ADSL Microfilters - £10 > £2?

[Taz]

I've seen loads of ADSL microfilters advertised on E-Bay. Is there a difference in quality between a £10 one and a £2 one? Surely they have to meet a minimum spec?

[Gordy]

Nope get the cheapest you can find

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=25583

Scan have them cheap at £1.23

[Firebar]

Apparently there is quite a difference and I've seen some reports of it too.

[holy god of nil]

scan's ones look pretty damn nice for the price (ooh yeah, rhyming ) especially compared to the ones you get with routers etc.

[directhex]

the initial ebuyer £2 ones had some incorrect wiring, not sure about these though

[Taz]

The Scan ones seem to be BT approved and you can just about read the Web site of the supplier (www.mri.co.uk) who seem to be a comms equipment supplier. I suppose that as long as they are BT approved they should work fine?

I need to order 4 so that still comes to under a tenner! I'd feel guilty about the free postage on such a small order and will have to find something else to order as well...

[peterb]

Yes there is a difference! The better (BT spec ones) are impedance matched across the two output ports, so you get better signal to noise ratio, lower losses, and they don't interfere with in band signalling systems such as caller ID. The cheap ones (often looking like a telephone socket splitter but with an RJ11 socket for the ADSL line) don't cut the mustard. Expect to pay about £6 for a good one with a BT approval mark. After all, how much are you paying in a year for your ADSL line? Isn't it worth paying an extra £4 to get the most benefit from it? An alternative is to fit a filtered faceplate at the incoming line - then al extensions are filtered at source (but does mean that the router has to be located at the master socket.

[Taz]

peterb: the Scan ones indicated in a previous post indicate that they are BT approved yet they look exactly like the ones you are recommending to avoid!

Could you post a link of high quality ones just so I understand the difference? I'm not bothered about the cost but I was wondering why there is one BT-approved filter can cost £2 and another £10 (these are prices i've seen on E-Bay).

[Taz]

I found these filters:

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop...ProductID=1652

They seem to be the best around.

[peterb]

Taz beat me to it - the Alcatel ones are supposed to be good, or get the BT ones from BT.

http://www.shop.bt.com/invt/cbw102&s...k_btcombbequip

The ones TAz has found are slightly cheaper.

Look at www.solwise.co.uk, or do a Google search for ADSL filtered faceplates.

[Taz]

I've ordered 6 off the broadbandbuyer site as they were a couple of quid cheaper than the ones on the BT site but appeared to be better quality. Thanks for all the help everyone.

[Sumanji]

I need to order 4 so that still comes to under a tenner! I'd feel guilty about the free postage on such a small order and will have to find something else to order as well...

OT, but the (non-enforced) minimum order for free postage is £20. If you try and get free post on a 99p item they ban your free postage rights

Suman

[pp05]

I am going to grab 2 of these.

[Matt1eD]

All mine are the 99p ones from ebuyer (think they're a bit more expensive now). Absolutely brilliant, haven't had any problems of any kind with them. Really pleased.

I suppose it's a bit hit and mis as with any cheap computery bit and I've just been lucky. If you pay more then there's a better good:bad ratio.

[peterb]

All mine are the 99p ones from ebuyer (think they're a bit more expensive now). Absolutely brilliant, haven't had any problems of any kind with them. Really pleased.

I suppose it's a bit hit and mis as with any cheap computery bit and I've just been lucky. If you pay more then there's a better good:bad ratio.

If your line characteristics were marginal you would notice a difference!