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.