Well, the DSL saga continues. The call has been escalated by my ISP to BT, and BT have called me for details.
This evening, I ran a fresh connection for the DSL modem from the back of the master socket. The downstream noise margin has gone from 5 to 10, and the ATM sync rate has picked up a good megabit or so. Unfortunately, this hasn’t translated in to an increase in IP speed - in fact, my speed tests through my ISP portal are showing 500 kbit, not 5000 kbit :( :( :(
Hopefully the system will reset itself over the next few days and my speeds will re-balance. The fact that my DSL picked up signal strength when I put in a dedicated path from the master socket means I also have a fault somewhere in my wiring. I might well re-wire using cat5 cabling - the only issue is getting the cable up to the computer closet.
Oy,
Well sounds like it might be a good idea anyways?
Comment by Ben — May 24, 2006 @ 21:06
Yeah, just a pain in the rear to run the cabling neatly. This house is made of proper solid brick, so a hammer drill is the name of the game if I need to go through walls.
Comment by cricalix — May 25, 2006 @ 6:14
Got to browsing this morning (when I should have been doing breakfast), and found a very nifty guide to the BT phone wiring, ring circuits and DSL (http://www.readman.dsl.pipex.com/other/UKphonecatwiring.htm). It covers rewiring with Cat5, but it also talks about disconnecting one of the wires in the system. Said wire is a throwback to pulse dialling days!
Time to disconnect that wire upstairs and see if the signal strength increases.
Comment by cricalix — May 25, 2006 @ 6:35
Well, the signal strength did increase, though it’s nowhere near as good as having the DSL router plugged in to the master socket. However, Intarweb to the rescue - found a filtered faceplate that goes in the master socket, and provides both filtered and unfiltered IDC connectors that can be hardwired. Add in a length of cat5, and I should be able to re-wire the ADSL segment with minimal signal loss, and make sure that all of the other points in the house are on the filtered side. To put them all unfiltered, it’s a quick punch-down change.
Time for some structured wiring.
Comment by cricalix — May 25, 2006 @ 15:06
Update from BT - they’ve increased my signal power, and put interleaving on my line. It certainly seems more stable now.
Comment by cricalix — May 27, 2006 @ 11:36