Microfilters/Splitter

Right, a wee question about the above.

I am planning to connect a desktop PC in my upstairs office & a laptop in my
Lounge using a router (which will be placed in the office).

The upstairs 'phone line has a box on the wall but actually runs from an
extension cable down to the main BT line-in (in the lounge). This is where
the main phone is connected.

I only want to connect the laptop when required.

If the splitter is plugged in upstairs at the same box as the router, can I
plug my phone in downstairs without any filter?

A bit of a long winded question for what I hope is a simple answer!

Thanks!

John Frew wrote:

> Right, a wee question about the above.
>
> I am planning to connect a desktop PC in my upstairs office & a laptop in my
> Lounge using a router (which will be placed in the office).
>
> The upstairs 'phone line has a box on the wall but actually runs from an
> extension cable down to the main BT line-in (in the lounge). This is where
> the main phone is connected.
>
> I only want to connect the laptop when required.
>
> If the splitter is plugged in upstairs at the same box as the router, can I
> plug my phone in downstairs without any filter?
>

You need to filter phones, not routers.

John Frew wrote:

> I am planning to connect a desktop PC in my upstairs office & a laptop in my
> Lounge using a router (which will be placed in the office).

so far so good....

> The upstairs 'phone line has a box on the wall but actually runs from an
> extension cable down to the main BT line-in (in the lounge). This is where
> the main phone is connected.

OK you will need a filter/splitter here (even though you won't be using
the ADSL side of the splitter on this socket)

> I only want to connect the laptop when required.

What is the relevance of this statement? The laptop will presumably
connect to the ethernet side of your router and hence has no impact on
the telephone connections.

> If the splitter is plugged in upstairs at the same box as the router, can I
> plug my phone in downstairs without any filter?

No. (Although you can plug the router into the phone socket upstairs
without a filter assuming you have a suitable cable, and you don't want
a phone plugged into the same socket upstairs).

> A bit of a long winded question for what I hope is a simple answer!

;-)


--
Cheers,

John.

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On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 23:18:29 +0100, "John Frew"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Right, a wee question about the above.
>
>I am planning to connect a desktop PC in my upstairs office & a laptop in my
>Lounge using a router (which will be placed in the office).
>
>The upstairs 'phone line has a box on the wall but actually runs from an
>extension cable down to the main BT line-in (in the lounge). This is where
>the main phone is connected.
>
>I only want to connect the laptop when required.
>
>If the splitter is plugged in upstairs at the same box as the router, can I
>plug my phone in downstairs without any filter?
>
>A bit of a long winded question for what I hope is a simple answer!
>
>Thanks!
I'm new to this too. Here's what I learned.

Filters do *nothing* to the signal reaching the router; rather, they
stop extraneous signal reaching (and leaving!) your phones, etc.. You
need to make sure *everything* that already connects over the normal
phone line - phones, fax machine, sky box, caller id box, flashing
ringer (, etc? you name it) - has a filter between it and the incoming
signal. Without that, what you'll hear when your router's connected
and you pick up your phone is mostly a deafening hiss. Believe me,
I've been there.

Shop around for filters. too - they're not all the same. Cheap ones
may work fine for you if you're on a tight budget, but everyone's
installation is apparently different, and it seems that what works in
one won't in another. In my case, a "cheap" (actually, quite
expensive) one from Maplins left a quiet ADSL hiss annoyingly audible
in the background when I came to use the phone, which (from what I've
read) seems quite common - fortunately I'd only bought one initially,
to see what they looked like and experiment with. I did some digging
and eventually ordered some over the net from ADSL nation - I'd seen
good reports of both their filters and turn-around, and wasn't
disappointed in either (placed my order one morning, saw about four
status reports during the day as my order moved through their system,
and had the filters in my hand early the next day - and not a trace of
hiss). They cost me a fraction over £9 each including postage, which
seems expensive compared to reports I've heard of ones on eBay at
around £2, but I'd already been burned, they'd a 30-day "not
satisfied" returns policy, and there's that old saying about ships and
tar.

Even if you're not interested in their product, if you look at their
site, in http://www.adslnation.com/support/filters.php you'll see both
the sort of thing that's in a filter, and circuit diagrams of a
couple.

Cheers, and good luck - Ian