Mains power needed close to master phone socket?

I was perfectly happy with my 65-70Mbps speed on my old Talktalk contract, but when it came to renewal, the chepest deal they offered was upgrade to Fibre150.

I have no power sockets within reach of my master phone socket so I've always connected my router via a phone extension and microfilter in my study. This has always been fine.

But when the Openreach engineer came to upgrade me it then became apparent that I'd need to connect my router via an RJ45 lead, which I can't do without pulling up floorboads in 3 different rooms to install a CAT6 cable. Alternatively, I'll need to get an electrician in to install a dedicated power socket within reach of my phone master socket.

I could stick with the 65Mbps service. But will I be forced to either get that power socket installed or pull up the floorboards in 3 years time with the POTS switch-off? If so, I might as well bite the bullet now.

If you currently have the router in your study is there a way that OpenReach could deliver the fibre termination directly into the study - it doesn't need to be where the master socket is as it isn't related to the old copper connection? By actually terminating the fibre in your study you could have the NTE and the router in the study in place of your current router.

In reply to a post by pleriche:

I was perfectly happy with my 65-70Mbps speed on my old Talktalk contract, but when it came to renewal, the chepest deal they offered was upgrade to Fibre150.

I have no power sockets within reach of my master phone socket so I've always connected my router via a phone extension and microfilter in my study. This has always been fine.

But when the Openreach engineer came to upgrade me it then became apparent that I'd need to connect my router via an RJ45 lead, which I can't do without pulling up floorboads in 3 different rooms to install a CAT6 cable. Alternatively, I'll need to get an electrician in to install a dedicated power socket within reach of my phone master socket.

I could stick with the 65Mbps service. But will I be forced to either get that power socket installed or pull up the floorboards in 3 years time with the POTS switch-off? If so, I might as well bite the bullet now.

Power is needed,but don't let Openreach intimidate you into getting a sparkie in. It may be messy, but would a mains extension lead be possible ?

In principle, yes, but either Openreach would then have to pull up several floorboards or they'd have to run it around skirting boards, up the stairs and around doors. I don't much like wires tacked to skirting boards.

The key question is whether the VOIP-enabled router can be connected to the master socket via an old-fashioned analogue phone cable? But then I'd need to install another old fashioned analogue cable to connect the VOIP router to my DECT master phone!

Are they not able to run it around the outside or are you in a flat?

In reply to a post by ian72:

If you currently have the router in your study is there a way that OpenReach could deliver the fibre termination directly into the study - it doesn't need to be where the master socket is as it isn't related to the old copper connection? By actually terminating the fibre in your study you could have the NTE and the router in the study in place of your current router.

It could be G.fast rather than FTTP that the OP is getting. If so they will need sockets near the master socket to power the G.fast modem.

pleriche - Is it possible to confirm whether it is G.fast or FTTP?

Edited by troublegum (Thu 24-Feb-22 17:46:56)

In reply to a post by pleriche:

In principle, yes, but either Openreach would then have to pull up several floorboards or they'd have to run it around skirting boards, up the stairs and around doors. I don't much like wires tacked to skirting boards.

The key question is whether the VOIP-enabled router can be connected to the master socket via an old-fashioned analogue phone cable? But then I'd need to install another old fashioned analogue cable to connect the VOIP router to my DECT master phone!

The power is needed for the ONT, which is in effect a replacement for your master socket, you then connect the ONT to Router with a Ethernet cable.
As mentioned above, maybe you can (like us) have the fibre come into house at a different point.
p.s. I see you might be talking about G.Fast, that's different.

Edited by burble (Thu 24-Feb-22 17:51:38)

It sounds more like a G.Fast install.
There can be a massive difference between sync at the Master Socket and sync at an extension socket so the engineer would be correct in this case.

It's very hard to tell from the Talktalk blurb whether I'm getting G.FAST or what. I'm currently on their Fibre65 package with an old fashioned master socket just having a flat telephone socket, and I'm supposed to be moving to their Fibre150 with a master socket having both flat telephone and RJ45 sockets. It's all delivered over a single twisted pair. There's no question of fibre coming any closer than the street cabinet a couple of hundred yards away.

So my key question remains: when POTS-switchoff happens and I get sent a VOIP-capable router, will I still be able to connect it via the flat telephone socket and my existing extension wiring I installed 30 years ago, or will I be forced to connect it via the RJ45 socket, requiring some rearrangement on my part?

In reply to a post by pleriche:

It's very hard to tell from the Talktalk blurb whether I'm getting G.FAST or what. I'm currently on their Fibre65 package with an old fashioned master socket just having a flat telephone socket, and I'm supposed to be moving to their Fibre150 with a master socket having both flat telephone and RJ45 sockets. It's all delivered over a single twisted pair. There's no question of fibre coming any closer than the street cabinet a couple of hundred yards away.

From that description it sounds very much like G.Fast; Talktalk's product naming scheme is very confusing.

Your new master socket is not technically RJ45, and you definitely cannot plug ethernet into it, but it's a similar connector (RJ11? 6P4C? I'm not sure of the exact spec)

It still only carries the one copper pair with the broadband signal, but the faceplate has a built-in filter, to separate the broadband signal from your extension wiring.

In reply to a post by pleriche:

So my key question remains: when POTS-switchoff happens and I get sent a VOIP-capable router, will I still be able to connect it via the flat telephone socket and my existing extension wiring I installed 30 years ago, or will I be forced to connect it via the RJ45 socket, requiring some rearrangement on my part?

The latter. The same is ideally the case for VDSL - you *should* connect your router directly at the master socket, because performance suffers if you hang it off a microfilter on an extension socket. It's often acceptable for VDSL, especially since you're so close to the cabinet, but G.Fast is *very* sensitive to wiring issues.

When POTS is turned off, your broadband becomes SOGEA or SOGfast (SO = "standalone"). The voice service, if your ISP continues to provide it, will be from a port on the router. It's your (powered) router which provides the analogue voice signal and the line voltage to drive a phone - instead of the exchange.

So if you want to use your existing extension wiring, you'll need to make a separate copper connection *back* from your router's POTS port to the master socket - or to any other convenient extension socket where it can connect to the extension wiring.