BT Total broadband connection

[lynbrown]

Our broadband is very unreliable, in fact, the BT engineer would not fix us up with BT Vision, he said the signal wasnt strong enough. When I am using the internet, the signal often does break and I have to fiddle about with the plugs or put it off altogether. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there any way I can strengthen the signle?

[AlBags]

Next time you have an engineer there, or you continue to have problems, ask him if they can try swapping a wire pair around with spares to the local junction. It may improve the gain and quality in the line.

[ChuckFickens]

If you're not already plugged into the master socket then try with your router plugged into that if possible (preferably with the faceplate removed and plugged into the test socket behind it), if it improves either try and find a way to leave the router plugged into the master socket or look at improving your internal wiring for the extensions.

Also, as above but also If it's an old installation it's worth asking them to disconnect the ring wire too as it's not needed these days and can cause a drop in a DSL signal.

If still no joy then a better quality ADSL filter may help (the ones ISPs supply for free are normally the cheapest available and not the best) and if still no joy after that I personally would get a better router, the ones BT supply are OK on a good line but not the best on low quality lines, in my experience netgears are one of the best for holding onto low quality connections.

If after all that it is still bad you may have no choice but to ask your ISP to cap the line speed at a reduced rate.

[Buenchico]

Although you're not really meant to, it's an easy job to disconnect the ring wire (as mentioned by Chuck) yourself. Simply open up the socket and pull out the wire connected to terminal 3:
http://www.draytek.co...mage/bt_ringwire1.jpg

Chris