"If I pick up my phone to make a call, I can hear the DSL on the line and it may kick me offline."

There are two common causes for this problem.

The first is if you have line-shared DSL. This technology puts the DSL signal on the same pair of wires as your phone signal. Since a human voice speaking at normal conversational tones can be carried in a frequency range from 0 to 3,400 Hertz, DSL is broken out to split the signals into 0-4,000 Hertz for voice traffic, and everything over 4,000 for DSL data traffic.

Line-shared DSL comes with small line filters, which filter out this traffic. It prevents anything above 4,000 Hertz from coming through the filter, and also keeps anything under 4,000 Hertz from affecting the rest of the frequency.

The most common problem customers have with line-shared DSL is that they don't place these filters in all of their phone jacks (though you won't use one on the jack where the DSL modem plugs in, as your phone will plug into the modem since the modem acts as a filter itself--and it wouldn't do anyone any good if you filtered out the DSL signal before it even got to the modem!). What then happens is the customer picks up a phone extension that has no line filter and not only do they hear the hum and buzzing of the DSL signal on the line, but the DSL modem "hears" them picking up the extension (much like you hear it when someone picks up an extension while you're already on the line). This causes errors and fluctuations in the data stream and can cause the modem to lose connectivity with our equipment. If you have line-shared DSL, you must install line filters at every jack where a phone will be used. If you do not have enough filters, or need special filters (for a wall-mounted phone for example) then just contact ACD.net and we will provide you with them.

The second cause of these problems is if you have a wireless network and you only get kicked offline when you pick up a cordless handset. This can happen if your cordless phone and your wireless router both operate on the same frequency. For example, if you have a 900MHz wireless router and a 900MHz phone, you'll likely run into problems, just as you can with a 2.4GHz router (which is what most routers are that you'd buy today) and a 2.4GHz phone.

Wireless routers and access points are configurable as to what channel they operate on, as are many cordless phones. Unfortunately customers still can run into problems regardless of how they configure their equipment, as cordless phones by design try to sweep the whole band (at least in the case of 900MHz phones). The best choice is to pick up a 5.8GHz phone, as that will never interfere with your 2.4GHz wireless network.