phoneline split outside house - broadband drops frequently

Hi, new on this forum, so hi everyone

Just wondering how much a phone line split before the master socket might increase Attenuation; it's a BT line and we use BT as provider as well. We live in a cottage, the phone line comes overland across the field, and just before it enters the house, it splits two ways. A cylindrical sleeve covers the connections and is tied to the line with plastic tags. One line goes to an upstairs room, the other downstairs.

The downstairs line I assume to be the master socket, but because the configuration is, I believe, technically incorrect, it's not a proper master socket as it were. The downstairs socket (the 'master' one) has been fitted with a broadband accelerator face to shut off the bell wire, and a couple of wires slip through the device (green, and green and white) to the removable faceplate. The upstairs socket has no wires at all connected to the outer removable face. Both lines work with phone and with modem-router.

Our attentuation is pretty dire really, such as 47db/30db for down/up traffic. Line tests show it to be fine, with a synch speed of about 3.8Mbps, but in reality upload/download are both in the region of 0.35Mbps.

So even though we live some distance from the exchange, could it be that the unusual phoneline configuration (a star config) is adding to the noise of the line? Of course, BT tests from both human customer service and auto tests show the line to be fine. Customer services just follow a script, and have no idea what I'm telling them, that the line splits.

If we managed to get a BT engineer out (ha ha), and if the the problem was perceived as a BT problem (and thus avoiding the fee), would it increase upload/download speeds if this other line was removed? would it help with the random slow downs and drop outs?

Or are we broadband doomed.

Curious about other people's experience with the kind of setup we currently have.

Thanks in advance

We live in a cottage, the phone line comes overland across the field, and just before it enters the house, it splits two ways. A cylindrical sleeve covers the connections and is tied to the line with plastic tags. One line goes to an upstairs room, the other downstairs.

Any chance of a few pics of that setup?

Should have zero affect on attenuation, but for ADSL standard broadband, a small affect, for ADSL2+ a greater affect, and an even bigger affect for VDSL.

To assess how much of an effect this split is having need to see the full stats from the line i.e. what you would need to fill in http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/calc

The 0.35Meg upload speed suggests you may have an older ADSL based service too. which gives an estimate of 3600 to 5000 Kbps for ADSL mode connections.
http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/calc/calculator.php?par...

The problem would not be a BT one, but would be considered one you would have to pay to fix. I have one of my lines doing the same under the rafters. My solution was to ensure no ring wire was present and am using dangly micro filters at one end where modem is and a neat ADSL extension socket down behind the TV - which is not used for anything other than a Sky box.

On the random slow downs, you need to see if the SNR margin is lower when the connection is performing badly, if yes, then changes might help, but they might not.

Thanks MrSaffron, that's good solid info to work with, ta

Here are 3 photos to show interested readers the configuration

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11245340@N00/sets/72157...

hover over photo shows caption, self explanatory

thanks a lot for help

(ps goes without saying that I'm using ADSL filters and they appear to be working fine)

Looks like two master sockets, can we check that the same phone number is used on both of these sockets?

The downstairs socket appears to have the outside cable coming to it, but there is some cable of interest on the upstairs line as this has internal cable going to it, so probably a junction box somewhere and just maybe another extension too.

Yes it is the same number, definitely. Have tried phone and modem-router on both sockets. Some router stats not quite as good on upstairs socket, incidentally.

My reckoning is that originally some kind of two phone number system down one wire was originally used, as previous owners had an office upstairs.

Apart from these two cables going to two master sockets, a real Y shape, there are really no other junctions coming off anywhere. Everything is clearly visible on the outside of the house.

Best to share the actual router stats, as the figures can sometimes reveal interesting snippets e.g. if SNR margin is high, then ISP might be able to get it tweaked lower so you run faster.

I used to run the modem off an extension, but have stopped that and stats improved marginally (e.g. loads of errors local, then none); but dropping out or slowing down completely still not improved. These are the stats with the modem-router plugged straight into the downstairs master socket:

ADSL Line Status
Connection Information
Line state:
Connected
Connection time:
0 days, 00:01:33
Downstream:
3.875 Mbps
Upstream:
448 Kbps
 
ADSL Settings
VPI/VCI:
0/38
Type:
PPPoA
Modulation:
G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type:
Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up):
12.0 dB / 23.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up):
46.3 dB / 29.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up):
18.6 dBm / 12.3 dBm
FEC Events (Down/Up):
56 / 1
CRC Events (Down/Up):
0 / 1
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote):
0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote):
0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote):
0 / 0
HEC Events (Down/Up):
0 / 1
Error Seconds (Local/Remote):
0 / 1

The 12dB noise margin is costing you around 1 Meg in speed, so if the line is holding that noise margin when dark, in theory over time the noise margin might reduce and you gain some more speed.

Alternitively you might be able to pester ISP to reset target noise margin to the default 6dB

I'm guessing the upstairs socket is back wired off the downstairs socket on the green/white pair that is connected to the front plate downstairs. Presumably with the front plate off downstairs, the upstairs socket is dead?

Sounds like 2 separate lines on the 2 pairs that usually supply premises.

Would you mind dialing 1470 17070 from each extension and listen to the circuit definitions?

You are correct! Took faceplate off downstairs and line upstairs is dead

same number on each line...

Good! The 2nd pair to the old upstairs office must be deaded somewhere in the house.

So the line split outside house does not come into play and all your current line wiring must come off the downstairs NTE5 master.

The upstairs socket should not be an NTE5 master and may be affecting things by the presence of its duplicate master capacitor in the circuit.

Would it be worth swapping it with a simpler terminal?

Just tested stats on both lines again - Downstream synch speed is about 1Mbps slower on the upstairs socket. That being the case, makes me think that it must be affecting the downstairs line in some way.

With the faceplate removed so the extension is not working take a look at the stats, if they are better then simplest method is remove the ring wire so that the extension has less of an effect noise wise

http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/calc/index.php

Downstream is improved by exactly 1Mbps! - which is the same difference of downstream data connecting router to upstairs socket (as compared to downstairs).So improvement is 3.5Mbps to 4.5Mbps.

But upstream is still the same 448 Kbps which is obviously the ADSL limitation.

However, pages are loading a little more snappily, so I'd say that's a result.

I'll pull out the green and green and white wires and fold them back. We never use upstairs line anyway. Unless that seems like a clumsy way to do it, by anyone better informed.

the best answer is always a single pair terminating on an NTE5 where the modem connects, with any extensions filtered.

A split ahead of the master is a bridge tap and a bad idea.

Thought as much. Will have to read up on it as I have no idea as to the wiring scheme. Have rewired phone sockets before though. But not NTE5 'out of bounds' demarcation... Perhaps someone can show me a link that illustrates it clearly.

a single pair connects to the very back of the NTE5 - in the past a pair of screw connections, new ones are IDC.

I'm not clear if the incoming line is actually split externally or if it's backwired to the split, I haven't concentrated enough. If there is a single incoming pair to the back of the NTE5 and a phone works in the test socket with no other sockets "live" at the time (faceplate off) then its ok.

If two (or no) sockets are live with the NTE5 faceplate off then it's wrong.

It seem the line is not split outside as you had originally thought , but that the upstairs 'extension ' is back wired from the downstairs master socket on a second pair on the downstairs lead in, then joined to the upstairs lead in where it then goes to the upstairs socket.

Backwired?

In reply to a post by broadbanddoomed:

Took faceplate off downstairs and line upstairs is dead

A pair in dropwire to the downstairs NTE is feeding the upstairs socket "backwards" ie service is going up the last bit of the drop wire (yes I know it's bidirectional, think in terms of exchange to phone)

Yes, the incoming exchange line is using one pair of the downstairs lead in to the master socket, then another pair in the same lead in is used to connect to the faceplate and send the extension side back to the external joint, where it is crimped to the upstairs lead in, feeding the extension socket.

Got to give my thanks to everyone here on this forum for the really useful analysis. Way beyond what I expected. There's no way the girl in India could have helped with this.

The two wires connecting to the faceplate of the master socket have those two transparent connectors and I don't see why I can't just take out the wires from these two connectors that lead to the faceplate? see second pic http://www.flickr.com/photos/11245340@N00/sets/72157...