"Fibre" faceplate on new ADSL line

Drove 2 hours to fix a broadband installation yesterday, had me flummoxed for a while until I noticed the RJ11 socket top centre of the brand new NTE5 faceplate installed for the new line. The end user had plugged a microfilter into the voice socket and as it's about 700m from the exchange had managed to sync on odd occasions but at pitifully low speeds which had resulted in a speed cap.

Not sure if this was an error or if Openreach are pro-actively fitting SSFP's to new lines now ?

That's interesting: does that mean that some of the ADSL frequencies "leak" through the filtered faceplate and the microfilter?

In reply to a post by yarwell:

and as it's about 700m from the exchange had managed to sync on odd occasions but at pitifully low speeds which had resulted in a speed cap.

700m from the exchange? That's virtually next door as far as I am concerned and no great distance, is that what you meant?

same with a microfilter, it's an attenuator and I have had low speed sync on short lines through the wrong side of a filter before.

The spec only requires >55 dB of attenuation in a filter so a filtered short line is like a very long line in terms of received signal strength.

yes, 700 metres. It was plugged in the wrong socket.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

yes, 700 metres. It was plugged in the wrong socket.

Ah yes, I see, lucky to get anything then!

Not seen anything to say Openreach is fitting them as standard, but you can buy them online so could have been fitted by a previous resident

Are you sure of the 55dB?

Some colleagues did some measurements on various filters and found they were typically only 20 to 30dB and some even less!

Not sure if this was an error or if Openreach are pro-actively fitting SSFP's to new lines now ?

No they are not. Doubtless left on the NTE from the previous owners.
If not, then fitted by a contractor who did the install, and who had not a scooby-do.

Was a new line, perhaps they ran out of standard faceplates