I am about to decorate the entrance "vestibule" of my house and would
appreciate some advice regarding the phone wiring. The cable enters the
house at the corner of the aluminium front door to a plastic junction
box and then continues to the master socket which is located in a front
bedroom. A previous owner has seen fit to paint the junction box and
the cable, as you can see from the photo at:

http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...g/DSCF1165.jpg
http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...g/DSCF1166.jpg

I would prefer the cable to run from the corner of the door along the
top or bottom of the skirting and around the external corner, so that I
can hide it (and the junction box, if that is still needed in the new
scheme) from view. If the corner cannot be negotiated, a single,
unpainted cable ascending to the bedroom would be acceptable.

I have no need to move the master socket from its current position (it's
very close to the ADSL modem).

The second photo shows the arrangement outside the front door, with an
interesting before-master-socket extension to the room where the
previous owner moved her bedroom when she became too infirm to climb the
stairs.

I take that I have to get BT in to do this work as it's on their side of
the master socket, but I'm unsure of how to describe to them the work I
would like carried out and agree a price. (It's not technically a
master socket move.) Has any reader had any similar work carried out by
BT, and how did they go about getting it specified, priced, and carried out?
--
David Browning
[email address is not usable - followup in the newsgroup]

If you feel competent why not just do it yourself? I've moved my master
socket to a more agreeable position and had no qualms in doing so. Just
don't short the two wires!

Graham

"David Browning" wrote in message
...
I am about to decorate the entrance "vestibule" of my house and would
appreciate some advice regarding the phone wiring. The cable enters the
house at the corner of the aluminium front door to a plastic junction box
and then continues to the master socket which is located in a front
bedroom. A previous owner has seen fit to paint the junction box and the
cable, as you can see from the photo at:

http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...g/DSCF1165.jpg
http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...g/DSCF1166.jpg

I would prefer the cable to run from the corner of the door along the top
or bottom of the skirting and around the external corner, so that I can
hide it (and the junction box, if that is still needed in the new scheme)
from view. If the corner cannot be negotiated, a single, unpainted cable
ascending to the bedroom would be acceptable.

I have no need to move the master socket from its current position (it's
very close to the ADSL modem).

The second photo shows the arrangement outside the front door, with an
interesting before-master-socket extension to the room where the previous
owner moved her bedroom when she became too infirm to climb the stairs.

I take that I have to get BT in to do this work as it's on their side of
the master socket, but I'm unsure of how to describe to them the work I
would like carried out and agree a price. (It's not technically a master
socket move.) Has any reader had any similar work carried out by BT, and
how did they go about getting it specified, priced, and carried out?
--
David Browning
[email address is not usable - followup in the newsgroup]

On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:18:05 -0000, "Graham Jones"
wrote:

If you feel competent why not just do it yourself? I've moved my master
socket to a more agreeable position and had no qualms in doing so. Just
don't short the two wires!


Shorting them's not a big problem. Leaving them open circuit for any
length of time is. The line is terminated by a resistor in the master
socket and the exchange expects to see this resistance or less if
there are phones across the line. The exchange tests the line
periodically, if it can't see this resistance it may flag the line as
out of service and disconnect it on the assumption it's been cut or
has blown down etc.

I think ;-)

Derek

Derek Geldard wrote:
On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:18:05 -0000, "Graham Jones"
wrote:

If you feel competent why not just do it yourself? I've moved my master
socket to a more agreeable position and had no qualms in doing so. Just
don't short the two wires!


Shorting them's not a big problem. Leaving them open circuit for any
length of time is. The line is terminated by a resistor in the master
socket and the exchange expects to see this resistance or less if
there are phones across the line. The exchange tests the line
periodically, if it can't see this resistance it may flag the line as
out of service and disconnect it on the assumption it's been cut or
has blown down etc.

I think ;-)

Derek

Well we moved an overhead to a portakabin and back to the rebuilt house
without ever involving BT..and even used a bit of cat 5 to extend to the
new master socket.

BT did eventually see it, when I had a pole fault -- insisted on
checking the wiring in the house. Didn't bat an eyelid. Just put in a
'BT' connector to connect the CAT 5!!!

In short, do a decent job and they wont care, if it works. They will
charge you to put it right if you **** up though :-)

On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:46:13 +0000
David Browning wrote:

I am about to decorate the entrance "vestibule" of my house and would
appreciate some advice regarding the phone wiring. The cable enters the
house at the corner of the aluminium front door to a plastic junction
box and then continues to the master socket which is located in a front
bedroom. A previous owner has seen fit to paint the junction box and
the cable, as you can see from the photo at:

http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...g/DSCF1165.jpg
http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...g/DSCF1166.jpg

I would prefer the cable to run from the corner of the door along the
top or bottom of the skirting and around the external corner, so that I
can hide it (and the junction box, if that is still needed in the new
scheme) from view. If the corner cannot be negotiated, a single,
unpainted cable ascending to the bedroom would be acceptable.

I have no need to move the master socket from its current position (it's
very close to the ADSL modem).

The second photo shows the arrangement outside the front door, with an
interesting before-master-socket extension to the room where the
previous owner moved her bedroom when she became too infirm to climb the
stairs.

I take that I have to get BT in to do this work as it's on their side of
the master socket, but I'm unsure of how to describe to them the work I
would like carried out and agree a price. (It's not technically a
master socket move.) Has any reader had any similar work carried out by
BT, and how did they go about getting it specified, priced, and carried out?

I think you will find that BT Openreach, taking instruction from BT
Retail, will just install a new NTE (Master Socket) at a suitable place
inside the building and then leave you with the problem of connecting
the house wiring. They will charge about £120 for this, IIRC. If you
ask them, they will fit a filtered faceplate to the NTE so that you can
have separate phone and ADSL wiring from the NTE (This is good, it
improves broadband significantly for most people).

If you plan to do it yourself then this helps a bit:
http://www.rob-r.co.uk/other/UKphonecatwiring.htm

R.

On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:35:46 +0000, TheOldFellow wrote:

I think you will find that BT Openreach, taking instruction from BT
Retail, will just install a new NTE (Master Socket) at a suitable place
inside the building and then leave you with the problem of connecting
the house wiring.

They will put the NTE where ever you want it within reason(*1) but the
will only surface run any wiring. You can of course already have suitable
wiring installed from the line entry point to the NTE position and they'll
use that(*2).

They will charge about £120 for this, IIRC.

It's not clear if the OP's "master socket" is a proper Linebox NTE or just
a master socket. A proper NTE has user removeable lower half of the front
panel. If the OP doesn't have one of these he can go for "Conversion of
hard-wired master socket to Linebox and Regularisation of illicit master
socket: Per line - normal £25.00 + VAT".

http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/p..._boo/0002_d0e6
3.htm (at the end).

Otherwise its: £99 visit charge plus £41.70 per line moved plus VAT.

http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/p..._boo/1294_d0e5
..htm

Personally I'd just do it but using appropiate cable properly and neatly
fixed. Line shorts wire to wire and wire to ground will be logged at the
exchange, so if you mess up and have to call 'em out they might look at
the log and think "'ello wots been going on 'ere then?". How ever they
can't tell if those log entries are due to you or a BT engineer man down a
hole working on another pair causing trouble. Unless of course there has
been no work on your particular cable route...

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:41:02 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

BT did eventually see it, when I had a pole fault -- insisted on
checking the wiring in the house. Didn't bat an eyelid. Just put in a
'BT' connector to connect the CAT 5!!!

Well ordinary phone cable only Cat3, so Cat5 is "better"... B-)

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 25 Jan, 20:46, David Browning wrote:
I am about to decorate the entrance "vestibule" of my house and would
appreciate some advice regarding the phone wiring. *The cable enters the
house at the corner of the aluminium front door to a plastic junction
box and then continues to the master socket which is located in a front
bedroom. *


This shouldn't be a problem. Telephone wiring is generally easy. It
is neither high voltage nor high current as local telephone circuitry
is virtually all high impedance (and low frequency for that matter, if
radiation concerns you) & you will not get a shock.

If you need to move it unscrew, taking care not to short the wires
together or short to anything else conductive, eg pipework &
especially anything earthed. Use insulation tape to be absolutely
certain but don't leave for long i that state. Get it reconnected
into a master box however temporarily suspended. Otherwise your phone
may be automatically registered as at fault or off hook.

Bridge any temporary gaps with telephone cable - available in most
sheds, maplin, screwfix etc, together with suitable cable clips.
There are 2 types of telephone cable viz: the flexible one you
normally see with a D shape cross section; and the other round one
used for fixed wiring which has 4 or 6 coloured wires loosely enclosed
in a sheath (google for colour code & stick with the code). Domestic
wiring normally uses the 4 wire version, but you can use either type.
In fact the ordinary telephone system only uses two of those
conductors. The other two are redundant. The 6 wire version is
required for special installations, eg premises with private automatic
branch exchanges.

All the info you need is at http://www.clarity.it/telecoms/adsl_hardware.htm
- strongly recommended reading if you have any doubts. This firm also
sells a look alike BT terminal box which is a proper ADSL splitter.

Main thing to be absolutely clear about is that your incoming
telephone cable must be terminated in a 'master' box. The master box
contains a very simple 'terminating' circuit, & there should only be
1 on your line. All other junction boxes downwind are secondary boxes
which look similar to the master but aren't as they lack this special
circuit.

When I did mine I reused the old BT box (which had a standard flat BT
socket aka regret code no escapes me - no is in Maplin catalog ) &
screwed the Clarity box on a nearby wall. I put a BT plug on a short
length of flexible telephone cable on one end & connected the other
directly into the screwed connectors in the Clarity box.

Result is 2 independant circuits in the house for telephone (one
socket in most rooms) and for ADSL (goes to back of house to the
wifi). Far better quality. Further beyond the 1st BT box all in-
house telephone & ADSL wiring is completely within my control.

HTH

In article 9856030a-d83e-4150-a7c7-
,
says...


Bridge any temporary gaps with telephone cable - available in most
sheds, maplin, screwfix etc, together with suitable cable clips.
There are 2 types of telephone cable viz: the flexible one you
normally see with a D shape cross section; and the other round one
used for fixed wiring which has 4 or 6 coloured wires loosely enclosed
in a sheath (google for colour code & stick with the code). Domestic
wiring normally uses the 4 wire version, but you can use either type.
In fact the ordinary telephone system only uses two of those
conductors. The other two are redundant. The 6 wire version is
required for special installations, eg premises with private automatic
branch exchanges.

Don't use the "D type" flexible flat extension cable. The wires in this
cable aren't twisted pair and are stranded, intended for connection into
insulation piercing connectors such as a BT plug or extension socket.
Such stranded cable can't be used in IDC (punch-down) connectors like
those used in the master socket's faceplate. You are better using the
solid, three twisted pair type, and use only the blue/white-white/blue
pair. Don't cut the others off, twist them back out of the way because
you may need a spare in future.

This also applies to your own in-house wiring especially if you intend
feeding the ADSL signal over it. For information on the wiring, see
sites such as http://www.rob-r.co.uk/other/UKphonecatwiring.htm

--
John W
To mail me replace the obvious with co.uk twice

John Weston wrote:
In article 9856030a-d83e-4150-a7c7-
,
says...

Bridge any temporary gaps with telephone cable - available in most
sheds, maplin, screwfix etc, together with suitable cable clips.
There are 2 types of telephone cable viz: the flexible one you
normally see with a D shape cross section; and the other round one
used for fixed wiring which has 4 or 6 coloured wires loosely enclosed
in a sheath (google for colour code & stick with the code). Domestic
wiring normally uses the 4 wire version, but you can use either type.
In fact the ordinary telephone system only uses two of those
conductors. The other two are redundant. The 6 wire version is
required for special installations, eg premises with private automatic
branch exchanges.

Don't use the "D type" flexible flat extension cable. The wires in this
cable aren't twisted pair and are stranded, intended for connection into
insulation piercing connectors such as a BT plug or extension socket.
Such stranded cable can't be used in IDC (punch-down) connectors like
those used in the master socket's faceplate. You are better using the
solid, three twisted pair type, and use only the blue/white-white/blue
pair. Don't cut the others off, twist them back out of the way because
you may need a spare in future.

This also applies to your own in-house wiring especially if you intend
feeding the ADSL signal over it. For information on the wiring, see
sites such as http://www.rob-r.co.uk/other/UKphonecatwiring.htm


Seconded. For punchdown use either BT internal style cable or CAT 5
style solid.


External drop cables need to be BT's stuff which has a steel
reinforcement wire, if overhead. NOT sure what underground ducts use.

In article , says...
John Weston wrote:
In article 9856030a-d83e-4150-a7c7-
,
says...

Don't use the "D type" flexible flat extension cable. The wires in this
cable aren't twisted pair and are stranded, intended for connection into
insulation piercing connectors such as a BT plug or extension socket.
Such stranded cable can't be used in IDC (punch-down) connectors like
those used in the master socket's faceplate. You are better using the
solid, three twisted pair type, and use only the blue/white-white/blue
pair. Don't cut the others off, twist them back out of the way because
you may need a spare in future.

This also applies to your own in-house wiring especially if you intend
feeding the ADSL signal over it. For information on the wiring, see
sites such as http://www.rob-r.co.uk/other/UKphonecatwiring.htm


Seconded. For punchdown use either BT internal style cable or CAT 5
style solid.


External drop cables need to be BT's stuff which has a steel
reinforcement wire, if overhead. NOT sure what underground ducts use.

My underground BT incoming wire is armoured similar to SWA. I
discovered it a few inches below the surface, probably originally laid
on the soil surface, when trying to get a path edging straight... I
also discovered another, unprotected, one crossing the garden, inches
below the surface, which I'd sliced through with a spade. A later call
to BT told me it was probably a disused cable from a previous building
as they hadn't had any fault reports :-)

--
John W
To mail me replace the obvious with co.uk twice

On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:02:12 +0000, Derek Geldard
wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:18:05 -0000, "Graham Jones"
wrote:

If you feel competent why not just do it yourself? I've moved my master
socket to a more agreeable position and had no qualms in doing so. Just
don't short the two wires!


Shorting them's not a big problem. Leaving them open circuit for any
length of time is. The line is terminated by a resistor in the master
socket and the exchange expects to see this resistance or less if
there are phones across the line. The exchange tests the line
periodically, if it can't see this resistance it may flag the line as
out of service and disconnect it on the assumption it's been cut or
has blown down etc.

Last night I asked an Openreach guy about that and he reckons that an
open circuit ("dis") line would NOT show up. All their stuff does is
to look for battery and earth on the line, partly to check the
exchange, and partly to look for a loop/short circuit.

--
Frank Erskine

In article
,
jim wrote:
This shouldn't be a problem. Telephone wiring is generally easy. It
is neither high voltage nor high current as local telephone circuitry
is virtually all high impedance (and low frequency for that matter, if
radiation concerns you) & you will not get a shock.

You'll get a very nasty surprise if you get the ringing volts up you...

--
*Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice?"

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Liquorice wrote:

It's not clear if the OP's "master socket" is a proper Linebox NTE or just
a master socket. A proper NTE has user removeable lower half of the front
panel. If the OP doesn't have one of these he can go for "Conversion of
hard-wired master socket to Linebox and Regularisation of illicit master
socket: Per line - normal £25.00 + VAT".

Thanks for all the replies. I believe myself to be competent enough to
do the job, but I don't want to get on the wrong side of BT or the law.
I think I might go with Dave L's suggestion of installing a suitable
cable and having a BT engineer come and connect it up. There's a photo
of what I've called the master socket at :

http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...r-socket-1.jpg
http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...r-socket-2.jpg

I believe this is a proper NTE linebox, which I'll get changed for one
which includes an ADSL filter (or at least the faceplate replaced by a
one with a filter). The other thing which I'd like the BT engineer to
do is remove the strange extension coming out of the grey Post Office
Telecommunications box. We don't use it (nor do we intend to) and the
grey cable's quite unsightly now that we've removed the wisteria which
become entangled and distorted it.

Now it's just a simple matter of explaining what I want to the BT
phone-jockey and getting a price agreed...

--
David Browning
[email address is not usable - followup in the newsgroup]

In message , David Browning
wrote

Now it's just a simple matter of explaining what I want to the BT
phone-jockey and getting a price agreed...


Even if you get BT in it may be cheaper for you to fit a ASDL face-plate
filter yourself to the master socket. Remove the two screws, pull out
old face-plate, plug in new face-plate and replace screws - a 2 minute
job.

Suitable face-plates

http://www.clarity.it/acatalog/ADSL_Installation.html
http://www.adslnation.com/products/xte2005.php
http://www.solwise.co.uk/adsl_splitters.htm

What's inside (Note: the star rating favours the tests on their own
products)
http://www.adslnation.com/support/filters.php


--
Alan
news2006 {at} amac {dot} f2s {dot} com

David Browning coughed up some electrons that declared:


Thanks for all the replies. I believe myself to be competent enough to
do the job, but I don't want to get on the wrong side of BT or the law.

Relax. They really don't care unless, by some feat of complete idiocy, you
manage to damage their equipment - in which case they might make you pay
for it, assuming they even suspected it was you.

I need to re-terminate my line to a master socket and re-fix the bracket for
the overhead line as it's on the soffit which needs to be replaced. In
neither case do I have any intention of involving BT.

Cheers

Tim

On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 09:37:23 +0000, David Browning wrote:

I believe this is a proper NTE linebox,

It is.

(or at least the faceplate replaced by a one with a filter).

That you can leaglly do your self as it on your side of the demarcation
point (which is the socket behind the lower half of the NTE). How ever you
may find that your ADSL perfomance is not as good as the "soap on a rope"
filter you already have. I found that when I tried and ADSL Nation
faceplate v a BT MF50 soap ona roap filter. The daytime performance was
better on the faceplate but at night it wasn't as good so the BRAS rate
was consistently set lower due to the poor speeds at night.

Now it's just a simple matter of explaining what I want to the BT
phone-jockey and getting a price agreed...

I can't remeber what you wanted to do now. The faceplate is DIY. Removal
of the exterior wire, I'd just do. Lot less agro than trying to explain to
BT what you want and get a sensible price.

--
Cheers
Dave.