Cabling or router?

Some problems are not immediately obvious, I recently looked at an installation where the lady said the internet connection was slow and sometimes did not work. she had seven telephones on the circuit, and the router was at the end of a long run of

cheap telephone extension cable.

 

BT allow for four devices connected to the phone line.

I have four telephones on my BT cable and my router is at the end of similar cheap cabling but what puzzles me is that BT cable is nothing special from the look of it either. It looks like cheap bell wire. So why isn't my home extension just the same electrically? I'm going to place the router within 1.5 metres or so of the BT incoming and connect it to my PC by wireless. I can't help having 4 telephones on the BT line. Is it likely to be a problem? Is it a suck it and see job?

The BT cable from the BT green cabinet to the pole and from the pole to your master socket will be Cat-5 cable. The thin stuff

running around your home connecting your phone sockets is probably cheap bell-wire/extension cable. Thus for the best operating

conditions the router should really be connected to your master socket.

Below are a couple of speedtest sites. Do a several of tests, the first with your current setup, the second with the phones disconected,

and if its fairly easy to do move the router the master-socket and do a further test.

Quick download test:

https://fast.com/en/gb/

Slightly more sophisticated test:

https://www.nperf.com/en/

Thanks for the speed test Mike10. I did it with everything connected and got a download speed of 400Kb/s, and upload of 0.17Mb's and a latency of 63mS. Before I test without phones could you tell me how bad the above figs are for a connection to be useful? Incidentally are b/s 8 bit bytes/sec or 8 bits/sec? I tried the router within 1.2 metres of the BT incoming connector plate and the pc connected to it by a short RJ45 wire and the performance (not the speed but the downloading in jerks) was the same as when it was upstairs. Does this point to my streaming software being faulty or missing? I don't think I've got any streaming software actually. Which one should I get? Can you say or is that called advertising and banned on the forum? You could send me a private message perhaps?

Thanks for the speed test Mike10. I did it with everything connected and got a download speed of 400Kb/s,

 

?

I don't know where you are or the distance to your exchange but the results are awful.

I'm about 1 kilometre from the Broomhill exchange, back in 2011 and on ADSL I was geting download speeds of around 6 Mbps

I have had BT Infinity-1 fibre since Feb 2013, the current download speed is better than 50 Mbps.

The following site gives you a rough idea on the distance to your exchange, you just enter your postcode

http://www.broadbandexposed.co.uk/broadband/tools/exchange-search/

The BT cable from the BT green cabinet to the pole and from the pole to your master socket will be Cat-5 cable.

 

 

No it's not it's CW1308

But true , the cheap telephone extension are not good for broadband

The distance to exchange is 0.72 miles and the speed I measured was with the router connected to where the BT cable enters the house. What about smoothing out the jerkiness of my downloads, would faster broadband cure that? If so what software can I use to make it happen? And what is a Mb/s?.

---------- Post added 13-11-2017 at 19:33 ----------

Ey up,

Best thing here would be to

 

1. Use uSwitch to change suppliers

https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/

 

2. Plug the new router into the main phone socket.

 

3. Buy a used Linksys WRT54G router from ebay for £5

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/linksys-wrt54g-ver-7-wireless-g-broadband-router-power-set-up-cd-instructions-/132390976751

 

4. Install DD WRT onto the router

https://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database

 

5.Configure the router as a Client Bridge

 

If you need help with any of this just give me a shout

*will work for tea and biscuits

That's a very generous offer but I live in the outskirts of Cambridge. I like your idea of bridging two routers. Very neat.

---------- Post added 13-11-2017 at 19:36 ----------

The BT cable from the BT green cabinet to the pole and from the pole to your master socket will be Cat-5 cable.

 

 

No it's not it's CW1308

But true , the cheap telephone extension are not good for broadband

 

Listen guys. Would a slow broadband cause the jerkiness to my downloads?

Yes

If they are your speeds then they are rubbish

To get a true speed you need the computer hard wired to the router by Ethernet cable and do at least 3or 4 tests at different times of the day

You are a little over kilometre from the exchange, I would expect at least 5 times the speed of 400 kbps with the

router connected to the master socket and the computer wired to the router with nothing else on the phone circuit.

There is something wrong.

It could be (not in any particular order):

1) virus running on the computer

2) faulty hardware

3) faulty wiring between the master socket and exchange

Can you ask your neighbours the type broadband connections they have and download speeds.

The 'jerkyness' as you describe it is probably the router/computer trying to establish error free data packets.

Hello Woolyhead

Firstly, one of the main reasons ISP's (from an engineering point of view) want the router into the master socket is for the ease of eliminating the fault. Any fault on the telephone cabling (anywhere) will effect the operation of a master socket anyway. As you were told, you can usually remove the lower section of a master socket, plug into the test socket and that will give you a clean link to the exchange and ignore all the internal wiring. THIS assumes your telephone network has been wired correctly in the first place, and not bodged in any way (Which I see a lot). You can still do this with your PC upstairs, the green connection light will be on or off regardless of your PC being plugged in.

Do you have a smart phone you can wireless connect with? Use that for a while instead of the PC with router into the test socket and watch a streamed video on YouTube or some such. Also run a speedtest yourself from the phone, using Ookla speetest perhaps.

Yes Mikes10. What you say makes a lot of sense. One of my neighbours had a similar problem and it turned out to be the external BT wiring. They found the fault up a telephone pole. But I'll certainly look into the other things you mentioned. And I'll contact Talk Talk again. I'm much obliged for your help.

And your too, walkertelecoms. I haven't got a smart phone but I'll try the router plugged into the test socket and the pc upstairs. I'll have to connect router to pc by wireless for this to work. What do I do to set that wireless link up? What I've already done is to have the laptop right next to the router downstairs next to the BT inlet so testing with it upstairs is something new. Last time I spoke to Talk Talk they asked whether I use wireless or wire so I suspect they may have switched the wireless off in the router. How can I check this and switch it on again?

---------- Post added 16-11-2017 at 19:37 ----------

Last time I spoke to Talk Talk they asked whether I use wireless or wire. I told them I use wire so I suspect they may have switched the wireless off in the router. How can I check this and switch it on again?

Thanks for your help Mark. I'm still thinking about it.

I dought very much if TalkTalk have turned the wireless function off on your router.

See the following link for details in accessing your router

https://help2.talktalk.co.uk/change-wi-fi-name-and-password