Sky box on phone line impacting Internet?

Sorbet

Hi. When I have a second sky+ box plugged into the phone line (as I'm told I have to) it seems to impact the quality of streaming tv to my iPhone for example.

Any ideas on what I need to do to be able to have two sky + boxes, a phone and an Eircom dsl modem all plugged in at the same time (in different rooms) without the Internet being impacted?

Help great fully received!

Vanbis

Sorbet wrote: »

Hi. When I have a second sky+ box plugged into the phone line (as I'm told I have to) it seems to impact the quality of streaming tv to my iPhone for example.

Any ideas on what I need to do to be able to have two sky + boxes, a phone and an Eircom dsl modem all plugged in at the same time (in different rooms) without the Internet being impacted?

Help great fully received!

You'll need to connect a filter to the second box.

Sorbet

Vanbis wrote: »

Sorbet wrote: »

Hi. When I have a second sky+ box plugged into the phone line (as I'm told I have to) it seems to impact the quality of streaming tv to my iPhone for example.

Any ideas on what I need to do to be able to have two sky + boxes, a phone and an Eircom dsl modem all plugged in at the same time (in different rooms) without the Internet being impacted?

Help great fully received!

You'll need to connect a filter to the second box.

Thanks for the quick reply. Not wanting to sound stupid but what's a filter?

Vanbis

Sorbet wrote: »

Thanks for the quick reply. Not wanting to sound stupid but what's a filter?

It's a small single filter. Just google images.

You should have one already if you have broadband from eircom. You can pick them up from powercity, any electrical shop.

newbie2

Sorbet

newbie2 wrote: »

Thanks both. Had one and just plugged it in. Didn't seem to fix it but will wait and see.

PogMoThoin

Every single device using your phone line needs one. The double one should be used to split the modem and phone at the main socket, make sure they're in the right slots marked phone and dsl

vibe666

sky+ boxes cause a lot of noise on the line (constantly, even when not in active use) when plugged into a phone socket, even with a DSL filter attached it can adversely affect the speed and/or reliability of your DSL connection.

when i was still on DSL i tried several filters to fix the problem, but it didn't make any difference so in the end i just left an extension with a splitter on it somewhere where i could plug it in and out whenever i needed to use it and then left it plugged out unless i needed it as it was knocking 1mbps off my speed (i.e. 6mbps, down to 5mbps give or take).

thankfully i'm on UPC cable now so no such problems any more.

Sorbet

vibe666 wrote: »

sky+ boxes cause a lot of noise on the line (constantly, even when not in active use) when plugged into a phone socket, even with a DSL filter attached it can adversely affect the speed and/or reliability of your DSL connection.

when i was still on DSL i tried several filters to fix the problem, but it didn't make any difference so in the end i just left an extension with a splitter on it somewhere where i could plug it in and out whenever i needed to use it and then left it plugged out unless i needed it as it was knocking 1mbps off my speed (i.e. 6mbps, down to 5mbps give or take).

thankfully i'm on UPC cable now so no such problems any more.

Thanks vibe666. I was actually looking at getting UPC as a phone and Internet provider but keep sky for tv. If I ditch the eircom phone line am I then in breach with sky for not having the boxes connected to a working phone line? May be a stupid question but really want to confirm whether I can have sky tv and UPC phone and Internet? Tried UPC tv before but prefer sky.

mark17j

Sorbet wrote: »

Thanks vibe666. I was actually looking at getting UPC as a phone and Internet provider but keep sky for tv. If I ditch the eircom phone line am I then in breach with sky for not having the boxes connected to a working phone line? May be a stupid question but really want to confirm whether I can have sky tv and UPC phone and Internet? Tried UPC tv before but prefer sky.

I have UPC for phone and internet and Sky for TV, my skybox is connected to the UPC modem/phoneline via a splitter and works fine.

Solair

The only time you don't need a filter is when there's a central splitter/filter fitted by eircom / eircom phonewatch on the main phone socket.

Looks like this:



If you've just got normal phone sockets, EVERY device except the DSL broadband modem needs to be fitted with a filter.

vibe666

Sorbet wrote: »

Thanks vibe666. I was actually looking at getting UPC as a phone and Internet provider but keep sky for tv. If I ditch the eircom phone line am I then in breach with sky for not having the boxes connected to a working phone line? May be a stupid question but really want to confirm whether I can have sky tv and UPC phone and Internet? Tried UPC tv before but prefer sky.

not as far as i know. i've not had mine connected to the phoneline since at least the middle of 2008 and i had an engineer in to upgrade me to skyHD last xmas and he didn't pass any remarks, or ask about connecting the HD box to the phoneline.

mark17j

vibe666 wrote: »

not as far as i know. i've not had mine connected to the phoneline since at least the middle of 2008 and i had an engineer in to upgrade me to skyHD last xmas and he didn't pass any remarks, or ask about connecting the HD box to the phoneline.

It's not necessary to connect box to phoneline, unless u have multiroom, then it's a must, so I was told anyways.

PogMoThoin

mark17j wrote: »

It's not necessary to connect box to phoneline, unless u have multiroom, then it's a must, so I was told anyways.

Yes, and then only for the first year while you're in contract. After that remove it.

Sorbet

PogMoThoin wrote: »

mark17j wrote: »

It's not necessary to connect box to phoneline, unless u have multiroom, then it's a must, so I was told anyways.

Yes, and then only for the first year while you're in contract. After that remove it.

Thanks to all of you for your help - you are a great resource!

I have multiroom with sky+boxes in both rooms. Having a small issue on the second box at the moment and sky have told me its because I took the phone line out (given the Internet issues I explained above). They say thry do a monthly confirm of some sort though the phone line and to be fair they knew which box had been unplugged so I believe them.

So if I were to ditch eircom, get UPC for phone and Internet (which I'm told is much better than dsl) any ideas how I would have both sky boxes connected to phone lines?

It may be too complicated to organize but would love if it worked as my Internet is fairly rubbish right now.

vibe666

you'd just need to get phone extensions to both boxes.

i believe there's a way to wire your UPC phoneline into your existing internal home phone wiring if you use the master socket, but i think it needs to be wired a certain way, so i'd leave it to someone who knows what they're doing (and someone who knows what they're talking about rather than taking my word for it, cos i can't confirm 100%, i just seem to remember reading it at some point).

Solair

If you get UPC's phone service you can simply do the following:

1) 100% disconnect eircom line at the back of the master socket i.e. where it actually enters your house and make absolutely certain that it's not connected to your internal wiring.

2) Plug a phone line cord into the back of the UPC box (tel 1) and the other end into any of your extension sockets.

3) You have phone service on all your phone sockets as normal, only from UPC instead of eircom.

UPC's phone service is delivered using a type of VoIP to the modem/router. However, the interface is 100% analogue. It's exactly the same as an eircom line, just with the digital equipment in your living room instead of at a telephone exchange off somewhere down the road.

There are reports that *some* modems can have a bit of an issue when used with VoIP lines, however UPC's VoIP isn't anything like what you'd get by using say Blueface over a bad quality DSL line. It sounds absolutely perfect and it's "carrier-grade". In fact, at this stage, many of your eircom calls are probably being routed over carrier-grade VoIP anyway through their NGN network.

Within a few years, digital circuit switching will probably be a thing of the past.

Also, if you have UPC broadband, other VoIP services like Blueface work fantastically well on it. So, if you've a home office it's well worth the investment.

cgarvey

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Yes, and then only for the first year while you're in contract. After that remove it.

Multiroom requires all boxes to be connected to the same phone line at all times, for the duration of the subscription.

Only regular 1-box subscriptions have a 1-year minimum requirement (unless you pay the <€40 special/additional installation fee), but this does not apply to Multiroom.

I, too, can confirm Multiroom works on UPC's phoneline. All boxes have to be connected to the same Tel port on your router (Tel1 for most people). Keep the cable length (between Sky box and UPC router) as short as possible, as it can be quite sensitive! I have one box on a 40m run that has to redial a few times to work (either for Sky Active services, or Callback), but it does work after a couple of goes each time (which is adequate for Sky Multiroom).