Not sure if this is the right section for this but here goes. My house has one phone line with a single socket, connected to that is a microfilter, with my speedtouch 330 attached and then a two way splitter that connects both a phone and a Sky digibox. Been with Orange broadband for 3 years now I think. Originally on 1mb, then to 2, and now I'm on 4. I think my problems started while I was on 2mb, but I'm not entirely sure. For a long time the phone has been crackling to the point where it's very difficult to hear the other person. It seemed to be getting consistently worse, so after a call to BT they did a line check and comfirmed the noise, told me to unplug everything, try the phone on it's own, try a different phone etc. I tried a really old phone and noticed the noise was gone, then I plugged everything back in as normal and the noise was no longer there. Then after a couple of days some noise had returned. Sometimes when the phone is picked up and my broadband is connected, the broadband will cut out and sometimes it will mess the sync speed up and leave me with unbearably slow speeds for a while until it sorts itself out, but sometimes it won't do that. This happened once today and I'm currently connected at 160kbps, ouch. I normally get somewhere between 2mb and 4.5mb. I can't pinpoint what is causing the problem and I can't remeber when it really started. I heard BT casually mention something about Sky boxes causing problems(as they were going to send out an engineer and said that i'd be charged £116 if it was problem caused by the Sky box, but then I cancelled that after the noise seemed to stop once I tried an old phone) so I researched a little about that and to my suprise it seems that some models can actually cause damage, but it seems to be mainly thompson boxes that are affected. Mine's panasonic and I don't think it's the problem. My broadband connection also cuts out entirely randomly (or so it would seem) often a few times a day, I can usually reconnect after a few seconds, sometimes the pc may require a restart. Sometimes seems to be related to activity, seems to happen more often when using bit-torrents for example, but still happens often (every day basically) during periods of complete inactivity. Oh and disconnecting everything except the phone seems to reduce the noise, but it is still present and while inconsistent, at it's worst, it's still a big problem. I really don't know what is causing all this, anyone have any ideas? Not sure if this is an Orange problem per se, but I thought this was a good place to ask.
1. Try disconnecting the Sky box and check if the connection is continuous.
2. Also you could try putting a separate filter on the Sky connection.
3. If you're using a non-bell phone, disconnect all the wires in the BT linebox EXCEPT 2 and 5.
4. If you can plug the speedtouch into the test socket of the linebox and check if the connection is continuous.
Test socket? Line box? I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with these terms. I don't think I have any kind of test socket and what is a linebox exactly?. *EDIT* nevermind, I looked it up, I undetstand now. I'll try placing a second filter for the Sky connection, though I definitely had the same configuration 3 years back and don't remember having any problems back then, so I don't really see how it could be that. Thanks for the suggestions.
Sorry.......it's the BT linebox, what you plug you phone etc into.
If you have a newish one it'll have a removable lower half, unscrew this and pull it off. Inside you'll the test socket, plug your speedtouch directly into this if you can, if not use the filter and speedtouch. Check your router stats and run a speedtest.
_________________ An ex-Orange guinea pig
"The first third of our lives is ruined by our parents, the second third by 0range then along comes 02 and you die happy."
It'll be difficult to check the stability of the connection because sometimes I can often get a good 5h hours or more use before I have any problem, though sometimes it'll disconnect after a mere 10 minutes. Also, when I bring up the connection status window, I notice that I sometimes have errors in data i've received. Once again this is inconsistent, but when downloading large files, hundreds of errors may appear causing the file to become corrupted. Other times I might be downloading for hours and have no errors at all until right near the end when I may get a single one or two and that tends to make the file unuseable too. Which is why I only download with download managers and bit-torrent nowadays. Don't know what's causing that either.
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 135 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 1248 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 109 kbps
As you can see, it's set my connection to 135k (which happened when a phone call was made from this line yesterday). Hopefully that'll sort itself out soon, normally does. But as to why it happens?
Looks like you're still on 2meg.....are you sure you've seen 2 - 4.5 ?
Referring back to your original post, the splitter should come first then a filter for the phone and a filter for Sky.
But have you tried disconnecting phone and Sky and plugging in only the speedtouch and running a line test and BT speedtest ?
For line test http://192.168.1.1 sign on using admin and admin (don't show any personal details IPs etc)
I've definitely had speeds well above 2mb before. Back when I was on 2mb I could download at around 220kb/sec maximum. Since I changed to 4mb I can sometimes get about 350 for example. The change also doubled my upload speed.
About the splitter, I've had it set up exactly this way for 3 years or more and yet I've only had my problems for little more than a year.
I'm not sure I want to disconnect the phone right now because I'm expecting an important call soon. Maybe I'll try that line test later.
Well, I've kept the skybox disconnected from the line for a few days now. My connection has stayed at the same speed, 130kbps according to the speedtest.net site, (the status window began listing the speed at 130kbps after that phone call mentioned previously and rose to an eventual 3.0mbps, all the while having no affect on the actual speed, which remained at 130kbps.) I had a handful of random disconnects, but other than that and the slow speed, no problems. The phone was used a few times, it didn't affect anything to my knowledge. That is, until today, when a call was received, during which the internet connection disconnected itself again and when I reconnected I now had a new speed of 416kbps according to the status window. That speed was confirmed with speedtest.net. So it seems that the Sky digibox is not causing the problem and that the phone plays a big part.
So what do you suggest I do next? Plug in a different phone for a few days and see is anything changed?
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Then after a couple of days some noise had returned. Sometimes when the phone is picked up and my broadband is connected, the broadband will cut out and sometimes it will mess the sync speed up and leave me with unbearably slow speeds for a while until it sorts itself out, but sometimes it won't do that. This happened once today and I'm currently connected at 160kbps, ouch. 
I normally get somewhere between 2mb and 4.5mb. I can't pinpoint what is causing the problem and I can't remeber when it really started. I heard 
I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with these terms. I don't think I have any kind of test socket and what is a linebox exactly?. *EDIT* nevermind, I looked it up, I undetstand now. 
I'll try placing a second filter for the 
