ONT to house wiring

I have just been connected to Swish (aka as Cuckoo?). It has been a rather fraught process which I will make a separate pst about. I now have fibre broadband with my telephone on a temporary number awaiting my current number to be ported.

I now have a Swish ONT with an RJ11 connecter and I have house wiring with several BT sockets that currently terminates in the back of my BT filtered NTE master socket. I need to modify the wiring so I can connect my cordless phone master station into the ONT. For now I have a Swish provided RJ11 to BT socket with a phone plugged into the BT socket. This is in a hall cupboard and not very convenient!

The ONT has an RJ11 connector that currently goes into a Swish provided RJ11 (plugged into the ONT with a BT socket into which I can plug a standard BT plug to connect a phone. This is all working but I want to connect theONT into my house wiring so I can connect to my cordless phone in another room.

I can very easily remove my current NTE near the ONT and replace it with a standard BT socket proving connection to my house phone wiring but to connect this socket to the ONT I need either a BT plug to BT plug cable which would go into the Swish provided RJ11 to BT adaptor or I could get a BT plug to RJ11 plug to just join my hose wiring into the ONT voice port which would be neater.

The simple question is what cable do I need? Amazon sell RJ11 to BT cables but there are choices and I need advice as to which to choose. The choices are 2 wire or 4 wire and then straight or crossover.

I am guessing that 2/4 wire is associated with the Bell wire or not. I think my cordless phone probably does not need the bell wire and therefore a 2 wire option would work. Is that a valid assumption?

The other choice is straight or crossover and here I would have to flip a coin. I would logically expect a straight rather than a crossover cable would be appropriate. Am I right?

Good to hear that you finally got setup with Swish, I've been meaning to send you a quick note.

Re voice cabling - you only need a two-wire adapter cable. Polarity doesn't matter.

The most important thing is to completely disconnect the old incoming BT line from your internal extension wiring.

Yes I know about that. I am intending to remove the NTE and replace it with a simple BT slave socket. All the telephone sockets in my house are connected there. I may pull the external BT line up into the loft. We are in a bungalow! I did move the NTE to a different room about 8 years ago! BT have since been to our property and did not complain!

Swish have plugged a RJ11 to BT socket adapter and there is a phone plugged into that for now. It does not connect to the house wiring. That is OK for testng but I want a neater permanent solution.

All my phones, bar one, do not need the bell wire although it is wired to most of the BT sockets throughout the house. It has been removed from one. I can manage without that one old phone - the BT socket it is normally plugged into has unintentionally had the bell wire removed. All other phones are cordless and the base station does not need the bell wire. It is currently in the cupboard next to the ONT,

The Swish ONT and the router can both be conveniently plugged into my UPS so, if the Swish network is also resilient to power outage, I can still make/receive calls.

My cordless phones however do rely on the base station having mains power so there is a case for having a simple unpowered phone near the router. My UPS is sized to power my NAS for 30 minutes so If I switch this off I could probably power my broadband for several hours.

Is it likely that the Swish and any other network components have battery backup?

In reply to a post by steelej02:

Is it likely that the Swish and any other network components have battery backup?

Openreach have power backup for their FTTP network courtesy of having the powered equipment tucked away (for the better part) in handover exchanges.

AltNets are a bit of a variable feast by comparison, as they will typically provide active service from either street cabinets or mini-exchange sites. Some of these like CityFibre have diesel genset backup at these facilities, akin to Openreach.

However if an AltNet has their active OLT equipment stashed away in a cabinet, it's likely to conclude they have battery-based UPS backup.

The people to confirm what their autonomy is like in a power outage are Swish.

Edited by Pheasant (Sat 25-Jan-25 17:54:07)

Polarity doesn't matter.

… not always the case Pheasant. In the second post the OP mentions

although it is wired to most of the BT sockets throughout the house.

… a reversal somewhere amongst all that can cause faint transmission, and sometimes constant bell ringing. (This being less likely as it also reads like the bell wire has been pulled already)

The bell wire is wired to all BT extension sockets bar one. That one socket has had the bell wire cut short by a well meaning alarm installer that replaced that telephone socket for me. Ironically that is the only phone socket that has the only phone plugged in that NEEDS a bell wire to ring. In fact it is only there so that I can make calls if power fails. I have never bothered to reattach the bell wire and I suspect I will never bother. This outlet used to be the master NTE until I moved it many years ago so it was next to my NAS and UPS and I wanted my router there for direct Ethernet connection to both devices. The fibre ONT and router are also now in the same cupboard and it is convenient to power these from my UPS.

This is all making me think that I should just get a two wire connection from the ONT and ditch the bell wire completely. If I decide I ever DO need the bell wire could I just use an ADSL filter for that phone? I do have a few of those left over from many years ago. I seem to recall that these do have the capacitator to drive the bell wire to the phone.

Maybe take this as an opportunity to rethink all that extension wiring? If the majority won’t be used, do you really need it? Especially if you have a DECT phone base for day to day convenience + a hardwired phone in parallel for any occasions when a power outage occurs.

The router analogue voice port facility will be more reliable with a simpler / ‘cleaner’ set of house extension wiring hanging off the end.

The DECT phone master has to be connected to the existing BT cabling as it is in a room some distance away from the ONT. This master contains the answerphone features so it cannot be put into the cupboard on a permanent basis. It is however temporarily there.

I don't wish to rewire the existing telephone sockets, at least not yet. I think the only important one used for the DECT phone base station might be in a tube behind the plaster but am not certain - it may need the wall chasing out to rewire it. This cabling and the BT socket being used were there when we moved in 8 years ago.

The ONT, Router and the existing BT master socket are all in the cupboard about 50 cm apart. I installed this master socket myself when I moved the master socket from a different room. I intend to replace this with a simple BT socket.

The ONT does NOT ring the old phone when it is plugged into the RJ11 to BT adaptor provided by Swish I am therefore concluding that the ONT does NOT generate a signal on the bell wire and therefore does not need a 4 wire connection. Is this correct?

I am then left with a choice between ordering a straight or crossover two wire cable.

In reply to a post by steelej02:

The ONT does NOT ring the old phone when it is plugged into the RJ11 to BT adaptor provided by Swish I am therefore concluding that the ONT does NOT generate a signal on the bell wire and therefore does not need a 4 wire connection. Is this correct?

I am then left with a choice between ordering a straight or crossover two wire cable.

The voice port on their ONT will be 2-wire (just the middle pins on the RJ11) - depending on the age of the phone used it may need an adapter cable with a ring capacitor.