extension to remain 'unfiltered'.

Thanks all for your help, you have been a god send over the years!

TL;DR: I am looking to solve dropped connections once and for all by fitting a faceplate. I am already using top of the range adslnation filters - is there much point?

Try plugging one of the XF-1e filters into the test socket in the back of your master socket to see if you see any improvement. If you don't then fitting a faceplate will not help, however if you do then as long as you can arrange it so only 1 of your extensions is unfiltered, ideally using a twisted pair cable then there is potential for some gain with a faceplate.

Did BT really disconnect your ring wires? I didn't think they did that. If you really have no ring wires or an iPlate or one of the new BT master sockets that have a choke in the ring wire was fitted you will probably see no gain from a filtered faceplate other than they are a lot tidier.

The reason filtering at the master socket end of a plug in extension is preferable to at the equipment end is because plugin extensions carry a ring wire which will only be isolated from dumping it's picked up noise onto your ADSL signal by a filter, an iPlate, or one of the new BT master sockets.

You obviously can't filter a plugin extension at the master socket end if you want to run your router on it though as there would be no ADSL signal left.

Your best bet is to run the test already posted.

Edited by kwikbreaks (Wed 03-Aug-11 12:36:57)

They did remove - we only really have a pseudo-master socket, the phone line comes into a brown box in the garage (almost inaccessible) which then runs an extension to the 'master socket' which the BT guy fitted in the kitchen.

As a result, we effectively have to run our connection through two extensions (extension from the phone line to the 'master socket' and then one to the room with the router in).

It's all a bit of a disaster really but there is nothing much I can do about it. I have no idea how I would go about replacing any of the extensions with higher quality cable as they run through the walls, and getting access to the aforementioned brown box in the garage would be very difficult.

I shouldn't really complain as the connection is okay during the day, but I've had to have my connection limited to 2mbps whereas neighbours push 3mbps. That never was really a problem but with iplayer and sky's new on demand service its starting to feel very inadequate.

I'll try the 'test socket' tonight and see what happens.

Thanks for your help!

You have already been given the best advice possible with the limited amount of information that is available to us.

As I sure you know, a picture is worth a thousand words (or thereabouts), if you could take a clear photograph of the connections within the garage's "brown box" and each of your sockets -- thus giving us a good overview of the precise connections -- could we then possibly improve upon the advice.