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Having some buidling works done, and it turns out that what I thought was my master socket in the hallway isn't. Physically it is a master socket like this, with the two wires connected to the back plate and extensions in the house connected to the removable front plate, but it turns out that the wires on the back plate are not those from the outside drop wire (orange/white and green/black pairs), they are just extension cables (blue/blue stripe, orange/orange stripe, green/green stripe).
Having traced the BT wire from the pole, it comes into the house in what was once a garage (converted by the previous owners) and goes to a grey boxed marked with the old BT logo. Inside the box is the termination of the drop cable, which conects to two extension cables via the use of choc block connectors.
My question is can I/should I just install a master socket in place of this grey box? IS this a genuine BT connection from (approx 30) years ago when the works to convert the garage would have been done? Or has a previous owner cut the BT wires to the master socket and done this bodge. Do I need to pay BT to sort this, or should I just ignore it?
Our broadband has been pretty decent despite the wiring and the router not being connected to the master socket as I had thought, so maybe I should just ignore it all?
Grey box with drop cable entering left and 2 extension cables exiting right
You can see the main BT drop cable coming in from the bottom left.
Our broadband has been pretty decent despite the wiring and the router not being connected to the master socket as I had thought, so maybe I should just ignore it all?
This 👆
Close your eyes and snip the blue wire...
...or maybe the red wire - stripy ones look possibles too!! 🤷♂️ 🤷♂️ 💣 💣 🤕 🤕
It works, just ignore it and when you get FTTP you can cut all of the wires 🙂
Report an intermittent fault on the voice side to BT, they'll rip all that horrendousness out for you.
You still use a landline? With extensions?
Report an intermittent fault on the voice side to BT, they’ll rip all that horrendousness out for you.
You still use a landline? With extensions?
We have a landline (purely for the Broadband, as there is no cable/fibre option here, nor likely to be for the forseeable future). We dont use the extensions as we have a DECT setup - but tbh I am inclined to unplug it all anyway as we just use mobile and the landline calls are all scams
It works, just ignore it and when you get FTTP you can cut all of the wires 🙂
This. I had something much worse looking in an old bakelite box where it came into the house (through the door frame) but it all worked OK. Was very glad of FTTP coming along so it could all disappear.
I still have the bakerlite box, which BT refused to change, and then into a 'master' socket which was damaged by the BT tech who installed it. *rolls eyes*
Ignore it (or ignore it & upgrade to fibre and never worry about crap like this again!) Isn't the whole copper cable network going to be decommissioned in a few years anyway?
Isn’t the whole copper cable network going to be decommissioned in a few years anyway?
Had no idea.
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/retiring-the-copper-network
Wonder what that means in practice, we're still on a copper line (Plusnet) and they've not mentioned anything.
No actual wish to upgrade to fibre as I'm sure they'll hike the price at the same time...
No actual wish to upgrade to fibre as I’m sure they’ll hike the price at the same time…
My price went down and my speed increased 5x.
It means FTTP so the full deal.
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-checker/my-products will tell you when it's due to be rolled out by.
I'm on a wire to a pole to a birds nest to the cabinet and get Super Fast no bother. I also ripped out all the extension lines years ago.
My price went down and my speed increased 5x.
We pay something like £28 a month for 70 Mb/s (which is more than enough for us).
marked with the old BT logo
That's the one with a cock-up on the left, a cock-up below and a balls-up on the right!
Wonder what that means in practice
We've already passed the national stop sell date for changing or ordering new voice lines on copper (WLR / ISDN).
If you're already on them then you can continue until your local exchange has the service withdrawn - the first couple were supposed to be earlier this year but got pushed back a bit. Once there's 75% FTTP coverage there's a process that starts to force the remainder off.
If you're not on FTTP (distance or other difficulties) then it's SoGEA which is basically data over the copper line with no voice. In either case if you want a phone it means a digital voice service over your data line.
FTTP generally isn't more expensive and you usually get a lot more speed for your money. The only sub-£20pm services these days are on FTTP.
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-checker/my-products will tell you when it’s due to be rolled out by.
Sadly this just says they have no plans to roll FTTP out to my area yet...
We dont use the extensions as we have a DECT setup – but tbh I am inclined to unplug it all
I would. Internal extensions are death for DSL.
We pay something like £28 a month for 70 Mb/s (which is more than enough for us).
I pay something like that for 500Mbps (£33 I think).
FTTP generally isn’t more expensive and you usually get a lot more speed for your money. The only sub-£20pm services these days are on FTTP.
We get endless mailshots offering FTTP connections, all considerably more expensive that our existing service (so far).
I'd only want to switch if it was considerably cheaper, as Plusnet has been faultless (and only £5 one off fee for a fixed IP).
Thats an original BT box with some DIY connections. Looks to me like you have the original BT cable connected through (striped) and an additional alarm cable (Red,Blue,Yellow).
Depending on where you want to move your master socket to and how far, I'd either disconnect the old cables and run in a new one with a new master box or if its all working fine leave it alone.
We get endless mailshots offering FTTP connections, all considerably more expensive that our existing service (so far).
I’d only want to switch if it was considerably cheaper, as Plusnet has been faultless (and only £5 one off fee for a fixed IP).
Full FIbre starts at £26.99pm with PlusNet and that's most likely the 74Mb package. Sadly their pricing seems to have become rather opaque of late.
Would be suprised if thats not affecting your bb service.Grey box is called a bt66 we still use them, its a bit of a mess tbh, try getting an idea which the external orange/white are connected to, if they are going down a pair in the same internal cable that will be feeding your nte( master)
try getting an idea which the external orange/white are connected to, if they are going down a pair in the same internal cable that will be feeding your nte( master)
Yeah the external wires are connected orange/white to the blue/bluestripe that connects back to the (not) master socket as far as I can tell. The other external pair (green/black) are not connected. I have disconnected the extensions from the master socket, so may just disconnect the other wires here, as I dont think they are connected at the other end.
Report an intermittent fault on the voice side to BT, they’ll rip all that horrendousness out for you.
Or will they charge me as I suspect this was all done by the previous owner when they converted the garage - why would a phone line terminate in a garage otherwise, and why would there be a master socket in the hallway? I think they just cut the incoming wire and ran their own extension cable...
A good chance of getting a charge, as obviously it has been messed around with, depends on attending engineer.
As regard to master socket in hallway, lots of properties, have, throw back to pre BB days.