Microfilters are Important for a Great Broadband Connection

RWAP

I can't agree more with this topic - the quality of microfilters varies greatly.

I found a source of low cost ones which remedied my own issues at home some years ago, and like the Ronson advert, they were so good, I bought stock myself to sell on.

I have had a lot of people passing excellent feedback about the filters - how they have fixed issues with Talk Talk in particular with issues ranging from phones which no longer ring, noise on the line, breaks in broadband connection (particularly when someone made a call) and much more.

I recently had issues with loss of connection when Talk Talk took over from Tiscali (and certainly the line speed has dropped from around 2Mbps to less than 512Kbps). I did wonder if the drop outs could be my filters, but it actually turned out to my Power supply on the PC which was sparking!!

The iPlate is also a help in increasing speeds, but I am now moving back to BT as it looks as though they can offer a faster broadband in this area.

jimbms

I fully agree here, recently our area got upgraded to 16mb and I was a bit put out to see I was only getting a speed of around 4mb, a friend recomend I get a decent make of microfilter to replace the initial one given by my isp, this I did and it made a fantastic difference as I now get a constant average of 15.5mb which is about on par for other users I know.

SamKumra_2

I have ridiculously slow broadband (128kbps) and have tried everything to speed it up. 4 engineers can't find the problem as they get 3.7Mb with their equipment. My house has 2 extensions running from the main socket. One goes into the living room and has the sky box and dect phone connected to a spliter then to one filter into the extension. Is this right? Do I need 2 filters to be put into the spliter?

Also one of the engineers put a new faceplate on that has a filter in it already, so do I still need to use the other filters?

Sarah_Hall

My internet kept disconnecting, which was very annoying then I rang tiscali they sent me a new microfilters and its working properly :T.

fords_2

The first thing to plug into your master socket should always be the microfilter - just one. Also, you should never use telephone extension cables as part of your internal broadband setup - they're just not built to carry a broadband signal and will have a detrimental affect on your connection. Sky splitters are also well known for causing broadband problems; they're only used for the interactive services anyway so unless you use those a lot, your Sky TV service will work absolutely fine if you take their splitter off your phone line. The ideal setup is as follows:

Master telephone socket ---> Microfilter (if no prefiltered faceplate) ---> DSL cable/telephone --->Router

If you have a prefiltered socket, you don't need to use a microfilter - the new faceplate does that for you

getthemax

Up until about 3 weeks ago I always had a very reliable connection with Eclipse, and only very occasionally did it momentarily go down. Having read this thread I was thinking perhaps I should invest in a good quality filter and change the cable to my router.

However, I'm not so sure now that this is actually the problem. My router is a wireless Netgear DG834G, about 6 years old and I've been with Eclipse for all that time. When the line drops, it's usually (but not always) just the wireless connection that drops including my local network, i.e. I can still connect quite happily to the Internet via a cable to the router. Powering the router on and off always fixes the wireless connection.

So I guess my question is, is it my router that's at fault and should I invest in another router?

doctorseuss

getthemax wrote: »

Up until about 3 weeks ago I always had a very reliable connection with Eclipse, and only very occasionally did it momentarily go down. Having read this thread I was thinking perhaps I should invest in a good quality filter and change the cable to my router.

However, I'm not so sure now that this is actually the problem. My router is a wireless Netgear DG834G, about 6 years old and I've been with Eclipse for all that time. When the line drops, it's usually (but not always) just the wireless connection that drops including my local network, i.e. I can still connect quite happily to the Internet via a cable to the router. Powering the router on and off always fixes the wireless connection.

So I guess my question is, is it my router that's at fault and should I invest in another router?

WiFi behaves very poorly in situations where there are overlapping networks. Do you live in a flat or terrace? You might want to experiment with changing the channel in the router's WiFi setup.

middlepuss

fords wrote: »

Also, you should never use telephone extension cables as part of your internal broadband setup - they're just not built to carry a broadband signal and will have a detrimental affect on your connection.

I've often heard that said but I have my router on a 4 meter extension cable and the braodband is very stable. Though I wonder if it would go faster if it wasn't on an extension cable?

Agree about filters. Had a big problem with losing the broadband connection when it was initially installed. I checked there was a filter - there was. Ages later I realised that we had one phone extension in a remote part of the house that didn'd have a filter. Put a filter on it and hey presto, reliable broadband connection.

pawlala

middlepuss wrote: »

I've often heard that said but I have my router on a 4 meter extension cable and the braodband is very stable. Though I wonder if it would go faster if it wasn't on an extension cable?

It should be very stable and slightly faster without the 4m extension cable. Having said that, add 4m to the current distance to your exchange and it shouldn't make any significant difference! (but in my experience it does)

Mike_J

doctorseuss wrote: »

WiFi behaves very poorly in situations where there are overlapping networks. Do you live in a flat or terrace? You might want to experiment with changing the channel in the router's WiFi setup.

I just download a programme inSSIDer and have found 4 neighbour also broadcast on the same channel as my router. Just plucking up the courage to have a play with the settings. On the scan I noticed that signals were reported (via graph) across a range of channels. I assume I just need to select a central channel with no other broadcasting.

On the topic of filters, is it possible for a filter to deteriorate over time. The reason is that for the last 6 months I have noticed connections dropping at random (but sometime frequent) times/periods. I have a handfree phone which I have now moved away from the router. The router is plugged into the filter (which is plugged into the main socket) with a 2 metre long cable. Can my filter have developed a fault. Would it help if I could reposition the router closer to the main socket and shorten the cable.

(note...when connected speed and Wifi signal strength are very good)