FTTH connecting fibre phone to original copper master socket

Hi.

I have recently had BT Fibre to the house installed. One thing I completely overlooked, is that my original copper house wiring will be completely unused. For some reason I thought just the broadband would come fibre optically, and the phone would still remain the same.
Anyway the copper master socket is in the living room together with the new fibre connection next to it. The house has some internal copper wiring allowing a phone in the bedroom and the kitchen. This was installed when we moved in, and don't know exactly how it works but it seems there is a Socket which sits directly over the master socket and this provides the connection to the other sockets around the house.
I would really still like to use this wiring and connect the phone to the socket in the kitchen (as before) but don't know how to accomplish this.

I would also like to add that I know this is strictly not a broadband question so maybe in the wrong forum, and also that I could use a phone system that has a hub connected directly to the fibre phone point and a wireless phone in the kitchen, I'd like to call this plan B. I have also tried to phone BT support but the kind african gentleman said it was not possible, although to be honest I didn't understand much he was saying.

So in short I have a fibre phone socket next to a copper phone socket, how can I connect one to the other?

All answers welcome, thanks in advance.
Richard.

Edited by rjleiser (Mon 07-Jan-13 20:02:37)

Can you provide photos of the two sockets please ?

Are you saying you have an FTTP service ? If so, then the engineer should have made the main house (copper) NTE live with the dial tone from the Fibre modem.

Should be easy enough to do yourself, but the photos will help us by allowing more accurate description.

So are you saying you have a phone connection through the new kit, but all extensions are now disabled?

Fear not - Zarjaz will sort you out .

ok, links to images:
copper master socket as it is now

fibre modem with phone plug

phone plug

So as I understand, everything is now coming via fibre, the phone and the broadband.
The phone plugs in to the fibre modem the enginner mounted on my wall.

The engineer did not make the main copper live as you described, or ateast I don't think so, the phone doesn't work if plugged in. I suggested to the engineer that we have the phone in the kitchen, but not quite nowing at the time that the original copper line would be made completely redundant. For this part I'm slightly annoyed that he didn't say something at this point. A few days later we tried to make a phone call and reading one of the many BT emails closely found out that the copper line is disabled and that I should move my phone over to the fibre modem, I had to ring a special 5 digit number to activate the service.

I haven't shown you the inside of the master socket, but the socket plate that you can see sits on top of the real master socket. Previous to now I only ever had an adsl filter on here, and just had a the phone plugged in at the kitchen.

Hope that all makes sense.

Post deleted by omgFTTC

The answer is to open up the copper master socket and disconnect your extensions, then move them to a new secondary socket hooked up to a flying lead. The master socket from your old incoming copper pair installation is an NTE5 type, so you can do this easily and legally - unscrew the front panel, and pull it away from the rest of the assembly, then, noting which wire goes to which number, pull the wires out of the back of the faceplate.

You cannot legally touch the wiring to the back part of the NTE5 - nor would you want to, as that is the (now dead) incoming copper connection. I guess that abandonment of the copper pair must mean you are in one of the trial Fibre Only Exchange areas.

You then need to mount your own secondary socket on the wall, to which you connect the extension wires and a short flying lead with a BT plug on the end (to plug into the fibre ONT in your photo), following the correct colour codes. You connect the wires from the extension using the numbers you noted when removing the wires from the NTE5 faceplate. If necessary, use a multimeter to figure out the colour code in your flying lead.

The easiest way to install this will be to use a secondary socket with screw connections, which means you will not need a punch-down too for the IDC blocks or to procure/make a flying lead with solid core cable (most cables with BT plugs are stranded, which will not reliably connect to IDC blocks).

The parts cost is minimal, though this does require a little electrical competence and a few basic tools. I'm surprised that Openreach don't offer this as a no-cost option if the intention is to discontinue voice service via copper pair after FTTP installation.

Edited by David_W (Tue 08-Jan-13 08:27:08)

Can we see all the cinnectors on the modem to 100% verify its fttp.

Fibre voice access is a rare beast, usually voice continues over the copper. You in deddington or another FoX area perhaps?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Can we see all the cinnectors on the modem to 100% verify its fttp.

Fibre voice access is a rare beast, usually voice continues over the copper. You in deddington or another FoX area perhaps?

Yes. I wonder if a battery back-up is provided so that the phone can still be used in the event of a power failure.

The picture the OP has posted looks like the BT FTTP ONT and unlike either of the BT FTTC modems, though it's a shame that it doesn't show the optical port to confirm this.

I was presuming FOX  - as FVA is otherwise very rare.

Here is my exchange.
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/EACAX

Yeah I guess it's FTTP (rather than FTTH), the fibre cable comes all the way to the house, rather than stopping at the cabinet. I'm not at home atm so a picture of the optical bit will have to come later.

It seems David_W has the idea, that picture looks identical to my fibre modem, and splicing a connection from one to the other is what I thought the solution may be.

Is this something though BT should offer?

The email I recieved from BT when the penny dropped:

How to activate your new BT Fibre Home Phone service

Please follow the set-up video or these simple steps to activate your new BT Fibre Home Phone service.
1.Make sure your new Openreach Fibre Modem is switched on and check that the Tel1 light's constantly green
2.You now need to switch your main phone socket from copper to your new fibre service. To do this, slide back the spring-loaded cover on the top of your socket and you'll see a small switch. Use a slim object like a pen to firmly move the switch from 'Copper' to 'Fibre'. Then release the spring-loaded cover. (If you haven't got a 'Copper to Fibre' switch on your main phone socket, just unplug your phone from the phone socket and re-plug it into 'voice port one' on your Openreach Fibre Modem.)
3.Once you've completed steps 1 and 2, you need to activate your phone service - dial 142599 (between 8.30am and 4pm Mon to Fri) then follow the instructions for activation

If you don't follow these steps, your BT Fibre Home Phone service will automatically activate and your existing phone service will transfer. This should happen sometime on the next working day (up to three days, if there's a weekend in the way) - after this, your old phone service won't work and you'll need to follow step 2 only.