well after just getting ADSL installed and being very unimpressed at the speeds i'm getting i did a bt of research. unfortunately none of it helped ME
but it could help some of you. looks like a common fault with slow broadband speeds is piss poor internal phone wiring. so, how can you identify if this is affecting you or not?
well, have a look here:
http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/cabli...r-results.html
basically, find your MASTER phone socket. it's the one that has a detachable bottom half should be easy enough to spot.
now, unscrew the bottom half and you'll notice that this bottom half is kinda like a phone extension, and it has a phone socket behind it. this is refered to as the test socket. this socket will be the main feed into the house that everything else runs off of. now, plug your microfilter and ADSL router directly into this test socket.
now see what speeds you get (if you know how to look at the router's state, look for an increase in downstream speed and a decrease in Line Attenuation and noise margin). if it made f**k all difference, go no further, dont bother.
if you just had an increase in performance, buy yourself one of these for 10quid:
http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/cabli...ace-plate.html
it's a replacement faceplate for that bottom half of the socket youjust unscrewed which has a built in filter for the ADSL/Phone so you don't use any microfilters. using this you will have no drop in quality caused by bad cabling or interference internally. (oh, also buy the disposable IDC tool for 70p, you'll need it to connect the wiring properly)
if you want to learn a bit about the phone wiring have a read of this:
http://www.readman.dsl.pipex.com/oth...ecatwiring.htm
you'll need to read it about 3 times to understand it, but once you do it's actually pretty simple and easier than wiring up a plug.
i've just put in a new faceplate on my atser socket, and wired up 2 new telephone sockets thismorning, and its all SO much easier than i ever imagined! unfortutely it didnt help my broadband speeds as i was already using a brand new BT master socket with no wiring faults, but looking at the sky broadband user forums it looks like to some people its made MASSIVE differences!