In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Having a spur before the VDSL modem is not good practice as you get reflections which will interfere with the signal. If you disconnect the other spur from the junction box you could find out what improvement that gives. You could then decide what to do next!

Yes, though as by any interpretation its within BTs 'demarcation' I'm somewhat loath to make changes there myself, do you know where I can find images of the inside of that external box ? If I knew what was inside and what I was likely to have to deal with I'd give it a go.

Edited by deleted (Fri 22-Mar-19 19:32:06)

Something like This.
Might not have the screw terminals, just crimps

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Something like This

�Don�t worry Sir, I think I�ve found the fault. �

In reply to a post by chrisstiles:

If I knew what was inside and what I was likely to have to deal with I'd give it a go.

Judging by the first picture, I'd say moths, caterpillars, spiders...

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Something like This

�Don�t worry Sir, I think I�ve found the fault. �

Well quite .. i was trying to avoid that.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by chrisstiles:

If I knew what was inside and what I was likely to have to deal with I'd give it a go.

Judging by the first picture, I'd say moths, caterpillars, spiders...

Yeah, had a look inside, and the wiring is jelly crimped rather than a junction box - so i'll need some of those if I want to take one of the wires out.

The large slug inside was a surprise though - presumably it had grown in the box.

Do you need both sockets?

If not I'd be very tempted to just get some wire snips and "accidentally" cut the the one you don't need close to the crimps.

If you do need it then ideally you'd need to rewire the second socket inside from the a single master socket anyway.

Edited by alexatkin (Mon 25-Mar-19 02:30:10)

In reply to a post by alexatkin:

Do you need both sockets?

If not I'd be very tempted to just get some wire snips and "accidentally" cut the the one you don't need close to the crimps.

If you do need it then ideally you'd need to rewire the second socket inside from the a single master socket anyway.

Yeah, this is the second choice after using the crimps - the main goal being to keep things in a state that avoids repercussions with OR should I ever need work done on my line.

The main reason I brought the crimps up is that they are - as I understand - a fairly recentish thing (I moved in around 5 years back), certainly within the timeframe when ADSL was prevalent and star wiring was a bad idea, and yet someone who was presumably from OR has done work on the property and not remedied the wiring (I assume they must have told the pensioner who was the previous resident that they'd lose their extension).

Edited by deleted (Mon 25-Mar-19 11:44:46)

In reply to a post by chrisstiles:

Yeah, this is the second choice after using the crimps - the main goal being to keep things in a state that avoids repercussions with OR should I ever need work done on my line.

I very much doubt an Openreach engineer would recrimp the joint if asked to remove one of the extensions. They would just cut the wires close to the crimp. Note if you have recently moved in you can just plead ignorance and blame the previous occupants

If you do decide to go down recrimping the joint, which is probably what I would do, then while the crimps are cheap, couple of quid on eBay for 10, you will need to spend ~£10 on a pair of proper jelly crimp pliers too. You could use normal pliers but the teeth will leave marks on the crimps making it obviously a DIY job.

As a postscript, I thought people here might find the resolution to this both informative and amusing.

I raised a fault against landline quality against my ISP (to be fair there was some constant low level crackling on the line), after a number of line tests they finally diagnosed a ... bridge tap (which of course is star wiring by any other name -- but they had more or less signalled that they were unlikely to deal with star wiring itself)

An engineer was duly dispatched and he regularised both sockets, disconnected one socket and reconnected it as an extension, and attached appropriate faceplates. As it was in resolution of a line fault, it came in at no charge.