The home broadband's been going in and out like a fiddler's elbow for a fortnight now and, naturally, there's no fault on the line. It doesn't help that the previous owners installed telephone points all over the house so it could be an issue anywhere. A new fibre connection that bypasses the existing setup is probably the answer [there it goes again...] but not sure we kid-free, non-gaming, non-streamers really need it. Has anyone bitten the bullet and gone for a 4G router and data SIM for their home connection? It's fairly reliable on the mobilesd here, though I ought to do a speed test. I'd be interested to hear any feedback or even unsubstantiated opinions!
In the smoke I have Virgin 350mb broadband optical fibre which is very fast and does the trick and I know we are lucky to have it Stating the obvious Just make sure if you do go sim that the mobile network in your area is strong Looking at the reviews mainly mention Make sure you know your Gb usage each month and the service providers signal in your area Regards Clive
It doesn't matter how many telephone points you have in your house, the Broadband link (and I presume were talking BT here and standard UTP copper on the 'last mile') is tied directly the 'main' BT telephone socket. The Router should then be connected to this main BT/phone socket via an ADSL splitter/adpater. After that you have two ways to connect to the Router, either via WiFi or via a wired link using a Cat 5e or CAT 6 Network cable. Wireless is always problematic and my own experiences of BT is that they have a tendency to upgrade your Router Firmware when you're alsleep and many times this breaks something on your Router, more often that not it's your WiFi. If you're using the Wired Link to the router you can use on the Check Your Broadband Speed Website to ascertain what your real Brodaband speed as opposed to what BT (the lying shitbags) tell you it is! In the village I used to live in I had 14 Mb on my Broadband which was OK but I wanted Fibre so I encouraged everyone in Village to register their interest in Fibre. Took several years but eventually BY upgraded part of the Village to Fibre, sadly not my part. The interesting this is that with the bottom end of the Village on Fibre those of us still stuck on copper suddenly found our broadband speeds to under 6 Mb. As far as I could work out BT were deliberately hobbling the Copper throughput to force people to upgrade to the Fibre, which may have worked in the lower part of the village but penalised those in the upper part of the Village who couldn't get Fibre. I spent years fighting with them about this and in the end I just binned BT. They're a bunch of clusterf*cks and undomesticated equines could never drag me back to them again! I'm now very rural, live in a small hamlet, a liner settlement on a country road and I get 350 Mb and no restrictions on downloads, from a specialised rural provider and haven't had an issue in over fours years (as long as we don't count the roadworkers who dug up the fibre when they excavated the wrong road to look for an non-existent gas pipe).
I was buggered about by BT when we got the house as there had been a second line installed that took some ceasing - they are not under consideration... It's not the router as two ISP ones and my own all give the same result. Performance has been adequate with the occasional slowdown over the last ten years but it's suddenly started playing up. Being on overheads may be part of the issue - wet, windy weather has never helped. On the other hand, if I could guarantee a new connection (independent of the old wiring) as part of a switch it would be handy as the line comes in just outside the window next to the PC. Another advantage of 4G would be no more cold calls on the otherwise-little-used landline. Bastard connection has dropped out at least three times while I've been typing this... And again!
I sometimes have similar problems and have to reset the router. I also frequently loose the phone line, or it goes crackerly until I reset the router. I too inherited poor internal telephone set ups and I do think this can effect the connection quality if wires are damaged or old.
My understanding is that 5G's only for very local nodes so I'm not getting overexcited at the prospect. Currently getting 2Mb/s on the line - when it's up - and 20 on 4G, which is a bit better than the expected non-fibre speed.
No that is not strictly true. If the other sockets are still connected and usually they are then that can have a big effect on the signal especially if not connected correctly or there are faults in the cable/sockets. Easy enough to check the master socket. If there is only one cable coming in and terminated then the extension sockets are not connected. If there are other cables connected then they may still be in the circuit. There are other scenarios which I won't go into as they will need an engineer to tell you. Regards Hugh [telecoms engineer]
I wouldn't give up on the landline until you have isolated the old wiring to check if this is causing a problem. As the BT point is right near your PC, I assume you have a cable connection between PC and router? If not, when you do a test with the internal phone extension cable temporarily disconnected, also use a Cat5 cable connection from router to your PC to rule out any internal wifi problems. You may also want to check that you have a proper BT box where the street cable comes into the house. In some old properties, previous owners have replaced these with all sorts of unsuitable junction boxes. In my case, I now have a modular Openreach box with a built-in ADSL filter plate. (see my notes here: Captain Bodgit: Phone/broadband filter: using the BT Openreach MK3) I know what you mean about nuisance calls. My favourite is "...you have a problem with your Windows computer...". We don't have any Windows computers in our house! As all important messages now come in via our mobiles, we keep the landline ringer volume off, and I check the answerphone once a day or so in case of important messages. I also give out my landline number to organisations that insist on a phone number, even though I don't believe they need one. So our landline is basically a honey-trap for pests!
The internet's clearly self-aware enough to know it's being talked about. So far this morning we've had a stable connection with a blistering 6Mb/s download speed and it's raining!
BT sent me a new updated router on Thursday and told me my old set up would be closed down in mid-May. The horrors of anything new!! Set it up this morning, worked ok for all devices picking up the WI-FI but killed the phones stone dead. Thankfully I had a spare filter and I am (I think) all up and running. Nice cup of tea now.
Central Scotland - good 4G from O2. Use SIM Data Card on phone and then share to the laptop. Not used a landline or router for over two years. About £20 for 20Gb per month. Tim
It's only a wee bit faster now Maria. My daughter was giggling at me when I was buried for a while behind the chest of drawers, where the large entanglement of wires reside that enable my internet. A few choice words were said I can tell you.
Worked on BT faults for a while. Whoever your provider, on a landline it's still maintained by BT up to the house. What does your first box into the house look like? As mentioned above, several types, but most from the last few decades had the front split into two pieces. Supposed to have been superseded now by later model/s but still very common. If it's one of those - a bog standard phone connection that uses a plug-in splitter for phone & modem - (or even one like Steve's) undo the screws, and behind the blanking plate is another phone socket (RHS in the pic). The test socket. Plug into that & it ignores all other extension wiring. If the thing improves, bin all the extensions - nobody needs 'em any more & they were the most common cause of call out faults. (Many refused to try the legit plug test above until advised faults from your own gear might trigger the £70 call out charge...) In truth, though - wind & rain the enemy of a c.hundred year old wiring system. Does dial tone click in & out? Worse in bad weather? Voice calls? (speaking on a land line... Imagine!) - then it's their external problem & likely only a bloke up the pole will fix it (while probably knocking out all your neighbours... ) If using wifi, there's a program called inSSIDer inSSIDer - Discover Your WiFi Environment Free download - reasonably shallow learning curve - lets you see what other wifi might be interfering with yours & assists with tweaking the router a smidge to get a cleaner signal. Wifi world is crowded. I know nothing of 4G modems other than 'hmmmm, they sound like they might be lying in this marketing'. BT's expensive, but their current routers & extender discs are superb. I mean, thoroughly nerd-approved. The discs are the best 'normal' wifi extenders I've ever encountered. I pity you the old 'two lines' problem on taking on a property. Our house had two addresses that no F***er had untangled after conversion. 15 years in and we're now mostly #75, not 75-77, or 'flat above'... Such fun with all the glittering stars of utility customer services.
I was quite shocked that the router had no socket for the phone line at all, has something now called digital assist only. BT say they will set it all up, but I'm fixed and running now so not touching it again. All I think is that if this was my old Dad or Uncle, they would be bamboozled and require help from someone. Then they would have to phone up and trudge through that palaver.
Having moved back from France and moved into a new house (new to me anyway) signed with BT for their Broadband and phone (cheaper than broadband on its own !!??), they sent the new box in the post, engineer fiddled with wires outside, phoned to say all OK and within 10 mins the system had set itself and worked perfectly since, also said we could also use our landline (which we dont) TD
Funny thing. People my age were the ones that made a fuss about requests to get a screwdriver out (sometimes screaming ab-dabs), but if we got an old dear in her 90s or similar - if still capable they were usually more than willing to have a go. Even a reference once to 'Ooh, it's like being in the Land Girls again'. (Note - almost nobody that hadn't behaved like a hysterical knob got charged for a call-out. Most engineers were human beings... of sorts. )
My only tool is a 16oz claw hammer works wonders on fixing stuff In the smoke you get used to having wiffey everywhere even on the underground stations plus great speeds
About three years ago a man telephoned and said he was from BT and there was something wrong with our broadband connection so I said "Ha ha ha,No you are not, BT never ring me. " After that I don't pick the phone up. The net thing went wrong last year. The BT man came and spent a good three hours down holes and up poles and said he'd fixed it, and the local school connection. But he hadn't because when it rains it still goes off. Perhaps we paying the school telephone bill ? I went to the quack last week and had an anti-shingles injection so got a reminder for that on my 2G mobile phone. Afterwards they asked me "how likely I was to recommend the surgery to another" so I sent a "1", meaning "very likely." This cost me 20 pence deducted from my PAYG phone credit I buy in £10 lots about once every six weeks. Then they asked why are you recommending us ? I didn't answer. Eight shillings just to say I don't have much of a choice. They assume we all have a smartphone and assume we all have a "contract" but I hate tapping glass so I soldier on with a Nokia 3310. It is like a feudal system where we pay homage to our liege lord. My predecessors in my house all had to swear fealty when they took on the copyhold ( now enfranchised ). Anyway, for the latest PAYG tariffs I checked the Vodaphone page and this gibberish, which I have not edited, is shown on their website. "you won'y pay as penny" ? How about as Rosalind ? I have not edited it, just "copied and pasted". "What are the standard Pay as you go rates? Our standard Pay as you go rates are 20p a minute, 20p a text and 20p per 5MB of data. This means you won't pay as penny when you don't use your phone. Spending just £1 on the days you do will give you unlimited minutes and texts plus 500MB of data to use until midnight."
