Would a VDSL master filter be useful?

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RunningMan

7072 posts

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#2473034 28-Apr-2020 20:51

Rangus: [snip]

I was told VDSL was only good up to 900mtrs from the exchange or cabinet and I know that because I'm about that distance my self and my download is 35mbps and upload is around 7 to 10 mbps.

That was the old rule of thumb for distance. With ddDLM you can get a reliable connection on far longer lines, albeit at reduced throughput.

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Spyware

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#2473039 28-Apr-2020 20:53

If you have DSL signal at all the jackpoints then there is no master splitter filter - the point of installing one is to isolate voice circuits and provide a dedicated unfiltered cable run for the modem

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Scotdownunder

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#2473044 28-Apr-2020 21:06

Also, if a master splitter was installed outside the premises you would need a separate dropwire. This completely foxed me when I moved into my current house and couldn’t get the adsl modem to work on any of the phone jacks apart from the one in the Home ‘office’. Eventually looked at the pole and found two dropwire which fed separate internal wiring. If don’t believe it is or was normal practice for master splitters on the pole but I think this was an exception for a very early internet connection for business.

I am now happily on fibre which is also dropped from the pole.

MrMatt

20 posts

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#2473046 28-Apr-2020 21:12

Spyware:

If you have DSL signal at all the jackpoints then there is no master splitter filter - the point of installing one is to isolate voice circuits and provide a dedicated unfiltered cable run for the modem

Hmm, that is what I was thinking would be the case.

MrMatt

20 posts

Geek

#2473048 28-Apr-2020 21:16

Scotdownunder:

Also, if a master splitter was installed outside the premises you would need a separate dropwire. This completely foxed me when I moved into my current house and couldn’t get the adsl modem to work on any of the phone jacks apart from the one in the Home ‘office’. Eventually looked at the pole and found two dropwire which fed separate internal wiring. If don’t believe it is or was normal practice for master splitters on the pole but I think this was an exception for a very early internet connection for business.

I am now happily on fibre which is also dropped from the pole.

Oh yep, they definitely didn't run any new wires to the house - in which case I assume they were just doing some test back to the cabinet or something. If only fibre came down our road, that would be awesome! I have fibre in Chch, so good!

coffeebaron

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#2473060 28-Apr-2020 21:59

What part of the Waikato are you? I'm Waikato based and have been installing master splitters for many years, along with other general Rural Broadband and IT etc. 1.5Km is certainly at the edge for VDSL. It can certainly go further, but main issue at this distance is the drop in upstream speed. Feel free to message me if you don't want to DIY.

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PJ48

223 posts

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#2473070 28-Apr-2020 22:38

Others on this forum would know better than me but I am fairly sure that all the extra Telephone wiring in the house is detrimental to line speed. I do wonder whether disconnecting that extra wiring would improve things for you.

RunningMan

7072 posts

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#2473091 29-Apr-2020 07:19

@PJ48 is correct. The extra wiring is detrimental. The wiring to an unused jack point forms a T (tap) which creates reflections that interfere with the signal. It's much like the echo you get from sound passing a long empty pipe. The master filter isolates all the unused wiring and joins to give a single clean pair from the demarcation point to the xDSL jack. Of course, just running a single pair from the demarc to the jack (without any taps on it) accomplishes exactly the same thing if there is no need for POTS voice on the line (and therefore all the other unused jacks).

MrMatt

20 posts

Geek

#2473105 29-Apr-2020 07:54

Hi all, thanks for all the help with this so far!

coffeebaron: What part of the Waikato are you? I'm Waikato based and have been installing master splitters for many years, along with other general Rural Broadband and IT etc. 1.5Km is certainly at the edge for VDSL. It can certainly go further, but main issue at this distance is the drop in upstream speed. Feel free to message me if you don't want to DIY.

Hi Coffeebaron, we're based just out of Te Awamutu. Yep, that makes sense, our download is usable, but as you say, our upload is suffering quite badly. Thanks for that, I'll keep that in mind.

RunningMan:

@PJ48 is correct. The extra wiring is detrimental. The wiring to an unused jack point forms a T (tap) which creates reflections that interfere with the signal. It's much like the echo you get from sound passing a long empty pipe. The master filter isolates all the unused wiring and joins to give a single clean pair from the demarcation point to the xDSL jack. Of course, just running a single pair from the demarc to the jack (without any taps on it) accomplishes exactly the same thing if there is no need for POTS voice on the line (and therefore all the other unused jacks).

Hi RunningMan & PJ48, that makes perfect sense. Coming from playing around with my own electronic circuits over the years, the interference come the extra leads to the jacks makes perfect sense, as you and others on this thread have said. I will try and disconnect all the excess jack points today. Inadvertently we have powered the router off a multibox that usually gets switched off at night, so it will need to be plugged into a permanently on power supply anyway - I figure I might as well do it all in one go to avoid upsetting the DLM any more than I need to. Potentially I may also run an entirely separate CAT5/6 cable to the router location from the demarcation point, if I can find our CAT cable. From what I've read, that seems like a pretty good option.

Quick question, if I can't find our CAT cable, I'm imagining the phone jacks would be wired in parallel if I was to go that route, so it should just be a simple case of unplugging the wires that go to the other jacks?

Thanks heaps everyone!

Matt

Bung

4627 posts

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#2473142 29-Apr-2020 09:18

You would have to open each jackpoint to see how many cables were terminated to know whether they were star wired (parallel) or daisy chained (series) or a mix. Some of the 2 pair cable used twisted pairs from cat5 cable so depending on what you have there may be little to gain by replacing it.

nztim

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#2473220 29-Apr-2020 11:13

Bung: You would have to open each jackpoint to see how many cables were terminated to know whether they were star wired (parallel) or daisy chained (series) or a mix. Some of the 2 pair cable used twisted pairs from cat5 cable so depending on what you have there may be little to gain by replacing it.

Also depending on how old the house is you might have old 3wire (Master/Slave Jackpoints), all Jackpoints should now be 2 wire

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MrMatt

20 posts

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#2473226 29-Apr-2020 11:23

Cool, thanks for that Bung & Nztim.

I'll have a look later one once I finish some uni work, and hopefully I'll be able to figure out what sort of configuration our house has. The house is about 20 years old, so I'm pretty sure it has 2 pair cabling, and not 3 pair. I did have a look behind the phone jacks a few days before the VDSL was installed, and after reading a few of the comments, I'm leaning towards it likely having a mix of daisy chaining and star wiring from what I remember. I'll study it a bit better and see how it looks...

Thanks!

nztim

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#2473394 29-Apr-2020 15:07

MrMatt:

Cool, thanks for that Bung & Nztim.

I'll have a look later one once I finish some uni work, and hopefully I'll be able to figure out what sort of configuration our house has. The house is about 20 years old, so I'm pretty sure it has 2 pair cabling, and not 3 pair. I did have a look behind the phone jacks a few days before the VDSL was installed, and after reading a few of the comments, I'm leaning towards it likely having a mix of daisy chaining and star wiring from what I remember. I'll study it a bit better and see how it looks...

Thanks!

The Telepermit on 3wire Jacks expired in 1999 so yup you will definitely be on 2 wire I hate mixed installs either wire daisy chain or star but not a mixbag

too many times geeks on here see the horrors that electricians out there do, thinking they know best about wiring

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

MrMatt

20 posts

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#2473665 29-Apr-2020 21:04

nztim:

The Telepermit on 3wire Jacks expired in 1999 so yup you will definitely be on 2 wire I hate mixed installs either wire daisy chain or star but not a mixbag

too many times geeks on here see the horrors that electricians out there do, thinking they know best about wiring

Yep, I'm pretty certain that house was made in 2000, so with that information, it will be on the 2 pair system. I didn't get a chance unfortunately to look at the wiring today, hopefully it turns out to be one or the other, and not a mix.

When we moved the router to a power supply that doesn't get switched off this evening, I figured I may as well try a slightly different model of router at the same time too (To avoid upsetting the DLM as much as possible). This seems to have squeezed an extra 2 Mbps down and our upload is now floating around 1 Mbps, so that's a slight improvement. I'd still like to try disconnecting the jacks, to get rid of any interference at some point too.

Thanks again everyone!

Matt

MrMatt

20 posts

Geek

#2475110 2-May-2020 10:07

Hi everyone,

I had a bit of time to look at the wiring this morning, it turns out that our house was completely wired as star (Parallel) wiring. This made it super easy to disconnect the other jacks.

As everyone said here, what a difference that made! We now have a whopping 23.5mbps down and 1.5mbps upload! Disconnecting the jacks instantly gave us 3mbps down, and another 0.5mbps upload!

So, to summarise: When we first got VDSL, we were getting 18/.7. Switching to a slightly more modern router, gave us an additional 2/.3. On top of this, disconnecting the excess telephone jacks gave us another 3/.5. In total, that's 5mbps more download, and 0.8mbps down! Here's one of the tests that we did this morning:

I think that ultimate would be to run a completely new CAT cable from the ETP to the telephone jack, but for now, this will do just fine.

Thanks heaps for everyone's help and advice!

Matt

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