My ADSL has something like 4.5km of iffy cabling to deal with, so every time a well-fed pigeon sits on a wire or a BT engineer sneezes I get connection problems. Oh, and the phone wouldn’t ring (tech support said that was normal and I should buy a new phone), and using it sometimes screwed up the broadband. Great fun.

Despite some healthy scepticism about high-end audio/comms gear, I bought an XF-1e microfilter to replace the cheap ISP-provided one, and it has made a noticeable difference. Connections are no faster, but seem more reliable so far, and the phone now rings properly.

So it’s worth casting a suspicious eye over your microfilter if your ADSL isn’t up to scratch (something that hadn’t previously occurred to me).