It's possible your attainable speeds are much higher as you are on a 40/10 product and at maximum speed for that product.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

No way to slim it down

I beg to differ. The initial surface pattress can be a sunken standard electrical metal box, thus saving 20mm in the stack height.

You probably would not wish to do a conversion yourself, and strictly you should not interfere with the master socket, but flush telephone sockets have been a common feature in homes over the last decade.

That is not to say that the task is beyond an experienced DIY person.

My original master socket was a recessed one, and the house was built in the early seventies.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

My original master socket was a recessed one, and the house was built in the early seventies.

Ah but while house builds of that decade [70s] might well of had flush phone sockets, the concept of a master socket being the demarcation point between the incoming service and extension wiring had yet to be introduced. For example, an exterior, or interior, junction box for a single line often had wiring spun off in all different directions to several flush sockets throughout the home.

In my case the internal phone wiring was installed, with flush sockets, by the builder with an array of un-terminated cables ending up in the loft. When ordering a phone service, I had to pay a fee to BT for the wiring to be tested and then connected to the incoming service.

On installation of FTTC, the preferred arrangement is to have the master socket located next to a desktop computer, so the original wiring arrangement often needs changing to achieve this. It means that having an engineer install can be very advantageous.

When they built this house it was the only socket in the house, and apart from a plugged in extension for sky it was the only socket when we bought the house in 2002. The incoming line comes up from underground, so no other connections in our case.

Needless to say it has been altered since - see the picture guide in my signature. When we had FTTC installed the engineer used my existing Cat 5e extension to move the master socket to my server room - I didn't like the stacked master socket arrangement in my hallway. We just have a flush blanking plate now with the cables jelly crimped behind it.

Edited by R0NSKI (Sat 08-Feb-14 17:49:45)

just out of curiosity whats your speeds and ping like on the second FTTC connection you said you have and who is it with? (whats pings like on sky connection also)