Changing from room filters to a splitter - info?

Hello all -

I just came back from a friend's house, we both have DSL.

My setup uses a single "splitter" at the network interface outside the house (I was there when the installer put it in, but don't recall whether the splitter is installed on "my side" of the network interface, or the phone company side). I then utilized the red/green phone wiring for my voice and yellow/black for DSL.

My home setup works smoothly without problems. No "interference" between the voice and DSL lines at all.

My friend's setup (also SBC) uses the multiple "filters" at each phone jack location, instead of a single splitter and "dual phone lines". He _does_ have internal 4-conductor wiring, so that can be easily changed.

He is having problems using the phone and DSL simultaneously. If the phone is in use, the DSL connection sometimes slows down or stops. In addition, the phones often have the "carrier sound" of the DSL signal in the background. This suggests to me that either the filters aren't doing their job, or somewhere his wiring is incorrect.

I would like to obtain a splitter, insert it into the network interface, go to a 4-wire setup, remove the "filters", and see if that makes a significant difference (I think it will).

Has anyone else made such a change on their own? (i.e., without calling for a phone company tech visit)

I would like to install the splitter in the network interface outside his house. Can it go into the "user side" of the box, or does it have to go in the "company side"?

What make and model of splitter would you folks recommend?

Thanks,

- John

Siecor makes good quality indoor and outdoor splitters. The outdoor ones look like a gray telco box. I have also seen splitters that snap into a spare line slot on the newer telco boxes. The best ones have 6 wires or screw terminals; the four wire ones are simpler filters that are intended to be installed on the incoming line before it splits off to many jacks. Even the simpler ones are a better solution than Try ebay or hippovariety.com.

You mention red and black wires. That would be associated with old style telephone cable which is inferior in terms of signal coupling between the pairs and losses. The hot setup is to wire up the DSL circuit and the telephones with the CAT-5. Even if you can't replace all of it, it is beneficial to replace as much of it as you can easily reach if the lengths are significant (say 50' or more). Perhaps you run a new CAT-5 cable from the DSL splitter to the modem using CAT5 and leave the yellow/black pair for a spare phone line.

The color equivalents are:

Green White/Blue Red Blue Black White/Orange Yellow Orange

No problem to do this in the basement. The only concern is that the wires from the telco NID should go directly to the splitter and not fan off into the house wiring anywhere until after the splitter.

The Keptel splitter is really a filter that removes and isolates the DSL frequencies from the voice pair, but the full voice+DSL signals go to the modem. They are fine. The Siecor splitters are somewhat more deluxe because they also filter and isolate the voice band from the DSL pair. Since you are going to be working inside, you can save some money and get an indoor version of the splitter. The ones with screw terminals are easier to work with at this point than the ones that use modular connectors.

Both Keptel and Siecor splitters are available on ebay right now, a number of each. A google search for "Siecor indoor dsl splitter" will find other stores that sell them.

If you want to make a professional job out of this you could mount a piece of plywood on the wall, say 2' x 2', then use that to attach the box(es) and a 66 punch down block. The 66 block provides a nice organized way to connect a bunch of extensions that can be disconnected easily for troubleshooting, moving to a different line, etc. This assumes that all the extensions make a home run to this location...

Thanks to those who responded to my original posting about converting a friend's DSL installation from individual phone jack filters to a single splitter at the network interface.

I checked my own network interface and found the following. The interface box itself is a Keptel SNI-4600. I opened "my side" with a screwdriver, and found two "modules" within:

- A two line "test module" (at least I _think_ that's what it's called), that has four screws on top (outwardly facing): red, green, yellow, and black.

- A Keptel LPF-200 "ADSL POTS splitter module", with two screws: read and green.

The wiring from the network interface, "through" the splitter, looked simple and straightforward: red-to-red and green-to-green, connected to the test module. I noticed that yellow and black wires from inside the house (which I use for my DSL line only) were connected _directly_ to the network interface - no intervening "split".

I recall that the purpose of the splitter is to "siphon off" the lower-end voice frequencies (which then go to all the "voice jacks", is that correct?

I would like to re-create this scheme on my friend's home wiring, if possible. I haven't examined his outside network interface yet, but I did check down the cellar and he has the standard 4-wire scheme coming into the basement from outside.

Question: can anyone provide a link to a vendor that sells Keptel products outright to end-users? I tried a google search on "keptel" and also "keptel lpf-200" with no luck in locating a site that provided a list of product numbers for ordering.

I mention this because I can't seem to find the Keptel LPF-200 module available anywhere.

Question: does it make a significant difference if the splitter is installed _just inside_ the house wall, rather than directly into the homeowner side of the network interface box outside? We're talking the distance of about 3-4 feet here. At that point, just inside, I will split off the voice lines to red/green and dedicate yellow/black to the DSL line.

I _have_ seen some larger "splitter boxes" available on ebay, etc. But these look to be intended for outside mounting next to the network interface box. There would be no problems locating one of these just _inside_ the house, say, within 2-3 feet away from the outside interface? I may have to do that if I can't locate a small, snap-in module like the LPF-200.

Thanks,

- John

Re my previous posting:

Oops, just realized something I hadn't considered already.

My house - before DSL - was wired for _two_ lines. When I had DSL installed, I had the second line disconnected. HOWEVER - the test module in my side of the network interface has the four connecting screws for 2 lines. Thus, when the install guy visited, I explained that the house was already wired for two lines (with yellow/black for exclusive use by DSL), and he made up the splitter connection right in the box - possibly with a connection scheme that would not be possible with only a 2-connector test module. (I may not know what I'm talking about here)

My friend, however, has always had only a single line. I'm guessing that when we check _his_ network interface, it is going to have a test module with only two screws, the traditional red/green.

In that case, would I do better to get a splitter _box_, which takes the red/green "network" input, and then splits it into two distinct lines (red/green and yellow/black)? Seems like it would be easier to do this just inside the basement, where the single phone line enters the house.

Thoughts?

- John

I'll second this idea. Pull a "bare" unfiltered line off specifically to the DSL modem and then run a filtered line for ALL other voice lines, regardless of how they might be wired inside the home. Doing in the basement just inside the NID is often the simplest place.

Many houses have 4 wires (2 pairs) going to all sockets. You could leave the raw signal on that Y/B pair and use a 2 line spliter. The sort that has

3 sockets. One for both lines and the other two with each line as "line 1" in that socket. But bear in mind that if anyone connects an actual two line device they'd screw up the DSL signal. Thus it's better to just pull a line to wherever the DSL modem needs to live and filter EVERYTHING else.

They do make smaller 66-block style binding posts. Something like 12 pairs or something. I've got my internal 'house' wiring running to one. I cheated just pulled a pair from the punch-down blocks to a pair of RJ11 boxes. I put a regular RJ11 filter in-between them. That way I didn't have to buy anything extra. And if the filter goes bad I can just use any garden-variety filter (the modem came with 4 of them) to replace it, instead of having to buy another 'fancier' splitter.

When using blocks keep in mind that if you want to 'split' the signal you can't punch more than one wire into a connector. But you CAN loop the wire THROUGH a connector and onto other binding posts. That's why a punch-down tool has double-sided blades; one for punching down and cutting the line and one for just punching it down.

-Bill Kearney