ADSL and phone issues

[John]

Ok, I have setup a ADSL connection for a friend. When the router is plugged in, and all phones are on via a microfilter we cannot press 3,6 or 9 on the phones, they are very very intermittant at working.

You hear the tone noise of pressing 3 but its clearly not sending the right info down the phone line to the exchange as its still giving the dial tone when you press the number. Now when you take off the ADSL router and filters its fine, I have tried with just 1 filter and router and it does the same, tried swapping the filters round and its still the same. If I leave the phones on the filters but with no router it works about 95% of the time ok.

Just trying the router here and it seems ok as i can still dial 3,6 and 9. I'm going to swap all my filters for these ones (they are Fujitsu ones so a high quality product rather than cheap eBay ones) so I can test them all out as I know that my setup here is fine.

So basically HELP! Any thoughts or suggestions from anyone here ? I have checked out the phone wiring internally and it all looks fine, nothing dodgy. The only modification that had to be done, but its commonly done on lines with low noise margins is remove the ring wire from the setup to help ensure that you get don't get that amplification effect that you get with it.

The friend is the last phone line on the entire phone exchange and its a VERY long line, BT on the fixed products always said that 256k was gonna be pushing it! but on MAX we seem to be keeping a stable 1mb connection (was fine for 3 days, no disconnects etc) but we now seem to have got the issue with the 3,6 & 9, they cannot remember in the 3 days it was on if they called anyone with a 3,6 or 9 in the number, but we seem to have no problems when using a panasonic cordless phone that is plugged in to the microfilter with the modem in about 99% of the time, so its really really weird!

We seem to, but not always, get the same problem when plugged into the BT test socket, but its not always 100% of the time otherwise i would be suggesting getting in touch with F2S to get BT to look at it but as its not 100% of the time, I bet BT will be its interal wiring so pay us lots of money to check it out and as its very old wiring they will just want to rip it all out and start it all again, which to be honest I am tempted to do as it is old wiring, but the lead windows and tripple glazing it passes through really doesn't make me fancy the job despite me doing it many times before for people, so basically any thoughts from anyone?

[moomin]

Sounds like marginal house wiring to me. The fact that you can get good broadband speeds suggests everything to the exchange is fine.
3,6,9 use the highest DTMF tone frequency of 1477Hz. The only higher frequency used is 1633Hz, and that's A,B,C,D which you never use on a normal phone. So I would guess you must have some dodgy house wiring that causes a high frequency roll-off that attenuates the 3,6,or 9 frequency and stops it working. Adding extra loads of filters, etc. makes things worse.

[acidtechno]

Originally Posted by moomin

3,6,9 use the highest DTMF tone frequency of 1477Hz. The only higher frequency used is 1633Hz, and that's A,B,C,D which you never use on a normal phone.

someone knows their stuff, nice one.

What are the chances of someone providing an answer on that level

[kmount]

I too took note on that, very helpful.

[John]

Thanks for that Moomin, thats really ace stuff! One other point, if when I have the ADSL all in etc, so 3,6,9 are not working, if I put an oldish phone on which can do pulse dialing rather than tone it works, does that backup what you were saying about the DTMF tones?

I assume that in Pulse mode its not sending DTMF tones hence why you couldnt use pulse phones on a system that needs DTMF tones to direct calls?

[moomin]

John, you've got it in one. And the fact that some phones work some of the time and not others probably means the whole thing is very marginal. As a first step try disconnecting ALL the extension wiring from the master socket and see if the phones work OK on their own and then via a splitter with the router plugged in. (Where have we heard that before?). If that doesn't work it would be reasonable to point the finger at the BT line. If it does work then it can only be your extension wiring.

[John]

Thanks moomin, so the easiest solution is find loads of old pulse phones and make them use them haha but back to the 21st century rather than 19th

Im fairly sure I tried it without the extension wiring on, so just in the test socket on the master socket and im sure it was much better but still not 100% of the time working, but I will arrange to go back and check it out again and see what it does with 1 filter on the test socket and the adsl in.

If it works on that I guess im going to have to tell my friend its re-wire time, or could that be a waste of time as its a BT issue with the line really but its just not picking it up until we get a couple of phones / Microfilters on the line and the ADSL syncing?

[moomin]

If it works on that I guess im going to have to tell my friend its re-wire time, or could that be a waste of time as its a BT issue with the line really but its just not picking it up until we get a couple of phones / Microfilters on the line and the ADSL syncing?

If its only a couple of phones and and a modem you should be able to temporarily build up that system using a few phone splitters and short extension leads plugged into the master socket to simulate the load.

Assuming your freinds don't live in a stately home the length of extension wiring should be insignificant compared to the length of line from the exchange. If its old wiring, maybe someone has put a nail or screw through it, or squashed it under carpet, etc?

[John]

Originally Posted by moomin

If its only a couple of phones and and a modem you should be able to temporarily build up that system using a few phone splitters and short extension leads plugged into the master socket to simulate the load.

I think I will try that, and give it a good playing with and see if I can replicate it, ive got various leads, sockets etc kicking around so I will have a play.

Originally Posted by moomin

Assuming your freinds don't live in a stately home the length of extension wiring should be insignificant compared to the length of line from the exchange. If its old wiring, maybe someone has put a nail or screw through it, or squashed it under carpet, etc?

Uuum, its close enough to a stately home, its a huge manor house so the wirings all over, has old lead windows it passes through etc so its not quite as easy as rip it out and stuff it back in, were talking walls that are 5-10ft thick at points I think that may be the answer though, but I will give it a fiddle and test first on the master and feedback.

Thanks for all your suggetion Moomin its really great!