ADSL noise while on the phone

Hi,

I have had my attention drawn recently to the amount of cracking on our telephone line. Upon further investgation I found that this was being generated by our Linksys AM200 ADSL modem. Once the modem was disconnected the line was clear. Assuming a fault I sent it back to the vendor who acknowledged a fault and sent me a replaceent. Unfortunately, the replacement exhibits the same kind of crackly noise. Assuming an inherent fault with this model, I tried a completely different brand of modem only to find that this too has the same problem.

Now it was my understanding that you can use the phone line and be online at the same time and that broadband equipment was designed to allow you to do this. Being thorough I also tested various kinds of ADSL filters - I have 4 to hand, ranging from cheap (£2.00) to very expensive (£10).. Neither made any difference.

My question is, is it normal to have this cracking on an ADSL line while the modem is connected? Can one get an ADSL modem that does not exhibit this kind of problem? What models are recommended?

I do not have cable so ADSL is the ony option apart from dial-up.

I've nothing terribly helpful to say on this but...

Some telephones are sensitive to even slight leakage of DSL frequencies. I
normally sounds more hissy than crackly though. Did you try different
telephones?

The best ADSL filters I have found is the ADSL Nation XF-1e but the only
thing I've found that really needs to have this filter is a BT CD 1000
caller ID display unit.

--

Brian Gregory. (In the UK)
(E-Mail Removed)
To email me remove the letter vee.

"John Chajecki" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> I have had my attention drawn recently to the amount of cracking on our
> telephone line. Upon further investgation I found that this was being
> generated by our Linksys AM200 ADSL modem. Once the modem was disconnected
> the line was clear. Assuming a fault I sent it back to the vendor who
> acknowledged a fault and sent me a replaceent. Unfortunately, the
> replacement exhibits the same kind of crackly noise. Assuming an inherent
> fault with this model, I tried a completely different brand of modem only
> to find that this too has the same problem.
>
> Now it was my understanding that you can use the phone line and be online
> at the same time and that broadband equipment was designed to allow you to
> do this. Being thorough I also tested various kinds of ADSL filters - I
> have 4 to hand, ranging from cheap (£2.00) to very expensive (£10)..
> Neither made any difference.
>
> My question is, is it normal to have this cracking on an ADSL line while
> the modem is connected? Can one get an ADSL modem that does not exhibit
> this kind of problem? What models are recommended?
>
> I do not have cable so ADSL is the ony option apart from dial-up.


If there is a bad connection somewhere on your line then the dsl can
trigger crackling when the phone is in use. If you didnt have dsl then you
would probably still find intermittent crackling on the phone.

David
>

> Now it was my understanding that you can use the phone line and be online
> at the same time and that broadband equipment was designed to allow you to
> do this. Being thorough I also tested various kinds of ADSL filters - I
> have 4 to hand, ranging from cheap (£2.00) to very expensive (£10)..
> Neither made any difference.

You should have a noise free line when you're using broadband.
Have you done your testing from the master socket with the bottom face plate
removed to give access to the test socket. If yes and you still had noise it
would seem to be a line fault. Contact your ISP.
F

(E-Mail Removed) (John Chajecki) wrote:
> I have had my attention drawn recently to the amount of
> cracking on our telephone line.

I can't help, but I have exactly the same problem. I've tried new
phones, filters, & router (what a waste of money that was!) I've logged
the problem with BT twice, but they've never found anything wrong.

If I used the landline more I'd probably have sorted it out before now,
but I can usually cure the worst (if not all) of the crackling by
unplugging the router, so I've put up with it. One thing you should do
though is try to rule out the house's internal phone wiring, by
connecting everything directly to the master socket. That's not always
easy or possible though.

Andrew McP

I have the equipment connected to the master socket, but I have not tried removing the faceplate.

Will give this a go.

I don't think I had this problem when I was using a Cisco837 but I found that router to be very sssslllooowwww.....

Perhaps the cheaper stuff just doesn't have the quality of filtering or something.

Brian,

I suppose you could describe it as a mixture of both. You can sometimes hear distinct data-like tones (like the old dial-up modems but higher frequencies) but at other times its a fuzzy sort of hiss (which alos makes speech sound fuzzy) and/or crackles.

I'm wondering whether checap (sub £50) ADSL equipment simply doesn't modulate of filterthe signal very well...

Hmmm....
Interesting one.

I have had a lot of ADSL dropouts and Pipex asked me to run a test which involves specifying bt_test@startup_domain as the ADSL login. Apparently its supposed to "connect me to BT's test server". I haven't had time to do it yet though. Will probably give it a go tonight.

John Chajecki, in article
<(E-Mail Removed)>, says...
>I have the equipment connected to the master socket, but
>I have not tried removing the faceplate.
>
>Will give this a go.
>
You'll need to plug-in both your DSL modem and a wired phone
at this point, so you will need a filter, assuming the problem
only appears when both are in use. I'd suggest using an
ADSLnation XTE-2005 filtered faceplate with no other wiring
connected to the back (other than the incoming BT wires -
which you shouldn't touch). Plug-in your DSL modem and a
phone directly into the front sockets. That will eliminate
all your house wiring. If the problem is still there, then it
is most likely a BT network problem.

When it is fixed, you should use the faceplate filter in your
installation, connecting your house voice wiring from the back
connectors as necessary. If your modem is at a remote place,
then extend just the A and B connections to the modem over a
dedicated twisted-pair cable. Do not connect any other
signals to other wires in this cable, e.g. the "pin-3" ring
wire.

Do you have an old DECT telephone or any other old telephones?
Are you using plug-in filters around the house or just the one
at the master socket? The former sends the incoming combined
DSL and voice signal around all your house wiring so who knows
what it is picking up... The latter separates the DSL and
voice signals as soon as possible so your in-house voice
wiring only carries voice signals. Try not to route the voice
plus ring signal over the same cable as the DSL signal.
--
JohnW.
Replace the obvious with co.uk in 2 places to mail me.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
John Chajecki <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have had my attention drawn recently to the amount of cracking on
> our telephone line. Upon further investgation I found that this was
> being generated by our Linksys AM200 ADSL modem. Once the modem was
> disconnected the line was clear. Assuming a fault I sent it back to
> the vendor who acknowledged a fault and sent me a replaceent.
> Unfortunately, the replacement exhibits the same kind of crackly
> noise. Assuming an inherent fault with this model, I tried a
> completely different brand of modem only to find that this too has
> the same problem.
>
> Now it was my understanding that you can use the phone line and be
> online at the same time and that broadband equipment was designed to
> allow you to do this. Being thorough I also tested various kinds of
> ADSL filters - I have 4 to hand, ranging from cheap (£2.00) to very
> expensive (£10).. Neither made any difference.
>
> My question is, is it normal to have this cracking on an ADSL line
> while the modem is connected? Can one get an ADSL modem that does not
> exhibit this kind of problem? What models are recommended?
>
> I do not have cable so ADSL is the ony option apart from dial-up.


Have you checked for noise on the line by doing a BT Quiet Line test? Dial
17070 and then press 2 when prompted.

Do this with and without the modem connected. Also, if necessary, do it with
your handset plugged into the test socket (behind the master socket
faceplate) to eliminate any extension wiring you may have.

As others have said, it's also worth trying a different phone handset -
since some seem to be more sensitive to noise than others.

If you can demonstrate noise when only a known good handset is plugged into
the test socket, you have the evidence to get BT to look at the line.
--
Cheers,
Roger
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