Another master socket question

Hello,

I have Googled this in depth, spoken with my ISP (zen) and BT (via call centre's abroad) and I still have no definitive answer, so if anyone can help, I'd be very grateful.

Like many people, my master socket is in an inconvenient place and I need the fibre installation placed at the site of an extension socket. The wiring is: Master socket has 2 extensions cables wired into it. One goes to a phone the other goes to my office with a phone and adsl broadband. So this is a star arrangement of extensions from the master socket, not a chain.

I want the office one to become the new master socket so that the VDSL modem and router can be sited in the only possible place.

The cable used for the office extension is termed “Telephone Cable 3 Pair 6 Core” (Screwfix product 17421). The run is 8m long. This cabling was only recently done into a new part of the house and I only wish I’d used cat5 or 6 and probably none of this would be an issue.

The question is: can the office extension be converted to a master socket considering it is connected to the current master with non-twisted pair cable?

If not, I can try to replace the cable run with cat5 by cutting the extension at the master socket and taping cat5 to the end and pulling it though along the same route as the phone cable (behind plaster board, into loft space and back down behind plasterboard). This is ambitious and may not work but it’s all I can think of to route the cable without holes in brand new walls.

Or I can ask BT to move the master by digging outside and changing the entry point into the house (expensive). Or I can ask the engineer when he arrives but he might say that it’s not doable and then I would have abortive install charges (85 +vat I'm told) as I can’t site the modem and/or router at the site of the current master and won’t abide the 30m extension offered by Openreach.

Please let me know the answer if you have one.

Rich

you might get them to use that cable if you end up with one of the new "army" guys, but you dont want any untwisted / flat cable on dsl lines let alone vdsl. If however you get a proper engineer he should refuse to use that cable.
If your ISP has selected the "home wiring solution" option for the order then the engineer will either internally or externally run telephone cable and re-site your master socket, or run a cat5 data extension to your desired location.
It used to be a case that this was done on all jobs but I have seen some ISPs order fibre without this so check with your isp.

According to the engineer that installed my FTTC you cannot have any telephone extensions coming off prior to the master socket. So if you made the master socket the one in your office then the telephone that runs off an extension from your current master socket will not work. This is because of the interference from the VDSL signal.

Thanks for the responses. I will see what I can do about moving the master.
Rich

Why not lay CAT5 between the two points, with slack at either end. This way, the engineer can either provide the NTE where you want it (most likely) or after fit the RJ45 jacks, and use this to feed from the VDSL modem fitted by your current NTE to the router in the office where you want it.

In reply to a post by Chris:

According to the engineer that installed my FTTC you cannot have any telephone extensions coming off prior to the master socket.

I'm not sure that is correct. Maybe Zarjaz will clarify.

The cable from the pole to my house is attached to the south-west corner gable, nearest to it. Not surprisingly. From there there was an external wire round the house to the middle of the east wall, where it came in to what I thought was the master. From there one wire upstairs to a couple of extensions, and one went back out and round to the middle of the north wall and in to another extension. All sockets were LJ 2s.

A few years ago that wiring needed replacing, but the engineer told me what I thought was the master wasn't, and that it didn't need to be the first one on the incoming line so long as there was one in the circuit. It happened to be the one on the north wall, though it then turned out that was the first one. Very strange siting, as the socket itself was, (still is though unused), in an idiotic place, preventing the back door fully opening!

The replacement cable was very helpfully taken by the engineer along to near the south-east corner and in through a new hole in the south wall to a brand new NTE5 in the small bedroom. No extensions.

According to the engineer that installed my FTTC you cannot have any telephone extensions coming off prior to the master socket.

That's correct for a current FTTC connection, the fitted faceplate filter should be the first point/NTE, nowt teed in before.

A few years ago that wiring needed replacing, but the engineer told me what I thought was the master wasn't, and that it didn't need to be the first one on the incoming line so long as there was one in the circuit.

That's correct for telephony, as long as theres a capacitor in the circuit somewhere. This is what the engineer meant.

The replacement cable was very helpfully taken by the engineer along to near the south-east corner and in through a new hole in the south wall to a brand new NTE5 in the small bedroom. No extensions.

Sadly, the truth is more like that the suggested new point was easier for the engineer.

Thanks for that about the wiring setup . That also explains another question, about what is sometimes done on FTTC of wiring through to the existing extension, putting the NTE5 there, and wiring back to the existing NTE5 and replacing it with an LJ2 extension socket. I was having a problem with the logic of that. Though even now it sounds like "rules" rather than technical necessity. I reckon the OR modem on a dangly filter wherever the customer's existing ADSLx router is will work, subject to any degradation that they may already unwittingly have on ADSLx.

The replacement cable was very helpfully taken by the engineer along to near the south-east corner and in through a new hole in the south wall to a brand new NTE5 in the small bedroom. No extensions.

Sadly, the truth is more like that the suggested new point was easier for the engineer.

Not sad at all . It was I who brought it up, as she was muttering about the problem of getting to the north wall master which would never be used anyway, and that would also have meant I needed an extension running to somewhere. She asked if it would be OK in the hall, the one I thought was the master on the east wall. I said better still up in the spare bedroom.

Both of us happy, as even that was easier and quicker for her than the hallway.

I wish the engineer that visited me had been so accommodating as I ended up with the new VDSL box where the old master socket was in the hallway when it would have been easier all round to enter into the roof space near where the wire comes from the pole and into my converted loft where my office is located and computers. Until I get round to cabling Cat6 from the hall up to the loft via a route yet to be determined I have to rely on wifi access only. Apart from occasionally hard wiring in my macbook and using it on the hall table for the odd test.

I wonder whether I can ask a BT Engineer friend (providing he didn't take redundancy terms) to move it?

Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.
George Bernard Shaw