Hi Batboy,

I'm going to have to take another look, which I can't do at present. I'm pretty sure there were only 2 wires, but I need to double checkthat I was looking at the right thing. I'll report back once I'm able to get access again...

Thanks and Happy New Year!

The incoming connection is just 2 wires and the outgoing extension wiring is often 3 wires - a pair for the phone signal and 1 wire of a pair for the ring signal. The other wire of the pair is unused. The problem is that the single ring wire tends to pick up interference and modern phones don't even need a 3rd wire so it can be disconnected.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

So you will only see 2 wires coming in and 3 wires going out.

You are confusing OP! He is looking at faceplate. There are no wires on that coming in; only going out. The input signal is carried from the test socket to the male plug on back of faceplate, not as wires.

As the OP sees only 2 wires on back of faceplate, they are the (only) wires going out and as there is only 2, ergo there is no ring wire.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Thu 01-Jan-15 19:41:51)

A photo as always will help to deal with any confusion.

There's no confusion except yours. OP stated categorically there were only 2 wires on faceplate.

For the sake of peace and harmony I will double check when I can and report back.

Good idea, I think the real problem may simply be tiredness after a big night

Don't worry. The nights are getting smaller now.

Whilst you are checking are you able to temporarily plug your router into the test socket at the master? Whatever it gets at that point (taking account speed and margin) is likely to be the absolute best you can hope for. That gives you a yardstick to work from as to how close you are getting to the lines optimum.

Indeed!

I've been mulling over how to do this without inconveniencing others using the communal entrance. The main problem is that I will have to trail a mains lead down the stairs for the router and keep various leads out of the way to ensure people don't trip or get entangled. As you say, this will give a definitive answer on how much improvement is achievable. Once I've found the way I'll post results.

Cheers

Edited by Mygri (Fri 02-Jan-15 17:40:01)