Madasafish Questions/answers (merged threads)

harryhound

Hi Samara & Expresso,

Many thanks for your interest.
I too had realised that it must be something within my home that is degrading the broadband performance.

In some ways that is good news, because should I, or a future occupant of hound hovel, need 4 - 5 Mbps, it is technically possible at my distance from the exchange. It is OK being rural as long as you are not remote;)

As the line speed drops off as soon as I connect the master socket to the extension socket, WITH OR WITHOUT anything plugged into the extension socket, would I be right in assuming the "noise" must be being picked up by the cable connecting the master socket to the extension socket?

Just for the record, my kit and its measurements are:

A master socket with a filter then the cable to the router plugged into the square hole, the router is mounted as far away from interference as I can get it on the end of the cable supplied by MAAF. From the router 3 meters of ethernet cable connects to the PC. Meanwhile the BT socket in the filter feeds a telephone answering machine via a 2 meter cable.

15 meters (48ft) connects the BT master socket to the extension socket. Here a filter has a 3 way splitter plugged into it.
1.5 meters (5ft) of cable connects to the kitchen walk-about-phone.
10 meters (32ft) of cable connects to the garden bell.
15 meters (48ft) connects all the way back to the same room as the broadband PC, where it would service the Windows 98 PC, were it still plugged in.

Thanks again for your interest.

Harry

espresso

harryhound wrote: »

As the line speed drops off as soon as I connect the master socket to the extension socket, WITH OR WITHOUT anything plugged into the extension socket, would I be right in assuming the "noise" must be being picked up by the cable connecting the master socket to the extension socket?

Yes, the line from the exchange to your house is a balanced pair (the two wires carry equal and opposite signals which effectively cancels out any noise) but after the master socket, normally two pairs are connected but only one pair (2 & 5) and one wire from the second pair (3) are used. When the line has been ADSL enabled this third wire on terminal 3 is redundant but it tends to act like a long aerial, picking up noise which can be induced into your active pair (ADSL line) reducing it's signal to noise ratio. Therefore by disconnecting this unused wire at the master socket, this noise pick-up can be reduced, which should give an increase in speed. This assumes that proper telephone cable has been used and not simply four core cable as commonly used for burglar alarms, which is not two twisted pairs.

Anyway it is very easy to disconnect this wire to see it it helps.

sciencegeek

Hello I have question for the madasafish team,

we have had maaf broadband for over a year and for the past 14 months or so we have had a problem with the service repeatedly becoming disconnected (as much as every 20 minutes or so). Interestingly, each time I reconnect the bitrate tends to be different e.g. 2.2 or 1.8 or 1.6 etc etc.

I have only just thought about trying to fix this problem as I have been living away for a year. Do you have any idea what the problem might be because its beginning to get on my nerves again.

Many thanks in advance.

Madasafish_Customer_Care

Hi Sciencegeek,

I'd definitely like to see that we get this problem resolved!

The first things that I would check for disconnections are:

1. That you're connecting via your master socket and that you haven't got any long telephone extension cables running between your router and the microfilter that is plugged into the master socket.

2. Check that every phone socket in your house that is in use has a microfilter fitted to it. Remember to include phone sockets that are being used for Sky TV boxes and FAX machines.

3. Microfilters can be problematic if you are using a faulty one. Faulty microfilters will impact your speeds and you will get disconnections. To check your microfilters to see if you’ve got a faulty one, unplug everything from all phone sockets in the house, test each filter from the test port from within your master socket by connecting to the Internet. If you get a substantially lower sync using one of the filters you’ve found your faulty one and it will need to be replaced.

If you could please review those three points I'd be grateful. I'd also be interested in looking at your stats from our side of things, could you please PM me your Madasafish username along with your OS, router model and connection method (EThernet, USB, Wireless).

Thank you!

Kind regards,
Samara

nichno

Hello Samara,

In relation to the Simultaneous Provide Order we rang BT but as we have already placed an order for the BT phone line they said we couldnt request this order. So we will wait until next Friday when they are coming to sort the line and then we will place our BB order with you.

Thanks Nicky

harryhound

espresso wrote: »

Yes, the line from the exchange to your house is a balanced pair (the two wires carry equal and opposite signals which effectively cancels out any noise) but after the master socket, normally two pairs are connected but only one pair (2 & 5) and one wire from the second pair (3) are used. When the line has been ADSL enabled this third wire on terminal 3 is redundant but it tends to act like a long aerial, picking up noise which can be induced into your active pair (ADSL line) reducing it's signal to noise ratio. Therefore by disconnecting this unused wire at the master socket, this noise pick-up can be reduced, which should give an increase in speed. This assumes that proper telephone cable has been used and not simply four core cable as commonly used for burglar alarms, which is not two twisted pairs.

Anyway it is very easy to disconnect this wire to see it it helps.

Hi espresso and all other experts,

Before I sus-out how to disconnect the middle pair of wires, I thought I would check back with you. The wiring from the pole in the garden to the "pigs-tail" bracket, screwed to the gutter-board, is thick strong and cased in black shiny PVC (?). This wire was a replacement installed by BT about 5 or 10 years ago when an over height vehicle tore down the "flat twin"(see below). On the gutter-board there is (now) a grey square terminal box, where the wire comes out again as an old almost tarry "flat twin" wire. This heads off along a short length of gutter-board and disappears (the building has been extended and what was gutter-board, is now inside the loft.
The flat twin eventually leads into the back of the master socket in a hall cupboard. (4MGb+ available here). Out of the back of the master socket comes a white PVC tube and inside it are 4 wires. Judging by what arrives in the extension socket, these small solid "silver" wires are coloured and terminal numbered:
2:Blue
3:Orange
4:Brown
5:Green
This extension dates back to the mid 1980's.

Any observations

Harry.

PS To disconnect the wires, do I simply clip the Orange & Brown pair or do I jam open the slots with a screwdriver and jerk the pair of wires out of both master and slave sockets?

espresso

You simply have to carefully pull the wire from slotted terminal 3 on the rear of the master socket face plate. i.e. only the active pair will then be cabled around the property to the extensions.

macdady

Hi Samara,

For some reason whenever the phone rings and it is answered, i seem to lose my internet connection for a short while? The dsl and internet green lights switch off and back on again after a few seconds! Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Mac

mrJ_5

do you have filters in every phone socket that a phone is connected to?

Madasafish_Customer_Care

I think MrJ is spot on - the first thing that you should check is your microfilters.

Do you have 1 microfilter fitted to every phone socket that you have in use?

Also a faulty microfilter will impact your speeds and you will get disconnections. To check your microfilters to see if you’ve got a faulty one, unplug everything from all phone sockets in the house, test each filter from the test port from within your master socket by connecting to the Internet. If you get a substantially lower sync using one of the filters you’ve found your faulty one and it will need to be replaced.

Please keep us posted!

Kind regards,
Samara