Dsl router/modem info

[sameer]

hi
have a question about my dsl router/modem, there is a splitter my dsl router/modem goes into it ,the phone line also goes into it . My question is
does anyone have any info about splitters and dsl modems ? can i connect my dsl modem directly with the phone line and not use a splitter ? If yes will it give a performance increase to my internet speed ? if it gives me even a 5% performance boost i am willing to try it out.Any kind of info would be appreciated.

[Evilums]

Without knowing the brand of the DSL router/modem, its hard to help you any. It would be a the DSL Filter or it could simply be way to jack a phone into it for like around the desk.

You can look at the book that came with it and see if you "have" to have it. Or experiement, unplug it and see what happens.

[tclkage]

It's not that bypassing the splitter will give you any boost, it's more that if your splitter is bad, it will degrade your performance. The splitter is one of the cheapest pieces of hardware in that entire circuit, and they tend to get damaged when there is any kind of electrical surge on the phone line. If your splitter is bad, you should be seeing packet loss on your line. Call your ISP and have them trouble shoot things with you. If your ISP sucks, just get from them an ip-address within their core network (a DNS server usually is what's used) to test against. Once you have that ip-address, ping it from your computer for about 2 minutes to get a good sample size. If you see packet loss, remove the splitter, pwer cycle your DSL modem, and then ping that address once more for about 2 minutes. If you no longer see packet loss, replace or remove the splitter. If you still see packet loss, your ISP needs to give you a hand troubleshooting where the problem is occuring.

And to answer to what Evilums said, you need to have a filter on all of your telephones. What that splitter does is have one jack (phone) filtered for your phone, and the other jack (line) unfiltered for your DSL modem. The filter sepparates the phone and DSL frequencies so you don't see degraded performance on either the phone or DSL service.

[lordyfrb]

The splitter is used for splitting the dsl data signal from the voice signal, without it you would hear a subtle high pitched noise whilst using the phone and you may experiance connection problems on you dsl connection such as dropped connections and lag.

As for getting a performance boost I don't know.

[Absalom]

Performance comes from many factors with the ISP as well as the lines heading from the trunk (main box for their lines) to your home, then the wiring in your home. Simple things to check are...

The filter. This is probably the number one issue here. These can go bad, be bad, or just poorly manufactured. If the filter isn't doing its job correctly then you will have connectivity issues. Try replacing the filter. Though, before you spend money.. you can test out a couple other things.

For instance, is the phone cable going to the modem near a source of electrical noise? Such sources are florescent lamps, anything RF like a microwave oven, cell phone, or older cordless phone, or other poorly grounded electronics. If you have devices that have three prongs but you have to use an adapter for a wall socket with only two.. this isnt going to work too well (also.. this may be an American only issue. If you aren't from the states then you can probably forget that part ). If you live in an older place, the wiring may not be grounded or shielded correctly.

If you want to test the connection like others have suggested you can do the following without calling your ISP.

From windows go: Start -> Run. then type in CMD and press enter.
You should be at a "DOS" prompt now. type IPCONFIG then enter
This will tell you your IP address should you need it.

To get the DNS address type: IPCONFIG /all
this will get you much more information. Towards the bottom of the list you will find the dns server(s) address. take one of those IP addresses then ping it. This is done by typing:

ping <address>

you should get back some information... normally four lines worth.
something like:

Reply from <address> bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=253

The first thing that is important here is that you get back all four results rather quickly. If any of them say "request timed out" or something like that, you have a problem with the connection. If the "time" portion of it is something like "500ms" or something.. then you also are experiencing latency (just like in wow). You may also get latency from poorly configured firewalls though I am guessing that really isnt the issue for you.

There are probably other things I could list here.. though I cant think of them at the moment..

[sameer]

i will check the model of my dsl modem & i did not get any kind of instruction book with it . now i know what a splitter does thx tclkage & lordyfrb
now i need to check and see if my splitter is damaged or not

i mentioned by Absalom i will ping my dns server and let you know if there is any packet loss or request timed out or not . I am working right now ..will do it once i get home & let you all know

[tclkage]

One thing to check before relying on pinging a DNS server based off of an IPCONFIG /all is to make sure your DNS server isn't the exact same address as your gateway. Some models of DSL modems will push down the LAN gateway as the DNS server instead of pushing down the ISP's actual DNS servers. If you're just pinging you LAN gateway, you'll only be testing your network in your house, and nothing upstream of your modem.

Also, don't just do the basic Ping command in windows, as that'll only send 4 packets out, which is much too few for any reliable test. You'll want a much larger sample size to get a more acurate idea of what your line looks like. Here's the full command to use from your Command prompt in a PC;

ping -n 120 x.x.x.x

where x.x.x.x is the ip-address you're trying to ping. The 120 can be set to whatever number you want, it's the number of packets that you'll send - one per second. 120 will have you ping that ip-address for 2 minutes.


If you're running a MAC, click on Apple, System Preferences, Network, "show" Built-in Ethernet to see your gateway. To open a terminal double-click on your hard drive icon, Applications, Utilities, Terminal. This'll open an actual UNIX based terminal session, so just type ping and then the address and hit enter. It'll ping until you close the terminal or do a ctrl-C to stop that action.

[Absalom]

is to make sure you DNS server isn't the exact same address as your gateway.

Ah yes.. good point!

[sameer]

my dsl modem is called WA3002G4 // i did ipconfig/all and got lots of info // Physical address 00-16-76-CB-95-CE // Dhcp enabled yes Autoconfig enabled yes// Ip address 192.168.1.2 // Subnet mask 255.255.255.0 // Default gateway 192.168.1.1// DHCP server 192.168.1.1 // DNS servers 192.168.1.1 // PPP adapter BSNL Description // WAN(PPP/SLIP) interface // Physical address 00-53-45-00-00-00 // Dhcp enabled no// Ip address 117.197.144.9// Subnet mask 255.255.255.255 // Default gateway 117.197.144.9 DNS servers 218.248.255.194 218.248.255.146 // which dns server should i ping ?

[tclkage]

Huh, looks like you're in India - or near there? Pinging either 218.248.255.194 or 218.248.255.146 would be fine. Your ISP looks like it has 2 DNS servers for redundancy, which is the same thing that we do.