Microfilters constantly keep failing?

Hi everybody

I've been having some issues with my broadband ADSL connection which has been persisting for some time. I've tried almost everything I can think of, but I have no idea what is happening.

A year or so ago, I started to have a significant number of disconnections and a reduced ADSL speed (up to six disconnections a day and the speed below 1MBPS, compared to about 4MBPS at it's peak). The speed seemed to rise and fall persistently with no obvious cause. I contacted BT and they came out and changed the telephone box, claiming it was faulty. They also tested my microfilter and found it was defective and I produced another which they claimed was fine. After this, the internet connection speeds and connectivity were vastly improved.

About three or four weeks later, I started to experience the same disconnections and speed drops which progressively became worse. I changed just about everything I could think of, but nothing was working. I then noticed that when I changed the microfilter, the problems seemed to clear up temporarily and then resume their previous pattern. After some tests, I've discovered that the microfilters seem to fail consistently after a few weeks.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to why this is happening, so I wondered if anybody here might have any ideas as to what is going on? I've replaced about six or seven of them now of all different brands and configurations and nothing seems to help. At this stage, I just want the connection to work properly as designed

If anybody could help me, I'd appreciate it

Thanks

Filters should last years

What you your line stats from the adsl modem?

In reply to a post by Cycle194:

I've replaced about six or seven of them now of all different brands and configurations and nothing seems to help.

Therefore it's not them!

What is causing the filters to fail? An interesting question.

Have you tried changing the modem/router/hub that is connected? It may have a fault and be putting out a high DC offset voltage, for example. Or is the connected phone one which has a power supply - that could be doing similar ...

Or what about the cat marking territory? A bit extreme, but it could appen!

Had not thought of the CAT possibility!

Afternoon Cycle 194
To follow up on MHC particularly, basically the Splitters do NOT have filters directly in the ADSL path, which if you have the right equipment, you can demonstrate partly by the simple electrical continuity through that side; and also if you have a suitable simple adaptor and plug a phone in to it, the phone will work.


It is the "PHONE" outlet from the Splitter that has a a filter in it - to prevent the High Frequency ADSL signals coming through that Splitter PHONE socket - a High-Frequency Rejection Filter technically.

(Traditional Phone usage, voice particularly, is all at LOW Frequencies, hence the need to keep the HF ADSL away from the phone etc.)

If you plug a Modem/Router in to that Splitter PHONE Outlet, depending on the quality of the HFR Filter, the Modem should NOT work, although occasionally it may need two splitters in series.

I have actually tested those combinations some months back - having suitable equipment.

Also last night noting your problems, I managed to open up a splitter, confirming that the ADSL side is straight-through; and the PHONE side is through the HFR Filter.

----------------------

As MHC has suggested, you should check the other equipment, both of a computing variety and also of the traditional phone/fax/alarm variety.

As you first encountered the problem about one year back, it may be a new item that you added about that time - but ...

One way and probably the easiest would be as your ADSL connection starts to deteriorate often enough to be easily/quickly observed, disconnect all the other equipment, one at a time, to see if you note any improvement for your modem.

I acknowledge that this could be a protracted exercise, possibly having to wait weeks for the condition to arise.

-------------------------------

You may be able to get a clue more quickly, by carrying out several Quiet Line Tests, starting simply with a corded phone hand set connected in to the NTE etc, gradually adding each bit of equipment and retesting to see if any specific bits (and there may be more than one) are injecting noise in to the line - again tying in with MHC's thoughts.

--------------------------------

But No Guarantees - it could be lengthy, unfortunately.

Edited by deleted (Wed 03-Dec-14 12:29:28)

Thanks to all of you for your posts and suggestions.

To reply initially to MrSaffron, my current ADSL stats are as below (I showed two readings an hour apart). As the speeds vary quite often, they are likely to change quite regularly though.

Operational Mode - G.DMT
Upstream - 800 - 800
Downstream - 2048 - 2016
SNR Margin(Upstream) - 11.0 - 11.0
SNR Margin(Downstream) - 4.3 - 5.8
Line Attenuation(Upstream) - 28.0 - 28.0
Line Attenuation(Downstream) - 52.0 - 52.0

I'll reply to the other issues below in brief:-

* I have changed everything relating to the Internet connection over time, the cables, the router, the telephone system and nothing has seemed to make any difference. Even the phone box has been changed by a telecommunication engineer without resolving the problem.

* There is no cat or other pet here, so we can rule that out as the problem

* I have conducted several quiet line tests and the line seems completely clear, I can't hear any obvious noise or interference.

* I suspect that incoming calls relate to the problem, which is unsurprising. I have seen the Internet disconnect if a call comes in, although it disconnects at other times too. Having the phone unplugged from the microfilter and hence the line seems not to resolve the problem. I tried to plug the modem router directly into the line, thus removing a microfilter completely, but I couldn't find an RJ11 cable that worked. I could use an RJ11 to BT adapter though to try it.

* Nothing was changed on the connection or phone side when the problems started occurring, it had been static for quite some time before that.

Your responses suggest other possibilities I haven't been able to test yet:-

* Having eliminated the router or phone as a possible cause for blowing the microfilters, is it possible that a charge from the line itself is causing the issues?

* The possibility of plugging the modem into the Phone section of the filter was suggested, presumably as a microfilter test. That might be worth pursuing, I'll order an apropriate RJ11 to BT adapter. Does anybody know where I could get a microfilter tester from, or if I could devise some kind of test with a multimeter?

I know this process will take a long time, it already has, it would just be nice to think I'm on the right course and not lost for ideas

Thanks

Morning Cycle

You certainly have pursued quite a few possible causes.

To extend from MHC's cat possibilities and voltage injections, I wonder if your phone line runs through areas where it could pick up stray voltages such as temporary electric fencing in fields, its location being changed to suit grazing conditions.

Although clearly not your problem as such, intermittent use gave rise to problems with an intended ultra-stable table for testing inertial navigation equipment. The source was eventually traced to a factory over 1 mile away (1.6 KM), only occurring when a particular piece of heavy machinery was being used.

But it could be other electrical equipment only used occasionally.

A possible source could be an electrified railway line (including sidings), used occasionally for diversions etc; but again this is only to broaden the scope.

Are you aware if neighbours have similar problems?

Based on the connection speeds your line has been banded, which limits the upper and lower sync speeds to try and make a line more stable.

Sometimes the banding is too keen and http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/calc will show that if the line was to be unbanded it would go faster.

My advice, pester ISP to get the line unbanded and see how it behaves, if it reconnects a lot and you end up banded again then you have some noise/interference to investigate further.

The neighbours on one side are not experiencing any issues at all. The neighbour on the other side is having all manner of connection issues and has never attained more than half of the sync speed of the other two properties, and frequently much less. I've been trying to help them with their issues too without much luck. Given their other troubles and the fact I don't live there, it's much more difficult for me to work out if they also have microfilter problems, particularly since they aren't technically minded. But I'll do what I can to find out.

Is there any kind of surge protector I could buy that might help me diagnose such an issue? I know they make standard ones with phone sockets, but I have a feeling they are looking for much higher surges.

MrSaffron, you are correct that the line has been banded. On a previous occasion, I was diagnosing this issue, I contacted my ISP because the speeds were not improving. They acknowledged that the connection was banded and unbanded it which sped it up quite considerably. However, given the problems I'm having, it seems clear that they have re-banded it, probably due to the instability of the line.

I have previously set up a Raspberry Pi to monitor the number of connection drops I receive in a single day. It only checks every hour and so 24 is the maximum number of drops it will report. As a guide, the connection has been dropped the following number of times recently:-

3rd of December - 7
2nd of December - 14
1st of December - 5
30th of November - 0
29th of November - 12
28th of November - 13

The figures are much worse than I had reported, it seems the problem has become more prominent. This seems consistent with earlier experiences, could a microfilter become worse over time?

Any advice anybody could give would be most useful. I'm almost at a loss at this stage.

Thanks

In reply to a post by Cycle194:

I have previously set up a Raspberry Pi to monitor the number of connection drops I receive in a single day. It only checks every hour and so 24 is the maximum number of drops it will report. As a guide, the connection has been dropped the following number of times recently:-

3rd of December - 7
...

Is your router listed in the dropdown for RouterStatsLite? I used to run that 24/7 with the sampling interval set to the minimum, (5 or 7 seconds), and IIRC only an hour and a half or so per graph, to make sure it properly registered all disconnections. I set it to save the graphs and also a csv file.

Post deleted by Cycle194

It does RobertoS, thanks for the suggestion. What kind of thing would I be looking for? A significant increase in noise before disconnection?

You can see the noise pattern - sudden spikes, or rapid/slow rises and falls. Any regular grouping. Also easy to see if things like turning off the central heating (or at this time of year Christmas lights) have any immediate effect.

Plasma TV's, Sky boxes, DECT phone power supplies when plugged into the mains are frequent suspects. Less common, electrical exercise machines, fluorescent lights. All the above also applying to the same things at a close neighbour's.

Uploading a few graphs for us to see, or copy and pasting relevant sections of the csv file can give us ideas.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 04-Dec-14 18:42:37)

Hello, Going by your router stats you are a similar distance as me from the exchange, ~4-5kms.
I found my DSL performance was dramatically affected by the house wiring, that was frankly awful. I have also found DSL filters vary from total cr*p to good, there seems no reliable standard. FYI the ones I use are the DSL4132003 that used to be supplied with the speedtouch modem, these have a big enough ring capacitor for several phones and a double section balanced filter, I have never had one fail.
You have not mentioned anywhere if you have tried plugging the modem/filter directly into the test socket at the master socket (so doing disconnects all house wiring) note that you will have to remove the lower part of the faceplate to do this and your phones wont work BUT if you can stand that a while and see how your modem performs.
Also do you know that your master socket is where BT installed it on the end of the drop cable ? in my case I discovered some fool had extended it using split pairs!!

Thanks again for the suggestions all.

I'll set up RouterStatsLite RobertoS and report back here in a few days. Hopefully I'll have some useful data available.

Fourtytwo1, my connection has been plugged into the test socket for some time. Given the issues I was having, I wanted to ensure that there was as little to go wrong as possible during debugging Although I agree with you on the microfilter quality, I also don't think the issue can be related to those as I've tried so many, both branded and unbranded with exactly the same results.

Interestingly though, I was about to write I only have one telephone box in my house as I've only used it and then I remembered I had seen another around that I'd never touched. I just plugged a phone into it and I got a dial signal so it's working. It has the same phone number as the main box, so it's on the same line. I could hear a lot of interference and electronic signals so that's definitely interfering, but there's never been any phone plugged into it and it would have been the same from the start, even when the line was working perfectly.

You did say however that using the test socket would disconnect all other phones? But this one appears to still be working. The split seems to have been done outside too as the second box is wired through an upstairs window and then a rather long distance to another room. Could some degraded wiring to this box be causing the issue?

In reply to a post by Cycle194:

Could some degraded wiring to this box be causing the issue?

Almost certainly and it's wired incorrectly, not being isolatable on the master faceplate.

When you plugged a phone into it and heard noise did you remember to insert a filter before it?

In reply to a post by Cycle194:

The split seems to have been done outside too as the second box is wired through an upstairs window and then a rather long distance to another room. Could some degraded wiring to this box be causing the issue?

This split before the master socket almost always causes a considerable loss of speed, (up to 2.5Mbps), but doesn't normally cause disconnections after a while. From Day 1 if it's going to do that.

It's called "star wiring", which was fine before we had internet connections.

So it now looks as though you have two problems:

1) The annoying disconnections.
2) The loss of speed you weren't aware of.

I'll leave others to continue for now.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 07-Dec-14 12:06:06)

Interestingly though, I was about to write I only have one telephone box in my house as I've only used it and then I remembered I had seen another around that I'd never touched. I just plugged a phone into it and I got a dial signal so it's working. It has the same phone number as the main box, so it's on the same line. I could hear a lot of interference and electronic signals so that's definitely interfering, but there's never been any phone plugged into it and it would have been the same from the start, even when the line was working perfectly.

You did say however that using the test socket would disconnect all other phones? But this one appears to still be working. The split seems to have been done outside too as the second box is wired through an upstairs window and then a rather long distance to another room. Could some degraded wiring to this box be causing the issue?

Ohhh dear this is the sort of thing I suspected!! all this additional wiring will act as aerials for RFI and cause multiple reflections for the OFDM signals from the modem!! yes it will cause speed loss BUT it will also cause droputs due to fading snr, and there will be particular sensitivity to incoming calls as a consiquence of the ringing signal being on an umbalanced wire on all this additional cabling.

It sounds to me as if your house-wiring needs a complete overhaul, however I understand BT can be rather expensive, if you dont mind that then they are the best resort but otherwise find someone competent who knows what pairs are etc

There should be no junctions (branches) between the street and where the modem/filter is connected to the line, what happens AFTER the filter inwards to the house is within reason not a problem providing a balanced impedance is maintained.

As for fading snr this is best spotted using a tracking program, i use dslstats, its free and very good BUT you will have to check if your modem is supported, it draws a graph of your snr over time so you can see if and when you have fades and glitches then you can tally them to events.

I had two laptop power supplies causing problems that I found this way BUT the poor state of the internal phone wiring was the real cause as that made the line more sensative to the inteferance than it should have been.

Good luck

Thanks for all the information, it's helping me to diagnose the issue. I'm doing some more investigation in the meantime.

I should have mentioned previously that I had not plugged a filter into the second telephone box and so the electrical inference was likely to be the ADSL connection (i.e lots of retro 56k modem type noise from the early-90's . Anyway, I unplugged all devices apart from a wired phone and did a quiet line test. The second telephone box seems to be slightly noisy than the main one, but it's still pretty quiet. I can only hear a very low volume hiss and some occasional clicking noises. I can't hear anything at all from the first box, but the location is slightly noisier, so I can't be sure.

I should say my mobile stats have improved since my initial post. From experience, it's just temporary though The SNR Margin seems much higher at the moment. I tried to trigger an issue by calling the phone several times, but it seemed to have no effect.

Operational Mode - G.DMT
Upstream - 800 - 800
Downstream - 4000
SNR Margin(Upstream) - 11
SNR Margin(Downstream) - 8.9
Line Attenuation(Upstream) - 28
Line Attenuation(Downstream) - 53

Interestingly, the SNR dropped to 6.3 just five minutes after reconnecting, although this was before I started testing calls. It's up to 6.9 now. As a guide, I've seen downstream speeds of 5000 as a maximum in the past.

I've started using both RouterStatsLite and DSLStats so I should be able to post some results soon I hope. I realise they overlap somewhat, but I started with RouterStatsLite and DSLStats seems to do more, so I figured I'd leave them both running.

I'm considering calling out BT again to remove the connection to the second box (only the cost puts me off, which is why I'm hoping to get as much a guide as possible if it'll help or not). Presumably, this would resolve that particular issue? If it's just a matter of disconnecting it, then it should be fairly simple, although it'll require a ladder, the line seems to originate near the roof. I should say that most of the long wiring on the second box is internal to the house and wouldn't need touching I think if it was disconnected from the source.

I'm not entirely sure that the second box is causing much of a problem though apart from a potential loss of speed. But given I can't really explain the problems I'm having now, anything is possible

In reply to a post by Cycle194:

I'm considering calling out BT again to remove the connection to the second box (only the cost puts me off, which is why I'm hoping to get as much a guide as possible if it'll help or not).

How/where is teh second socket connected?

If it is done correctly then your should be able to do it your self.

Can you link to images of your master - front plate, what is connected to the back of the plate and wires inside the back box.

Hang on!

We seem to have established you have star wiring, (a split before the master socket). Assuming the router is plugged into the master socket, (the one with the split faceplate), is anything plugged into the other? Which you seem to be saying doesn't have a filter.

Have you got any more phone sockets around the house? If yes, is anything plugged into one or more?

There seems to be a black box high up, just under the roof. I assume the BT line goes in there and there are two lines coming off which go into two different parts of the house. One is to what I thought was the master socket, the other goes though a window to another socket which is unused (but appears to work).

Only the master socket has anything plugged into it, the second box is unused. To my knowledge, there are no other boxes.

My connection has been fairly reliable for the past day oddly enough, but there was a disconnection today. It seems as suspected by some, the SNR margin rapidly dropped and the connection failed. It took three minutes for the SNR to recover. The connection speed is now at a lower, but still reasonable rate (3232), and the SNR margin is higher than it was before (7.6 to 9.3). I wasn't in the house at the time so there was nothing obvious that caused it.

Can anybody recommend a good temporary image sharing site? I can then show some graphs to illustrate things as they happen.

Thanks

Hosting images: www.photobucket..com which is free and easy to use


The location of the source of the extra cabling ,means it could be a problem - the length of it will be a significant factor in how it interferes swell as being an antenna for noise. Even though not used, try a filter on it, it may improve performance and is easy to add and remove.

Getting the line removed is not easy and needs a BT visit.

Thanks for the Photobucket suggestion, but it seems to need registration, so I found another site that avoids that.

Here are a couple of graphs that show disconnections (SNR):-

http://www.imagesup.net/?di=514182594045
http://www.imagesup.net/?di=114182597393

Some other interesting graphs (SNR)

http://www.imagesup.net/?di=1014182596758
http://www.imagesup.net/?di=6141825986812

What do you all think?

Thanks

Edited by deleted (Thu 11-Dec-14 01:09:28)

A further interesting sequence of results from roughly 3am to 7am on the 9th:-

http://www.imagesup.net/?di=314182605642
http://www.imagesup.net/?di=1614182605658
http://www.imagesup.net/?di=1614182605652
http://www.imagesup.net/?di=1614182605650
http://www.imagesup.net/?di=10141826056516

Don't like those links. They want to download something to my PC. We just wanna see them.

There is nothing wrong with photobucket - registration is easy and free. It would also allow you to put a set of images in a sub-directory and then with a single link a viewer can scroll across them rather than going for individual ones.

My PC complains about your links - they push CPU time right up.

Thise two massive dips in SNR suggest that a large noise source is starting up somewhere and that could be a cause. The small 1dB increase are something changing or being switch off - a minor problem which may not be as easy to resolve.

Minimise the connections to the line - no extraneous wiring or phones and leave it running again tonight. Do they happen at the same time?

If I click "Open" I get a list of things to choose from to open them, including IE which works fine. So does Chrome.

But as MHC has just said, to be able to scroll through them would make things a lot easier.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 11-Dec-14 12:58:36)

Strange, they just just display an image for me.

I'm using Pale Moon 25.1.0

Mine goes straight into a File Download Find or Save on a file called 'image_sup'. Maybe cuz I'm still using IE8.

Try copying the link into IE8? That's how I tested with Chrome.

I am in IE8! I know if I copy link into FF it works fine.

I just tried IE10 and get the same behaviour as you.

Re image sharing site, try what I used http://ge.tt/5ShciF62/v/0?c
No registration & no software to download for anybody!!

Have a look at processor usage and disk access whilst the images are there. Mine went way up.

Ohh while we are on the subgect of images, how about some pictures of your amazing sounding phone house wiring

Seeing as you have replied to yourself, who do you expect to ell us about phone wiring?

I can't see anything untoward here.

Nor me (now in FF).

I was seeing the problem in FF.

Sorry about the firestorm I caused with the photo sharing site I used I use Firefox with a JavaScript blocker and the site seemed to work perfectly for me, so I didn't foresee anybody else suffering any issues. I'll try something different next time

I'm unavailable for the next two days, but have a couple more suggestions to investigate and might be able to give you all some new data when I'm back. I'll take a picture of the junction box too so you can all have a look at that time.

Pictures just open for me in a new tab, no problem whatsoever. Firefox 34.0.

Your links worked instantly for me in Firefox 34. In general, if something can go wrong you can rely on me to find it

Hi everybody

I've collected quite a bit of broadband data now so I thought it might be best to upload a fair amount of images in a compressed file rather than individually uploading stuff. Can anybody recommend a non-login site that is easy and safe to use for all?

I wasn't able to take any photos of the outside box due to the weather, but I'll try to do that shortly.

One member here kindly messaged me and asked me why BT didn't automatically properly upgrade the star wiring into a modern extension system. It seems I definitely have star wiring as plugging a telephone into the secondary extension test socket worked fine, even though I'm using the test socket on the master socket. Has anybody else had any experience with what BT should do if they replace your master socket?

The neighbour has kindly allowed me to start monitoring their SNR and connection speed information. I won't be able to do nearly as much sampling, but the results will be interesting. So far, I can't see any correlation between the two properties.

My phone only has a telephone and a broadband modem plugged into a microfilter, there is no other wiring. I can run without the phone from time to time, but truthfully, the phone has been in this week and as the following shows, the line has been more stable than other times when only the modem is plugged in. I need to do more testing on it though.

There has been the following number of re-connections on the line in the last week:-

13th of December - 2
12th of December - 0
11th of December - 1
10th of December - 1
9th of December - 0
8th of December - 1
7th of December - 1

I don't have any reasons as to why it's been much better this week in all honesty.

Thanks all.

In reply to a post by Cycle194:

Hi everybody

I've collected quite a bit of broadband data now so I thought it might be best to upload a fair amount of images in a compressed file rather than individually uploading stuff. Can anybody recommend a non-login site that is easy and safe to use for all? -chop-

I would share it via dropbox, you would need a free account yourself, but publish an open link

I've uploaded a set of graphs from the past few days. These are a mix of RouterStatsLite and DSLStats graphs. Those with a date are from my property, those labelled "Neighbour" are self-explanatory.

http://dropproxy.com/f/9F2

DSLStats has some small issues with graphing at times, so sometimes the line goes back on itself (time-wise, which is of course impossible), but no data is being lost by this.

Thanks

Hey all

I managed to get some wiring images for you all to see. It can be downloaded from this location:-

http://dropproxy.com/f/A0A

The following gives a guide to the photos:-

* Box.jpg shows the outside box which seems to be the main incoming connection (circled in green).
* Window.jpg shows the cable running from the box in the previous image into an upstairs window.
* Windows-close.jpg shows the actual window where the cable comes in and a separate cable seems to leave by a second hole for the perceived master BT box downstairs.
* Inside.jpg shows the connection between the incoming line and the one branching off downstairs.

It seems from these images that the upstairs is the first port of call for the line, and the line is split into two at the junction shown in Inside.jpg.

What do you all think?

Thanks

Two things strike me.

The first is that the "box" is highly exposed to relatively strange guttering arrangement; and may be subjected to leaks in significant quantities etc, from the various joints around it; apart from any wind-carried rain as well.

Keep in mind that the guttering is carrying rain water from a large area of roof - or it isn't doing its basic job.

-------------

The second is "What is the grey ducting coming in from the right in the 'inside' photo carrying?"

That could be the main arrival "NTE-equivalent" part of the wiring, particularly as the outside photos do not show any overhead.

Our estate was fully pre-wired underground in 1967, with no obvious signs of outside phone wiring etc, apart from the older PCP and the more recent FTTC.

Inside the house, the only sign of the BT "D-side" is on the back wall of a cupboard, presently a simple RJ11 wall socket (no filters etc); and originally was a simple standard-size box cover, with a half-inch square opening, with a contact on each side ("J-type"?).

I agree with you on the box. It doesn't seem to be in a great place, but that's the way it was when I moved in here.

The grey wires on the right of the "inside" photo goes off to the second phone line box I recently found. The first black line going into the BT box comes from the outside wall-mounted box and the second goes back outside and connects to what I originally thought was the master socket. It's quite a strange set up all around, but it seems clear now that this is the initial portal for the phone line coming in. What this ultimately means is beyond my knowledge, but it looks to me to be quite an old setup.

What do you all think?

Thanks

Likewise... images load immediately for me.

I like the suggestion of using a Sub-directory which would be a neater solution.

FWIW, I'm running Firefox under Yosemite (OS X 10.10.1).

Morning Cycle

A trifle confusing!

Are there any Phone Overhead Poles and wiring to houses etc in your vicinity?



In that "inside" photo, there are the two black-insulated cables coming out of the top of the early "BT + Mercury(?)" box, going vertically up the wall etc.


There is apparently a third cable, coming in from the right, along the foot of the wall, just above the skirting, finally diving diagonally downwards, towards the right-hand side of the same box.

I suspect that this may be the (primary, D-side) feed from the Exchange, probably via a street distribution (PCP) cabinet.

If that is the case, then it is where normally I would expect to find an NTE5 or similar, in more recent installations; and that all of the other phone wiring in your house is internal.

Having come on this thread rather late the thing that stands out to me is that this is a job for the ISP to sort out with Openreach. It may well be that BT is the ISP in which case if you find the right guy they will usually sort things out once and for all. I realise that some wry smiles may be raised by that but I can only speak from my own experience

Certainly you need a single good quality line into one master socket. Nothing else is really going to do the business and remember, that IS what you are paying for. Good mannered persistence will eventually do the trick

If the ISP is not BT, who is it?

The other matter is the make of router and the chip within it. I'd be interested to know the make and model of router. They are certainly a major factor in the ability to hold onto a signal and prevent disconnections which completely ruin speeds

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

I tried many different makes until finding the one that did the business. The disconnections stopped and the speeds got to where it needed to be. I'm not suggesting it will be cheap

Finally, get a proper faceplate on the master socket so that you don't need microfilters. Microfilters do vary in quality and don't (in my experience) last forever

Eckiedoo, I'm not really sure what you mean by overhead poles and wiring to your houses in the vicinity? I can tell you that the nearest overhead pole is probably 100-200 meters away. The wiring in the properties closest to me seems to be closer to a roof level than the ground.

The third cable you mention is actually an internal wiring which goes to the second socket. The first black wire is the one that comes from the exchange, while the second goes to what I thought was the master socket downstairs. The box that appears in the "inside" photo seems to be the main incoming point. There is no NTE5 box anywhere near, there is a good 3-4 meters of cable before you get to the upstairs box and maybe 2-3 meters to the downstairs box. The former is internal wiring, the latter is largely outside wiring. From what I can see, there doesn't seem to be a main NTE5 box at all.

961a, I agree with you. Plus.net is the ISP, BT the phone provider. The router is a Billion 7800N, although I previously had a Sitecom WL-536. I can't tell much difference in the connection quality of either.

Thanks all

Your router is the very best for hanging on to your broadband connection. If the Billion 7800N and its Broadcom chip won't do it, I suggest nothing will

Have you tried keeping a diary of weather conditions at the time of the drops? Particularly wind and rain. We had frequent dropped connections until BT identified worn parts of the line from the exchange where the line chafed against tree branches during high winds allowing the insulation to wear away and let the rain in

The problem was solved by the persistence of Plusnet who was my ISP in nagging BT to replace bits of faulty wire at what was a fairly high cost. It took about 6 months but raising a ticket with Plusnet on line did the business for me

I guess you know about your ability to tweak the SNR on your router as described in the following link. I would mention that it works best when you do it once and then see the results over the next week. If you try doing it a number of times in a day or so you will damage the speed you're getting

http://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/billion-7800n#

Have you tried getting Plusnet to nag BT for a new wiring into a master socket. Can you then rewire the other sockets internally if you need them?

Thanks 961a for your suggestions on the SNR and weather conditions.

I haven't yet nagged Plus.net or BT for new wiring into the master socket, but I've decided that this is something I really need to do now. I've collected plenty of evidence of line instability and traced most of the wires. For now, I think I won't learn anything new without a rewire into a single master socket. If the problems persist, I'll know something else is the matter, but I suspect this may resolve the issue. I only use one socket, so fortunately no internal wiring should be required.

I'd like to thank you all for your suggestions on this thread, your input has been immensely useful and allowed me to gather a lot of facts and evidence for further investigation. I'll post back here when I've had the line rewired to let you all know how it went.

Hi all

Just feeding back as I said I would previously After almost a year pursuing this issue, there is still no resolution

A wide variety of things have been done which are shown below:-

* All internal equipment checked (as was done before, but mentioning it just for completeness)
* Internal extension removed, this had no effect.
* Master socket rewired, this also had no effect, although the BT engineer said it was defective.
* Lift and switch done at the exchange. This had the effect of slightly improving stability, but the problem remained. I actually suspect that my problem had become two at some stage and the lift and switch merely fixed the most recent one I wasn't aware of.

After all this, the problem remains the same There are severe speed issues on the line, although stability at times has improved . For example, there have been no disconnections for a week, but 10 in the two days before that. Picking up the telephone automatically disconnects the line. This would automatically lead you to suspect the microfilter was faulty, but I've replaced tons of them over the duration of this issue and the problems always return. So even if that's the main issue, something is causing it.

My best theory at the moment is that the microfilters are somehow being blown by an external source. I intend to discuss this factor with the next BT engineer who comes around to see how likely this is and how it could happen.