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[roseway]

I've had a fun day drilling holes in my walls and feeding cables. My ultimate objective is to have the router plugged into a filtered faceplate on the master socket, but as I mentioned elsewhere the layout of my house and the position of the master socket (in a window alcove at the bottom of the stairs) don't make this easy.

After some hard work I now have the router installed in the under-stairs cupboard, powered from a new mains socket I've fitted in there. A telephone cable comes from the master socket, under the stairs carpet, and through a hole in the wall to the router. A Cat5e cable with a wall-mounted socket at each end runs from the computer room, down through the kitchen, and into the understairs cupboard. A 4-port switch replaces the 4-port router to connect the PCs together.

I haven't yet bought the filtered faceplate, so I'm temporarily using a microfilter plugged into the master socket, but apart from that the job is done and it works. I'm feeling quite smug and self-satisfied.

When I've got the filtered faceplate I'll let you know if there is any significant improvement in performance.

Eric

[kitz]

Well done you, gosh new mains socket as well as new cabling
Hope the filtered faceplate will prove beneficial 8)

[soms]

Go for the modified ADSL adaptor from clarity. Then in future you can make use of both filtered and unfiltered terminals for hardwired extensions on the rear.

All in all sounds like a hard days work  All I would have done differently is used cat5e for the master to router line.

I hope one day if our place ever gets rewired I would put in structured network cabling, in the mean time I have a similar arrangement with lengths of cat5e with face plates on each end.

[roseway]

Go for the modified ADSL adaptor from clarity. Then in future you can make use of both filtered and unfiltered terminals for hardwired extensions on the rear.

Actually I've ordered the one from ADSL Nation http://www.adslnation.co.uk/products/xte2005.php which offers the same features.

All I would have done differently is used cat5e for the master to router line.

Unfortunately not possible without major surgery. The cable would be horribly visible. However the cable I used is a thin twisted-pair one which is probably just as good over the short distance.

Eric

[soms]

Unfortunately not possible without major surgery. The cable would be horribly visible. However the cable I used is a thin twisted-pair one which is probably just as good over the short distance.

Ah well in that case i understand your choice

I have a similar situation where someone I know wanted a phone extension, which I needed to run alongside their stairs and along a skirting board. Which is more asthetically pleasing - white phone cable or fat grey cable? Which will tuck under the door? Phone cable it was.

Unfortunately the cable has broken and I need to go fix it up. I suspect the door caught the cable and crushed it when it was closed/opened. I expect I will replace with like for like if needs be.

[roseway]

The filtered faceplate arrived this morning, and I've fitted it. It's synced at the highest speed I've ever seen here (7616) so it's so far, so good. I won't know for sure until a few days have passed and I see what speed it comes down to overnight.

Eric

[kitz]

>>> It's synced at the highest speed I've ever seen here (7616)

Have you got interleaving switched on?  Only asked cause its the highest sync speed if you have.

>> so it's so far, so good.

Good stuff
Like you say though, see how it performs this evening

[roseway]

I have got interleaving on, but I don't think that's limiting the speed. I use a Speedtouch router and I've used DMT to tweak the target noise margin down a bit to 4.5dB to squeeze a bit more out of the connection. That's the noise margin which I got when it synced at 7616, so it wouldn't have gone any higher with interleaving off. It's not bad for my 42dB attenuation.

Eric

[roseway]

During the night the router re-synced down to 5856 which is more or less what I expected. Before installing the filtered faceplate it was coming down to 4900-5100 overnight. If this holds up I should soon get a worthwhile improvement in my BRAS profile, currently at 4000.

Eric

[kitz]

>> worthwhile improvement in my BRAS profile, currently at 4000

Nice one, hope it stays up there


<cycnic mode>
hopefully your exchange isnt too congested and youre able to attain those speeds
</cynic mode>
(yeah guess whose fed up with BT lol)

[roseway]

I rather share your cynicism, but thankfully the local exchange seems to have adequate capacity at present. A few days ago I swapped routers as part of some experimenting I was doing, it synced at 7200 and my BRAS profile immediately shot up from 4000 to 6000. The Namesco speedtester gave me a download speed of about 5200.

I just wish that the BRAS profile would always work like that!

Eric

[kitz]

>> my BRAS profile immediately shot up from 4000 to 6000

lmao...  but as you well know it isnt "supposed" to work like that..  heh, I think thats the first time Ive seen mention of that happening 

The bRAS profile is beginning to be a rite royal PITA for many.. 
I know theyve implemented blip logic which is helping some cases...  but I wish there was more room for a margin of error.
Even if they rounded up rather than down, I feel this would help many rather than the stupid round down to nearest 500 stage that we currently see.  It must be real annoying for someone who say syncs at 2.2Mb for most of the day, but can drop down to say just under 1728 kbps sometimes in the evening... cause the highest speed they are ever going to see is 1Mb because of the way the profiling works

Rounding up in cases like this would make so much more sense without impacting too much on the DSLAMs

[roseway]

Yes, the 'instantly down, 3 days to get back up' arrangement is a real nuisance for some people. I don't normally use my PCs late in the evening when the router syncs at a lower speed, so in fact the profile doesn't reflect the state of my connection when I'm using it, but the state when I'm not using it! I could switch the router off at night, but that's an inconvenience too, and there are times when I need it on for some overnight down loading.

Eric

[roseway]

This morning I'm syncing at 6208 (there was an unexpected re-sync during the day yesterday) and my profile has increased to 4500 (after only two days) so it's moving in the right direction. I'd hoped for a bit more of course.

Eric

[kitz]

>> my profile has increased to 4500 (after only two days)

good news....
and what is it with your line then, that isnt following all the rules eh?