ADSL Disconnection and Instability Issues

I realise this must be an often talked about subject, but believe me, I have googled around on these issues, and have not found anything to be helpful.

Basically, my house has very unstable ADSL. The connection will drop out every few hours, for no apparent reason, and also every time the phone rings (even when no phones are plugged in). All phones have working microfilters, as does the router, which is a Linksys WAG54GX2. The problem happened on an old Belkin router, and also on a USB speedtouch modem.

The connection stats are here: http://i47.tinypic.com/301ng1t.jpg As far as I know, these are all within acceptable ranges.

The router log says: http://pastebin.com/m579695ee when a disconnection happens.


A few ideas of what to try, but involve fiddling and I'm not sure if they will work:

-Disconnect bell/ring wire from bt master socket, which will also disconnect it from all phones in the house. This might stop it dropping out when the phones ring?

-Inside master socket, disconnect all in-house extensions entirely, to either isolate the problem inside or outside the house.


I have contacted my ISP (Orange) on this, but they are of no help.

Best place to start is in the BT TEST socket. By using the TEST socket all your internal phone wiring and equipment is disconnected (unless it isn't wired up correctly).

Try running from there to see if your stability and stats improve - if things are the same then you know it's not your wiring.

Yeah I did go to try that, but the AB bt wires go directly to the faceplate, along with the extension wires. I assume this is wired "incorrectly"?

Hi, that doesn't sound like you have a modern master socket (NTE5) - does it have a removable lower faceplate like the one in my picture?

If you haven't got an NTE5 start by disconnecting EVERYTHING but your router - SKY boxes etc. can cause problems.

It does have the removable lower plate, yes. I'm pretty sure it's a modern one.

The "internal socket" is just not wired to anything.

That doesn't sound right then - can you take a photo?

If you follow the phone cable as it enters your home is this the first BT box it goes to?

I don't have a camera at the moment.

The incoming phone line goes into a heatshrinked section, where I assume the AB wires turn into the 4 internal wires. These 4 wires then go directly into the faceplate, along with the wires to internet extensions. So the "test socket" is bypassed entirely.

Sounds like someone has messed that up from what I can understand!
I'm not sure what BT allow you to do in this circumstance - they would probably say "dont touch anything!".

Others might say just removed the extensions and/or wire up the NTE5 correctly so the test socket etc. works as it should.

How long has it been like this or has the wiring recently been changed?

NB. If you should decide to change the wiring remember there's 50v (90v if someone rings)...

It's been like this for years. I guess an engineer put it like that. I guess I could phone BT and ask them to send an enginner, although if they'd want a £100+ callout fee for that they can forget it.

Unfortunately BT will no-doubt charge for this. I know someone that had a bill for £233 for having a new NTE5 fitted!!! They managed to dispute the charges with BT and got their money back in the end.

I wonder if someone in the past has fitted their own NTE5 which would explain why it's not wired correctly?

Perhaps see what others say - but I think I know what I would do...