Poor broadband and phone connection

[elin]

I have had Virgin Landline and Broadband, I can't get cable where I now live.
My broadband is very unreliable and the telephone line is often very unclear.

Is there anything that I can buy to boost the signal?

Thanks,

Elin

[ottobottle]

Hi. Your best bet is to establish what speed broadband your service provider claims to offer you at your location. Their website or help desk should be able to tell you. Then run a speed test using one of the many websites that provide this e.g. http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/ This will show you what the actual speed you're experiencing is.

If your telephone line is often unclear, there may simply be a fault on the line that is causing the problem. Your provider should be able check that out for you.

It can sometimes be the case that a lot of broadband signals in the same area cause interference with each other, leading to a reduced quality and speed. Your broadband provider should be able to adjust your modem settings for you to reduce the chances of a clash.

In short, talk to your ISP and/or phone company i.e. Virgin in your case by the sound of it.

[Nick29]

You can't boost the signal, but often there are things you can do to improve it.  Quite a lot of problems with broadband are caused by poor extension wiring.  Before broadband came along, it didn't really matter how untidy the wiring was, but broadband changes all that.  Broadband uses the same frequencies as AM (Medium Wave) radio, and if you have a lot of extension wiring in your house, it will act as an aerial, and it will pull in a lot of signals that will interfere with the broadband signal.

If you have an NTE-5 type phone socket (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_telephone_sockets for a picture of one) it will have a removable front plate that should disconnect all the extension wiring when the front plate is removed (if it is installed correctly), and when the front plate is off, there is a 'test socket' that you can plug a phone or broadband router into for testing purposes.  What you should do is to note the connection speed when the router is connected normally, and then remove the NTE-5 front plate and plug the router directly into the socket revealed under the plate, and then note the connection speed again.  If you see an improvement in speed, then the extension wiring is affecting your speeds.  The best thing to do if this is happening is to buy an iPlate, or a filtered faceplate.  The Wiki page I linked to shows how to fit an iPlate, and the filtered faceplate replaces the removable faceplate on the NTE-5.  It's vital that if you use a filtered faceplate, you connect your router to the ADSL output of the plate with no long wiring runs.  The other advantage of the filtered faceplate is that you do not need separate filters connected to your phones - they are merely directly connected to the PHONE output of the filtered faceplate.

If doing the above doesn't improve things, then it's not your wiring.   Try dialling 17070 (UK only) and then select 2 for a 'quiet line test'.  You should not be hearing much in the way of clicks, pops or hissing noises.  If you are getting a lot of these, then you should report it to your phone company as a voice fault (not a broadband fault).

[Redroger]

The problem could I think even be with the handset itself.

[Calverley Lad]

If it is a line fault, this can take ages as Virgin are only acting as agents for in your case BT.
As has been said earlier, removing the cover and pluging in your ADSL equipment  direct will be a truer test of the connection to the outside world.
 Brian

[elin]

Thank you very much everybody!! 

Ottobottle, I went onto the Virgin Help Desk and although I didn't find out what broadband speed I am supposed to be receiving, I did find Virgin Media Home Support.  I downloaded this and it checked my settings and made some corrections.  It did seem a bit zippier straight away although still not good. I will contact Virgin as you suggest.

Nick, I will talk very nicely to my son and get him to check my wiring and do the test that you suggest.  I tried the 'quiet line test' and it was actually was very quiet!

Redroger, you could well be right about my handset, it is quite ancient! I have a new one winging it's way to me from Amazon. 

Oh Brian, life is so complicated these days!


Thanks, Elin

[Redroger]

Though I forget the name of the term, a normal landline can take a number of appliances with a total loading of 5. After that the quality of the call badly deteriorates. A modern phone has a rating of less than 1, so without dificulty you could have up to 5 hand sets on the line without difficulty. However, older handsets have a far higher rating, the older the set the higher in general, so it could well be this causing the problem.

[elin]

Ah well, I have two handsets and as I say I have had them a few years, so you could well be right.  It's a good excuse to get  new phones anyway!

Thanks, Elin

[HMac]

The truth of the matter is there can be many reasons for your slow speed. The vast majority [but not all] Broadband speed issues reside in the home with the end user's internal wiring. You should follow advice already given by isolating your internal wire from the external line at the NTE5A. You should contact your CP [Communications Provider] as already stated and they should liaise with you and despatch an Openreach engineer, if required, to look at the problem, either telephone line or Broadband but bear in mind if the fault is Broadband related and your CP sends out an Openreach engineer on a phone/voice fault he/she will not be able to look at your Broadband connection so it’s important you are clear about what they are coming to look at, please understand that.

With regard to the number of appliances that can be connected to the line at one time. The term is REN = Ringer Equivalence Number. In the UK the max REN = 4. Normal phones will have a REN of 1 but other appliances could have say 1.5. There are devices [ringing generators] which can increase the total REN to 8. However, I really doubt very much that that is your issue.

Regards
Hugh