In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Sky may have used cw1308 twisted pair cable when creating the extension (?) so that may be in your favour, in the short term, if you can not make up a "data extension" using a filtered faceplate etc. immediately.

What socket is he going to fit a filtered faceplate to ? Certainly not the one in the hall.

Even if he could, it would make zilch difference.

Yes you are correct, indeed it does now appear that hall socket is not a NTE5.

My socket was fitted last year after I was having some problems with CloudScape and they sent out an Open Reach engineer to check the wiring. Prior to that I had a split faceplate and the engineer said the new mk4 was much better with less interference. It eventually turned out the problem was with CloudScape and nothing was wrong with the wiring or wifi at my house. The speeds or reliability with CloudScape were never great and improved instantly after I left last month.

I don't think the phone specifically has to be in the hallway, but they've had it there for 40 years and it probably makes sense in that it will be easier to hear around the house from that position. My father did say something about the master socket possibly being in the garage, but that didn't seem to make much sense. I would say it's been reasonably reliable with Sky, though I always thought it should be a bit faster on that connection.

It's a 12 mile trip to my father's house so I can be there in under half an hour. The line connection from the cabinet is excellent, so it's just a question of sorting out the internal wiring to make sure everything remains stable.

In reply to a post by charlestown:

The hallway sits in the middle between the lounge and the dining room where he has the computer, so it should be pretty easy to obtain a stable wifi connection and to me it would make sense eliminating the wiring going into the lounge.

LOL

In conjunction with your reply to me that there isn't even a proper socket in the lounge, everything probably becomes much simpler. I'm assuming the computer already connects wirelessly?

*** Beware - read my reply where you suggest the master may be in the garage. ***
You simply open up that hall socket, and if it does have that capacitor all is well. You simply disconnect the wire that goes to the lounge and connect the router using the dangly filter in the hall. With one caveat, it obviously needs a mains supply.

I don't know much about freesat though. You imply in your opening post that it needs an internet connection as well as its satellite dish, and that it can have a wireless connection to your router.

If so, then go for that setup! Forget the faceplate worries, and forget the instability worries. There is nothing to worry about unless Dad wants to get rid of the dangly filter in the hall.

Except! Where is/are the phones? Are they old-style needing a phone socket, or a modern DECT system just needing a socket for the base station?

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 31-Mar-18 19:45:41)

In reply to a post by charlestown:

There is no socket as such in the lounge. It's just a wire leading from the bottom of the faceplate in the hallway that is tacked around the edge of the skirting board and goes into the lounge. It eventually plugs into a micro-filter and from there to the router.

So just a normal Sky box phone line extension - I think the bell wire is generally connected up in those?

Quite a lot of installations have the master socket in the garage. In which case the whole question starts from scratch .

Including how does the line get from the garage to the hall. Or would that be straight through a common wall? Don't remove the skirting board wire from the hall socket until we are dead sure it doesn't have a spur into the garage "master".

The OP thinks it was wired by an electrician. Not by Sky. Goodness knows what is in there.

The Freesat box is brand new and has built in wifi, which I can set up for him and the computer also operates via wifi. The whole idea was to stop him handing over £90 a month to Sky for the dubious privilege of slow broadband and watching Emmerdale on ITV...

He is using the Freesat box as well to access Netflix and at present it has an ethernet cable attaching to the router, but a 38mbps connection should be more than adequate to stream HD content over wifi through Netflix.

The phone is a modern DECT setup with a single handset. The base unit is on a cabinet in front of that faceplate and connected via that micro-filter shown in that first image, though I actually wondered if that filter would be needed.

Edited by charlestown (Sat 31-Mar-18 19:47:51)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The OP thinks it was wired by an electrician. Not by Sky. Goodness knows what is in there.

Sure Looks like we might be moving towards a totally wireless set up. That Sky box extension could be carefully removed and in the short term phone and router connected to the hall socket using a dangly filter.

I'll have to have a good look around on Monday and try to see what is going on. I lived in this house as a child, but all of this was long before the internet even existed. There has only ever been one phone that I know of and it was always in the hallway.

Like many older houses they were well built, but not always setup for modern fittings. If I went into the loft now I doubt I'd find a convenient point with antenna sockets by the loft hatch or cross beams at standard distances for loft boards. My house is 10 years old and anything I pick off a shelf at B&Q just seems to fit.

As long as the connection is stable and the wifi doesn't drop that would be the easiest solution by far. I know he always gets a full strength signal in the dining room with the Sky router in the lounge, so I don't anticipate any great problems there. I have the same Vodafone router at my house and it works fine over a longer distance on different floors, so that part should be fine.