Question, would this improve my speed?

I have a quick question about phone cable length that I am thinking of reducing...

Currently as I have said before in other posts that our line comes into our house through our living room wall, into a gutted BT80 Junction box, that has 2 cables coming out from it.

Actually let me show a drawing of how its set up, not really happy TBH.

Here is my awesome drawn image of how our connection is wired up at the moment, and before you ask, it was done this way by a BT Engineer, now whether it was a sub contractor I don't know, but it was done a while back.

The connection from the Data socket (top of NET5A) uses CAT5e and is about 36 feet and goes from our hallway to upstairs (middle of house) to our HH4.

Like I have already said in another post the engineer installed two BT80 boxes to save on installing cable, I know at least the first BT80 is gutted and has no board in it and the wires are GEL Crimped.

One thing I did notice was they used the same cable between the BT80 and the NTE5A box for both the main line as well as the filtered phone cable, so its using both pairs.

I am now thinking of moving my HH to our front room, along with the Master Socket, so the cable length will be the minimum that it can be going into the HH4, I plan to use my FRITZBOX! 3390 for the Wi-Fi upstairs and have that connected to our LAN and have that switched to cable mode.

Doing so will remove the 16 feet of CW1308 cable that was between the BT80 and the NTE5A along with 36 feet of CAT5e that's 52 feet of cable removed between the line entering my house and the HH4, surly that should increase speed some what

Knowing my luck it will be worse LOL.

Oh yeah, I am aware that I am not allowed to touch the BT80 and the NTE5A master Socket and the cable(s) between them, but the cable between is mine and so is the NTE5A master socket which I brought years ago when a storm took out the master socket and BT refused to replace it free of charge (YES THEY WANTED TO CHARGE US), a few years later the BT Engineer re-used them when he did his botch-up a few years ago when we got a break in the main phone cable and to save installing a new cable from the pole he just drilled another hole higher up the wall (i.e. 4 feet up) to remove the break
.
Plus I am not paying BT to come and rectify their mess they did a few years ago.

Paul.

So is the main sky box separately filtered? It is coming off before the master socket which is very bad practice for BT to do it that way - all extensions should come off after the master socket (unless it is using a different pair in the cable and effectively doing a loop back?).

In reply to a post by ian72:

So is the main sky box separately filtered? It is coming off before the master socket which is very bad practice for BT to do it that way - all extensions should come off after the master socket (unless it is using a different pair in the cable and effectively doing a loop back?).

I am guessing that what has happened is as follows:

Where "Gutted BT80" is, that is likely where the NTE5 was originally. This then went off to the extension "Second BT80."

At some stage the NTE5 was relocated, so what they did was as follows:
NTE5 moved, Gutted BT80 added, gel crimps used to extend to NTE5.

THEN: New NTE5, will loop back on itself, go into Gutted BT80, and into second BT80. Hence the master, is still a master.

This is common and absolutely fine and has almost no impact on speed normally.

The only issue is if Gutted BT80 is actually star wired, but it does not seem to be.

Can I confirm does the line go:

Incoming Line - Gutted BT 80 - NTE5 - Gutted BT 80 (looping back) - Second BT80 - sky box etc.

If so - the setup at current is good and fine.

If the setup goes

Incoming line - gutted bt 80 - NTE5 and Second BT80 (Ie two spirs from the gutted bt 80) this is bad.

In reply to a post by ian72:

So is the main sky box separately filtered? It is coming off before the master socket which is very bad practice for BT to do it that way - all extensions should come off after the master socket (unless it is using a different pair in the cable and effectively doing a loop back?).

No, all phone lines that the main phone base and all sky boxes comes off after they are filtered.

The cable between the Gutted BT80 (to free up space inside it) and the master socket i.e. CW1308 has 2 pairs.
First pair is the phone line going into the NTE5A Terminals A and B.
Second pair is the filtered line, this pair inside the NTE5A is GEL Crimped to a CW1308 cable that feeds the upstairs lines for the sky boxes.

Now the second pair inside the gutted BT80 is then GEL Crimped to a CW1308 cable that goes into the second BT80A box on the skirting board (this was the orig BT80) and that feeds the main phone base and main Sky Box.

All phone lines are filtered by the NTE5A Master Socket and if I remove the face plates all lines are dead.

The issue is I am not too happy on how its done, I should of complained back when it was done, but where they engineer said BT normal charge for this, but he will do it for free.
And the sad thing is you trust they know what they are doing and do a good job, but due to I wasn't watching them do their work, I assumed it was all ok.
Well until I took a look a few months ago that is.

And what I am worried about is BT will take one look and say that will cost £129 to resolve, now if I resolve the issue myself which I am 100% sure is no hard task being an engineer the last 30 odd years and that did some work for the MOD, the cables would be more neat and tidy and would also result in less cable and the HH would be the closest it could be.

Paul

Nope, read my reply to Ian.

The Gutted BT80 was the new addition to the wiring due to the phone line was then too short after removing the break in the cable.

The original BT80 box is still in its original location on the skirting board.

The NTE5A has always been in our hall for god knows years, ever since we trialled Home Choice, back in the 1 to 2 Mbps ADSL Days.

The original cable between the BT80 and NTE5A only used 1 pair and the phone line was connected to the NTE5A using a separate cable, at that time we had no Sky boxes and had only the one phone located in the hall so no need for any extensions upstairs..

My parents at the time must of asked him if he could move the main phone in the living room which he must of said yes and I was told by my parents that he said that BT normally charge for this but he will do it for free as its his last job.

I had at the time finished work and arrived home when he was in the middle of finishing off the job and I thought nothing of it and went to have my food.

What I did find out once he had finished was the phone line in the living room used the second pair of the cable between the BT80 and the NTE5A, thought I would of used separate cables, but he's the BT engineer and thought no more about it.

Now we seem to have been having loads of line issues so I took a closer look and saw it wired like this.

Paul

If all sockets are disabled when you remove the faceplate on the NTE5 (as you say), then the backwiring and setup is fine.

I do not personally see any issues with the setup. In fact it sounds as if it has been done well. Gaining a few metres of cable is not going to have a big impact if everything is being filtered by the NTE5.

Having gel crimps does not mean the speed / line will change significantly. In practice I've never seen any difference adding them into the mix.

My line has 2 sets of gel crimps before we hit the master socket, due to modifications overtime and line issues etc.

EDIT: BT would not see any issues with the setup either, given the faceplate is filtering correctly. Backwiring is a common practice in these situations.

To answer the question, would this increase your speed? Not enough to do it / probably not at all.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 05-May-16 13:00:10)

My line has 2 sets of gel crimps before we hit the master socket,

Unless your line is actually IN the exchange, it's gonna have a few more than that.

Although you're not allowed to touch the existing cabling - would BTO know if magically the gutted BT80 was
removed and the NTE5 put in it's place?

BTO never questioned any of the dodgy looking solutions my house had (BT30 incoming line going to a small BT master socket) when he fitted my ADSL faceplate.

I mean within the home

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

My line has 2 sets of gel crimps before we hit the master socket,

Unless your line is actually IN the exchange, it's gonna have a few more than that.

Yeah, I have seen the cabling in my exchange through a window and it looks messy.

Also what's the possibility of an ADSL2+ line card in the exchange being iffy?

The line card we was on with our last provider i.e. Zen had no issues at all and we had a stable 5.5 to 6 Mbps easy.
Now when we left Zen (brother moved out and took Zen with him) the line card in the exchange was returned into circulation and when we went with BT the line card might of been iffy due to ever since we have had issues with our connection.

Maybe its just a coincidence, I don't know.

Paul