# Broadband connectivity affected by SKY+ and Phone



## whackin (14 Feb 2011)

Hi all,
I have my home broadband with Vodafone. Theoretical download speeds in my area are 7MB. Lately however I have been only getting speeds of 0.5Mbs when performing tests. 
I rang vodafone this evening and following some tests with them they identified that when I plug my modem directly into the main phone socket and leave all other phone line dependent items unpluggged I get a respectable 5Mbs download speed. 
My question is, basically, how can I best setup my phone line -dependent items so that I get good quality download speeds.
Currently I have two phone sockets. Upstairs I have the modem plugged in as well as a phone line serving a sky box (it's not a sky+ one). Downstairs I have a phone line for the telephone and the phone line to the Sky+ box. In each case I use a splitter to utilise the solitary phone socket. 
Secondarily, do the Sky boxes require the phone lines?

Many thanks in advance!


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## Armada (14 Feb 2011)

I don't have Sky Plus but I disconnected my phone line from the Sky Box for the same reason... It works fine for me. I plug it back in if I need to buy a movie from Sky Box Office.

My wireless Broadband improved dramatically. I had the problem of the connection dropping all the time especially if I was in the room where the Sky Box was.


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## roker (15 Feb 2011)

Vodafone had me doing all sorts of tests in my home, but the key question like yourself is, it used to work OK, why does it not work now when nothing has changed in my home? and in my case, at certain times of the day it was bad. They also blamed the length of line from my first socket outlet to my modem, and again I said it used to work OK why not now. They eventually told me the local exchange was the problem and is going to be updated. Your phone line is only one of a number of issues getting the broadband to your house, they will tell you your weak points but not their own.


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## nai (15 Feb 2011)

Have a look through all the vodafone bb problems on boards.ie - we were with them (had been old esat bt customers for bb) but service was dreadful - they kept blaming the quality of the phone lines but all my neighbours on same exchange with same lines had no issues with eircom bb. We switched over in november and have had no issues since then with constant disconnects/ drop outs/dreadful speeds .....


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## whackin (15 Feb 2011)

Thanks for the feedback on this.

The only thing i can say in their defence however is that when I did unplug everything else I had really good download speeds. Obviously that is is not practical and also it does not explain why it suddenly diminished.
They mentioned also a microfilter. Does anyone know how that might be useful?


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## nai (15 Feb 2011)

It's a dsl filter. You should have one on every phone outlet.


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## whackin (15 Feb 2011)

And is the DSL filter different from the splitter?


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## roker (15 Feb 2011)

Do you not have a filter on every telephone outlet to a handset, and sky etc? if not that will cause problems


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## SparkRite (16 Feb 2011)

whackin said:


> And is the DSL filter different from the splitter?



Yes they are, however some "splitters" have a dsl filter in them, these are marked with a computer symbol and a phone symbol on the RJ11 sockets (outlets).


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## whackin (17 Feb 2011)

right. I have the splitters on all the outlets and they seemed to be marked DSL and phone. So it looks like everything is ok. Maybe I should try a different router?


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## col (18 Feb 2011)

In my case I discovered that my burglar alarm connected to the monitoring station was the problem with slow internet speed. Once the alarm was split away from the phone line the problem disappeared (a very small job for alarm person) The alarm installer told me that every monitored alarm he put in before the popularity of broadband was on the direct phone line into the house (not split off) and would most likely cause interruption and slow speed to the internet.


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