Moving master socket (but cable is slightly damaged....)

I'm wanting to have my master socket moved from the hallway into my lounge and i'm wondering if anyone can give me a ball park figure on how much this should cost? Or should i get it done for free.....read on!

The drop wire comes to the house wall that the master socket will be installed on in the lounge so would the drop wire go direct into the master socket or would they fit a junction box somwwhere and take another cable into the master socket?

Currently it comes through the same part of house wall as mentioned above, through our downstairs WC (but i think the cable is behind some tiles), into an RF3 junction box in the hallway and then a cable is taken from there to the master socket. The cable into the master socket runs across the doorway into the lounge and hence its trodden on all the time (its under the carpet of course) and has probably split along a good 12 inches of the cable sheathing. It seems the previous owners of the house have selotaped it up as best as they can although the cores in the cable appear to be no longer twisted (this might not help the noise spikes i see from time to time on my line when using routerstats and which have in the past caused losses of sync (voice side has never had a problem though)).

So the fact its been damaged to some degree and is BT property should they replace it for free (assume the master socket stays where it is for now)?
Damage was only caused by BT's location of the socket and shoddy routing of the cable!!!

The location may have been at the behest of the previous resident and that is what BT will say, particularly as running under carpet is not standard BT practice, they will run cable further to avoid this usually.

The cost of a master socket relocation £120 to £180

It is a case of how do you prove that BT put the cable where it is

Ok thanks. Going to get the socket moved I think then.
Price request was so I can at least weigh up whether bt are ripping me off when I ask for a price!

Oh and do you know if they would run the drop wire to the mater socket direct as it would just be going straight through the wall into the back of the new socket or would they fit an external junction box the run another cable from there ?

There's no reason why they can't run it directly.

Although to save some money you could do some DIY

Yea i know i could do it myself but just a little wary as i know your not supposed to touch it.

For info these are the pics of the damaged cable, i also forgot the cable runs infront of the downstairs WC so also gets stood on alot and has also split open but hasnt had any selotape added to it.

Pic of cable with selotape!

Pic of cable without selotape!

If the new NTE will sit straight on the wall where it comes through from outside, then, no, no junction box ...... unless, you mention you have an RF3 filter fitted, what was that put in for ?? If it was put in for BB reasons, then I'd suggest this was relocated too. If there will be a standard NTE back box at the new location, you can take the guts of the RF3 out and they will fit in the back of the new NTE, very neat !

Well i would do that as a free repair and be happy to put the nte5 were you like as long as the cable run would take no longer then the time to run a cable to were the nte5 is now.

See a fair bit of damaged cable as per op just means it was not put in right years ago.

The RF3 box was there when i moved in in Dec 2004. The previous occupants only had dialup.

http://www.bttorj45.com/bt80brf3.html
Reduces chance of REIN although saying that i do get noise spikes that take out my ADSL and had BT out a few times to try and solve it but never really did.
Then again my split cable (its about 5m long) is after this (between the RF3 and NTE5) so looks like it wouldnt help if there was interference local to me....

I would hope just going into a master socket without this you could get master sockets with this built in?

Edited by deleted (Wed 04-Jan-12 18:06:10)

Have you ever seen this type of damage (currently it seems cores are not twisted but not physically damaged) cause problems with noise on ADSL lines?

Those are still twisted, not very tightly together which is how twisting minimises interference but you can see the twists are still there.

We just had ours replaced and relocated.
BT quoted me £130 for the move plus £75 for the socket.
I cancelled that and got it done through my ISP at £130 plus VAT.

18 years ago, a BT engineer told us that the box in the garage was leading up to the master socket in the main bedroom. He installed two extensions from that.

Last week, the engineer that came found the box in the garage to be an extension, but wasn't sure where it came from.
It was as he was preparing to lead the new cable out of the garage and around the outside of the house, into the room where required, that he found the actual cable where it comes in (opposite wall to the box in the garage). We surmised that the cable must have been led under the garage floor by the builder! He disabled the box leading into the house and to extensions, and now we just have a master socket - no extensions required.

It made his job easier and gave us a far better solution. Immediately had more speed & no connection drops.

Maybe the pictures are deceiving but they dont look very twisted in reality to me.
Not sure what the twists per M is for standard phone cable though (coming from an aircraft electrics background there doesnt appear to be much twisting of pairs!).

It is a fairly low twist rate, and each is different. I have the number somewhere but cannot locate them.

You sure it is an RF3 ? They look the same as a BT80 or 78. It's the little black cylinder inside that differentiates the look of it.

'Reduces chance of REIN ' Nah, never seen it clear one up yet.

'you could get master sockets with this built in? '

No, you rip the guts out of one, and it will fit in the back off the NTE back box.

Couldn't you just fit a RF3 Junction box to the incoming BT wire and then run a new length of cable to a new Master socket sited pretty much wherever you wanted it?

I could but it would be run around the hall and into the lounge and i've redecorated the lounge in the last 18 months and want a neater job.

Yes its an RF3, it says it on the box inside and the interior matches whats shown on the internet.

If i was to replace the RF3 -> Master socket cable that runs through the hallway would you use CW1308?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/telephone-cable-type-cw1308-66

I guess using either 2 pairs or 3 pairs doesnt matter? (only 1 pair is used anyway)

Or am i better going for :- http://cpc.farnell.com/pro-power/2-pair-100m/2-pair-...

Reading this thread it seems the Maplin stuff might not be up to scratch...

Edited by deleted (Sat 07-Jan-12 11:53:19)