[Closed] BT Master socket box - Advice please

You will not kill anyone or anything with telecoms cables,therefore you can just buy a master socket from screwfix or similar and wire it up! However I presume the line won't be active so you will still have to involve open reach to reactivate the line. They'll want a name basically to enable the billing process.

I have looked at what arrives into my house and it is four colour coded separate wires.

This is standard BT cable - should be, IIRC, White with Blue (bands), White with Orange, then Orange with White and Blue with white. These connect to a terminal (with six connection points 1-6). The interweb will tell you what colour goes to what number.

So, replace the funny, three strand wire with a length of BT cable. Depending on what socket you buy for inside the house, you might need a special tool for connecting those really thin cables - Maplin sell those for around 5 or 6 quid. Also, a light touch with wire strippers - they're fairly delicate cables.

As wrightyson said, don't worry about touching the wires.

You will not kill anyone or anything with telecoms cables

This is WCA we're talking about here.... 😯

therefore you can just buy a master socket from screwfix or similar and wire it up!

This. BT are scum, trying to charge £150 for a thing that costs at most £15. Takes about 5 mins to install. I know this cos they tried to rip my dad off for the same thing. He got a master socket off a neighbour who works for BT for nowt, and I fitted it for him.

£150?? Do you want me to have a word?

Rip-off merchants. 😡

We moved into a rented house that has a line with a dial tone, BT still wanted 150 quid re-connection charge so I wouldn't be so sure that doing the work yourself will save you having to pay.

People keep quoting bt, but they don't own the equipment , its openreach now. So (and I don't know for certain)you may be able to go to another provider and get it done far cheaper??

Also, a light touch with wire strippers - they're fairly delicate cables

if you're connecting to khrone push in terminals you don't strip the wire.

Only 1 pair on the wire will have your 50v dial tone, that's the important one, try not to short it.

telephones carry enough current to give yourself a nice little kick so don't be too blasé.

More than once in the past we've told a trainee to hold three pairs at a frame - 3rd pair held in the mouth, thats when we made the call 😈

Anyway, it's easy. This site gives good info http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/UK_telephone/uk_telephone.html

Don't forget, if a line is being 'installed' the connection fee will still be applicable. This covers setting up the billing, programming & connecting in the exchange, street and home as well as testing

People keep quoting bt, but they don't own the equipment , its openreach now

Erm...

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Only BT Openreach can do the 'phone line installation. Unless it's a cable service.

Which is why the bastards can get away with ripping people off. Because they have a monopoly.

Don't get me started about BT....

Isn't it illegal to work on or even open up a BT master socket? Think I read this before hen I wanted to move mine. I think it may be because it's not actually yours, it their property.

I work for BT but can't help you here sorry. They have a good service on twitter under @btcare who are intending to increase customer service although slowly. There is a massive drive within the business to improve customer service and reduce complaints.

Isn't it illegal to work on or even open up a BT master socket?

Pft. That's what they might tell you. Just another ruse to rip people off. I'd like to see them try suing me.

Seriously though; how can they justify charging £150 for coming and fitting a poxy bloody box onto a wall and bunging some wires in it? A whole new line installation costs less, and a lot more work is involved.

I work for BT but can't help you [b]hear[/b] sorry.

😕

iPhone + fat fingers

There is a massive drive within the business to improve customer service and reduce complaints.

If BT weren't so utterly chyte, they wouldn't need such a massive improvement drive. Worst company I (an many, many others) have ever had the misfortune to deal with.

Don't. I'm upset now. 😥

Elfin, speak to bt, you have any problems they are totally adamant " well we must put you through to, you must deal with, ". I'm sure it's all money in the same pot however, but the equipment or lines are open reach's and bt rent off them, apparently??!

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Which bit are you not getting?

It's still part of BT. Not a completely separate company, as it really ought to be.

Your not dealing with openreach though, your dealing with BT retail who then have to pay BT openreach as a separate entity for your work. Openreach have no face to face relationship with end customers.

You think it's bad, try working in the place.

Playing devils advocate how much would it cost to get a british gas engineer out for an hour to look at your boiler for example? Yep I know it's a 5 min job but it will be a minimum of an hour to cover travel overheads.

WCA, is this a place where your daughter has just moved in?

If so, even if you 'bodge' the wires together, theres no guarantee that the line will automatically work.. it may be 'switched off' or otherwise need other work outside to get it going.
Sounds like you have an old type of grey wire coming into the house, is it grey all the way to the pole?
If it is, theres a good chance that it will be faulty and needs changing to a modern black wire. This is something that you cannot do.

If it WAS a working line but your daughter has removed/damaged some wiring, then why should it be replaced by an engineer for free? Do you expect free services from plumbers or electricians?

As others have posted, it IS illegal to mess about with Phone wiring that doesnt belong to you, i.e Anything before the the NTE, and including the NTE itself. (the frontplate is ok to attach wires to tho)

Also others have mentioned that some service providers may offer better deals than others with regards to connection charges, shop around for the deal that suits you most.

Openreach 'rent' the wiring to telecomms service providers on an equivalent basis, including BT and Talk Talk etc. What the service providers charge its customers for these services is up to them.

Elfin I'm not ****ing blind I can see the logos together! I get it! But because the equipment is no longer bts it's openreach's you can get a provider from elsewhere. Bt rent off open reach, right back to the exchanges!! A bit like .... (please add an example here as I can't think of one at the moment)

British gas charging for gas but transco or whoever looking after your meter? Will that do as your analogy? Also can you imagine transco being happy with folk working on gas meters

A bit like ...

Me renting me my own bike?

Sorry. I'm just upset. And it's BT's fault. The bastards. 😥

I thankyou both!!

Its not like renting YOUR OWN bike.

How about if you rented a bike from someone, then messed about with the brakes and then the brakes failed and you smashed the bike into a tree and wrecked it?
Would you expect that to be fixed as part of the rental agreement?

Or what about if you had it on a long lease but left it out in the rain or never cleaned it or looked after it reasonably and it fell to bits? Would that kind of mistreatment be covered by the rental agreement?

And it's BT's fault.

Its not BTs fault if folks think its OK to tinker with stuff that they shouldnt and then find they get charged to have it put right.
Just because you think its a 'simple' bit of wiring and wont kill you if you touch it, doesnt mean you cant get it wrong if you fiddle with it yourself.

Its not BTs fault

It is.

And it's [i]that[/i] woman's fault as well. 😡

I played about with all mine, even put an extra socket in ready for the sky box! It ain't rocket science to be fair. I. Now have a new open reach master with pre filter for a direct adsl connection on the same box. Very swish, neat and tidy and none of those pluggy in things required.

It ain't rocket science to be fair

Exactly. Neither is it mains leccy or gas. It's just low-voltage telecoms wiring. Quite why the simple installation of a box and a quick bit of wiring should cost £150, I have no idea.

Depending on circumstances you may want to argue and may actually get your own way for free but I know what I would do. In theory BT own up to your master socket. You own the faceplate and extension cabling. If they knackered the cable they they should fix it but it doesn't sound that way to me. They should fix it anyway but they do look for the slightest reason to bill you the full amount. Your phone is fed by 2 cables. To find which ones you will have to open the other box you refer to. Get an NTE5 box off ebay or whatever, fit it and connect the 2 cables to the A and B terminals. You don't even have to get them the right way round 99pc of the time these days. If you have extensions you'll have to wire them up to the faceplate but it's not too hard with a krone (punch down) tool or one of the crap plastic jobs they sell in B&Q etc. You only really need to connect the blues to 5 and 2 nowadays and anything modern will work. Google it and you'll see what I mean. £5 and 20 mins and you are sorted. Just deny any knowledge if an engineer is ever called out!

Quite why the simple installation of a box and a quick bit of wiring should cost £150, I have no idea.

Does seem a bit steep on teh face of it, but I suppose when you factor in:
Physical installation:
Vehicle costs (fuel etc)
Wages for installer (£40 all in per hour?)
Parts (£10 or so)

Setting up billing/accounts:
Portion of software/hardware costs
Operator to input data and check it (takes what, 10 mins maybe)
Paperwork etc.

I can see a real world cost of maybe 60-75 quid, so a fair profit on that would take it to £100 ish anyway.

To be honest though, my line had been disconnected (not physically) when I moved into my flat, I called them and said "It's still connected, just not activated, can you activate it for free if I sign up with you?" and they said "yes of course". And since their prices were better than everyone else locally, for what I wanted, it made perfect sense. And surprisingly they're also the best for broadband n the area too. And I've never once had a problem with customer service. Oh well.

And I've never once had a problem with customer service.

You will, you will...

It's only a matter of time.

WCA, the drop wire from pole to house will most like be four wire, when you open the external box the old downlead should be connected to either orange and white or green and black.

If the line isn't active you may have what is called 'soft dial tone' which is essentially incoming and outgoing calls barred except emergency calls.

If you buy a socket you should make sure it has a yellow capacitor in it, normally referred to as a master socket. Likewise, if you buy a socket to wire in as an extension, if it has a capacitor, just cut it out.

Its technically illegal to mess with the master socket and anything before it (unless you are just adding an extension) but I've seen all sorts of horrors and no one seems to bat an eyelid, unless you start messing around on the phone pole 🙂

And shop around with the other service providers, they may absorb the cost of the installation to win you as a customer.

I know elfinsafety appears to be a bit upset, but Openreach are not really any closer to BT Retail than the other providers, we may still have the logo, but there are lots of things in place to prevent us talking to BT outside of the official channels, everything has to go through the same processes as an end user using Tiscali or Talk Talk etc. All to stop us being able to offer 'preferential (aka unfair) service' to BT Retail as someone could just shout across the office to the next department and get something fixed, jumping the queue that the other service providers had to wait in. Now BT and Openreach occupy different floors in a building, if not a different building altogether.

Just pay it you tight arse.

WCA

Shop arround, my girlfriend just had her line reconnected by SKY when she signed up to sky tv, broadband and phone. She pays £30 in total/month for all three and reconnection was £60 i think.

I did a similar thing to you where i re-wired the master socket so it was in a better place with more discreet wiring. You are not ment to do this as it is BT's property but what they don't know can't hurt them and everything works perfectly now so all is good.

I moved house back in August and set up my line with BT - I got free connection and when the engineer came out to "connect" me (the line was already working) noticed that the master socket was tatty looking, although it worked fine, and replaced it for free. Which was nice of him as previously the house was painted bright yellow and the previous owners had painted light switches etc yellow. Manky but it did save me a few k of the asking price!

They did want £150 if I wanted it moved however (fair enough as thats running cabling etc) and I was very tempted as the previous owner had it halfway up a window frame in the hall. Dunno why 🙄 The BT engineer said he had to note the location of the master socket in case it got moved, however I made him a coffee and gave him some biscuits so the noted location was "Downstairs".

So two points:
1. If your going to mess with it do it before BT / Openreach see it in case your engineer isnt as good as mine.
2. It might not cost you anything anyway as they are not mega evil... Also if its a fault on thier cable between thier network and the master socket I think they fix it for free anyway as its thier line?

Three bare wires? That's not right. The crosstalk would be pretty bad.
Is the line connected back to the exchange and do you have the number?

If not you'll still end up paying the £150 for a reconnect so you may as well get the new socket. The engineer will likely replace the old wire from outside and should put the socket where you want it (within reason)

Get your daughter to pay for it

Hi, thanks for the help so far. Apparently they do have a phone number assigned and it is all connected, it was just when they went to try and plug the phone in, it wasn't working.

I haven't managed to check the colour of the wire from the pole to the outside box on the house but from the outside box into the house it is grey. It is a single grey cable containing 3 separate, not touching bare copper wires.

Please can a couple of tech people who posted (spooky, dev etc) check this for a plan:

1) Buy a master socket (with capacitor)
2) Connect 2 of the wires to terminals A and B
3) Plug in a handset to see if it works
4) Sit down with a tea and biscuits if it does
5) remove the wire from connection B and put the other wire in if it doesn't
6) Fail to mention this to BT if they ever have to come around

Any flaws in this plan?

Flaws? Yes, it still might not work.

The grey wire you describe is over 20yrs old and could well be faulty, especially if it goes all the way to the pole. If that is the case, you would want Openreach to come and replace it, because you may have a poor service/slow/zero ADSL if you dont. In replacing the grey wire, they will wire it all to an nte in the house, saving you a job.

Where is the original wiring?

Has your daughter just moved in?

If she has, presumably she has just taken over this line? Paid a connection fee?

If not, how long has she lived there and when did she notice that her phone line doesnt work?

You DID read the bit about it being illegal to play with wiring that doesnt belong to you?

Amazingly, although Openreach is one of the biggest banes of my life (and don't give me all that equivalence/EOI sh*t, chaps, you know full well you play the undertakings game as much as BTR and BTW), I have to say that in this instance I tend to agree with the advice to get OR to sort it.

Picked up a master socket. connected to 2, 3 and 6 (from memory) and we have a working phone line.

Woo Hoo

Sky being fitted in the morning

I know elfinsafety appears to be a bit upset

I am upset. 😥

I would like to point out that I have no issue with individual employees of BT and indeed some have bin very nice and helpful, just with BT as a company. Evil.

Did you know that the first royal yacht to land at the Hythe Pier in the new Forest was called the 'Elfin'*. This is the same pier that a certain Elfin'safety' also sailed from a few years ago.

Coincidence? I think not!

I denounce Elfinsafety as a Royalist and boat lover!

*This is true, I read it while on the ferry this afternoon having ridden over to Hythe on a whim

😀

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I thoroughly enjoyed myself, I must say.