I used a Cat 5e rated punch block. That is what network guys at work use in building distribution frames. You will need a punch down tool to use the block correctly. I got the blocks and the tool on eBay. You need to get a tool for the specific type of block you purchase.

DSL modems are a lot less fussy than they used to be. Unless you have an egregious situation, such as wiring done with speaker wire or loosely twisted spices, you may find surprisingly little difference in your speed.

Basically, if you can dial a 1 on a phone connected to the jack and hear silence with little or no hum or other noise, and volume is reasonably good, DSL should perform well.

However, if you want to try to optimize your DSL speed, fit a DSL filter at the demarcation point or else just inside at the first punchdown block. Feed your modem jack with cat5 in a homerun from that point. The other phone jacks should be fed from the output of the filter.

We went very low tech on our splitters. Were into model trains at one time and used a wire connector from that. Basically it is six sets of of two screws on a metal plate mounted on a strip of hard plastic. The incoming line goes down one side to all the screws and the outgoing go on the companion screws and then the line is labeled by writing on the joist that the whole works is mounted on.

Or, you can just twist all the like wires together and put a cap on. That's all that the phone co does and really looks messy.

I use the 110 punchdown blocks Leviton makes for their structured media enclosures. You do not have to buy the enclosure, just the block. It fits nicely inside a Carlon 4x junction box. All this is available at Homer's big orange store (one of the few things I buy there).

Yes, isn't it ironic that in our homes (mine included), we use fancy and expensive punch down blocks and connectors, but at the exterior phone line service panel, they simply install the wire wrapped around a screw terminal - even for DSL lines.

FWIW I recently had my phone lines cut due to some excavation work. I simply wire-nutted them together (tightly) temporarily for a few days until the phone company could come out and repair them. In the mean time phone and DSL service worked the same w/ wire nuts as it had before. Thus if your connections are good and tight, I doubt that you'll see much improvement once you go to a punch down block. Your issues may be elsewhere...

The problem I have encountered with wirenuts is the small gauge phone wire is fragile and too much twisting will break them. Newer NIDs (at least BellSouth's) have punchdown terminals instead of screws.

I may have gotten some lousy ones - but in my experience, after a few cycles the punchdown clips lose their spring temper or something, and don't make good contact any more. Then you have to replace the block.

Honestly, I'm not sure that punchdown blocks are that helpful. If I were starting over, I might be inclined to use barrier strips instead.

We have several thousand punchdown blocks in use in 250 buildings that are working fine for gigabit Ethernet. However, you need to use the correct punchdown tool for the block. Way overkill for voice, but they look cool.

your 5 interior runs should all be filtered, with 1 unfiltered run to the DSL modem. the easiest way to do this is a splitter/filter and the NID. or you can have 5 filters inside that house. whichever floats your boat.

if the liine is not noisy, then the connections at the house should be okay.

Many many thanks for everyone's comments thus far. I replaced the suspect connector at the demarcation point with a simple twist cap as one poster mentioned. Really that should work :)

Our phone lines *sound* fine. However our max dsl speed is still 500-600. Unfortunately, I just had an organ transplant and need the ability to work from home with a higher bitrate than that! I work at Pixar, so we deal with a lot of Gigs of image data, etc.

Unfortunately the change in connector has no effect as many of you had suspected. Here is what we have done so far, if anyone has an additional idea, I'm all ears.

Here is what we have done on our side, none of which showed an improvement
1. Removed all extra components from our network - unplugged and disabled the hub, hardware vpn box, airport leaving just linux box->dsl modem
2. Tried another phone jack with same configuration (this was done post each additional change just for completeness). Phone jack tested was installed 3 years ago at the time of purchase of the home, so new wiring, straight run to the demarcation point.
3. Removed all phones from the system - the only thing in the house using a phone line is the dsl modem
4. Installed dsl filter for the alarm system (previously was a locked box and I had been assured a filter had been installed, bastards)
5. Got a key from the alarm company, disabled the alarm system/disconnected it from the phone system completely

So again, at this stage, there is NOTHING connected to the phone lines other than the modem->linuxbox

6. Removed questionable electrical connector connecting the five branch lines in the house, restripped wires, capped with a twist connector
7. Rewired the preferred outlet for the dsl modem as it too looked questionable / installed new RJ45 jack on the existing phone line.

Still max speed of 500-600.

We love our static IPs for both vpn and running a webserver, but we cannot live with this speed. Do you have any ideas on how to further pursue this? AT&T has been out to the house and said our phone lines were fine, DSL Extreme last said it must be the alarm. Since then, we've done the rewiring/replacement of suspect connectors AND disabled the alarm completely.

Sincere thanks,
susan, who doubts a punchdown block is going to change anything but is willing to try anything at this point!

what type DSL modem do you have? i ask this because most will give you line stats.

also, check out www.dslreports.com/tools run a couple speed tests there, as well as the line quality test. since you say ATT is the phone co, you can also post in the proper att forum there. a tech may find your issue right off the bat. if you register you can PM a tech and post your line info in the direct forum that ONLY official tech can even read.

you could have several things causing this, and unfortuantely DSL is a best effort service. meaning you pay for speeds UP TO the advertised rate. there is no guarantee you will get the max rate though. i know of people who paid for 6mb service and got less than 2mb. they "downgraded" back to 3.0mb for less money and got the exact same service.

have you tested at the NID? there should be a jack there that you can plug a phone line directly into. if the speeds are up at that point, then your internal wiring is at fault. if they are the same, AND YOUR MACHINE IS VIRUS/SPYWARE FREE, then your service may be at fault and they should attempt to fix it.

Are you out in the country? The farther you are from the CO or a repeater, the more feeble the carrier gets and the slower your max speeds.

It sounds like you've done just about all you can with your own connection. Might be time to try a cable modem.

Or have a talk with your provider about getting your own T1 line - if your employer will pay for it. You probably can't afford it yourself.

Playing with a star and DSL is about the same as gambling.
Each star arm is creating a filter that kills the line response at some frequency.
The DSL hardware will try to avoid those frequencies when it adjusts to the line conditions (equalization) but the more dead spots the harder it is to find enough bandwidth top operate in.
I would start disconnecting runs from the center of the star and see if you can get the rate up.

If you have cable TV and the service is available a cable modem is often a much better path for higher bandwidth.