Master socket extension wiring

Hi all,

Recently moved into a new flat - a new build which had never had BT service before. A master socket (newest type with the Openreach logo) is present in a cupboard with the electricity box and other utilities. There are also 3 extension sockets in various places around the apartment. The developer warned me that while the wiring is in the walls BT will need to connect the extensions to the master socket but I forgot to ask them to do so when they enabled the line so I'm now looking at doing it myself.

I've taken a photo of the master socket here but it was quite hard to take due to the small cupboard the socket is in.

Simple quesiton really - which of the exposed wires, if any, should I connect to which terminals on the master socket front plate to get the extension sockets to work?

As a side note the DSL (Be ADSL2+) running on the line, while decent for a very short line, is a fair bit below average for the attenuation so I'm wondering if there's anything else wrong with the wiring in that socket - can't see anything obvious though and the DSL is connected to the test socket so there's probably nothing I can do.

Apologies if this is the wrong forum for this but most of the phone wiring threads seem to be in here.

Thanks

If they have followed the colour conventions then the blue and white should go to #2 and #5 and the orang will be the ring wire which would normally go to #3 - as you say this is the latest BT socket there should be a choke in the rignwire circuit so connecting it should do no harm but it will pay to check the stats before and after to check that - recheck after dark.

Confirm the colours used by checking inside the nearest extension. As you only have one set at the master I assume they will be daisy chained on to each other so two will have cable in and out.

There is unlikley to be anythng wrong with the wiring done by BT which would affect the attenuation.

To keep the terminations as per the expected colour code, blue to position 2, white/blue to position 5, and the orange to position 3. The NTE appears to be Openreach logo'd , so it will have the bell filter choke in it already. In my experience, the builders wont have terminated the cables in the extensions either, so this would be worth checking also .... if they have, see what colours they have terminated, and follow suit or adjust accordingly.

Thanks for the quick replies.

I have tried to get into one of the extensions to have a look but they are all a very recessed type which seem to be almost painted onto the walls - even when unscrewed the plate does not want to come off and I've not tried too hard to avoid damaging my walls.

I will probably have to risk it to have a look at the wiring or indeed connect the extensions too if the builders didn't - which would be annoying as I have heavy furniture in the way of two of the sockets!

Just to clarify, I seem to have four wires coming out of the master - a blue one and a white one twisted together and separately an orange one and a white one twisted together - is that right? sorry for the confusion, I've never done this before.

Re: my DSL comment - the attenuation is fine (16 dB), it's just the "bits per tone" seems to be lower across the board than I'd expect at this attenuation.

Mark

The builders have fitted what ever they saw fit to pass muster for extension wiring. Keeping the pairs together is the important thing.
I would emphasize the importance of completely removing a extension to see whats going on inside. This is, after all, your wiring, and you can balls it up all you want.

In reply to a post by bezuk:

Just to clarify, I seem to have four wires coming out of the master - a blue one and a white one twisted together and separately an orange one and a white one twisted together - is that right?

Yes; if you look a little closer you'll see the white cables actually have a small blue band or stripe (for the one twisted with the blue cable - which will probably have a small white band or stripe), and a small orange band or stripe (for the one twisted with the orange cable).

The blue & white twisted pair cables are usually referred to as blue/white (for the mostly blue cable core) and white/blue (for the mostly white cable core).
The orange pair cables are usually referred to as orange/white and white/orange.

Take the colour connections from Zarjaz's post, but it's worth checking to see if the builders haven't connected the wrong pair (it should be blue/white and white/blue into connections 2 & 5), or not connected the extension sockets at all.

Right, so I forced my way into the extension and found this:

each of the 6 terminals on the back of the extension has two wires going to it, both the same colour, as follows (I can make out the stripes on the white wires now, thanks for that adebov)

orange to 3 and white/orange to 4
green to 2 and white/green to 5
blue to 1 and white/blue to 6

I've taken another photo but sadly I gave back the decent camera I borrowed to take the first pic yesterday and the iPhone camera reduces it to a blurry mess.

Quite honestly I'm not sure what to make of this - didn't expect to find so many wires back there.

In reply to a post by bezuk:

orange to 3 and white/orange to 4
green to 2 and white/green to 5
blue to 1 and white/blue to 6

Sounds like the work of your average "quality" electrician .

As Zarjaz has said; you only need three cores.
Even though the electricians have the wrong colours going into 1, 2, 5 & 6; that doesn't really matter too much (if they're the same on all sockets - You must check this), it just doesn't follow the standard convention.
So; you need to connect (to the faceplate of your master socket);
Green to 2
Orange to 3
White/orange to 4 (although this isn't connected inside the socket, but many electricians will connect it either for neatness, or because they think it does something).
White/green to 5
Leave the blues disconnected.
Or.....Go round all extension sockets (swapping the greens & blues), and use the blue & white/blue in the master, so they're connected properly.

In reply to a post by adebov:

In reply to a post by bezuk:

orange to 3 and white/orange to 4
green to 2 and white/green to 5
blue to 1 and white/blue to 6

Sounds like the work of your average "quality" electrician .

As Zarjaz has said; you only need three cores.
Even though the electricians have the wrong colours going into 1, 2, 5 & 6; that doesn't really matter too much (if they're the same on all sockets - You must check this), it just doesn't follow the standard convention.
So; you need to connect (to the faceplate of your master socket);
Green to 2
Orange to 3
White/orange to 4 (although this isn't connected inside the socket, but many electricians will connect it either for neatness, or because they think it does something).
White/green to 5
Leave the blues disconnected.
Or.....Go round all extension sockets (swapping the greens & blues), and use the blue & white/blue in the master, so they're connected properly.

A big meal of it. Rather than worry about which 3 zarjaz said, just connect all 6 cores on the NTE5 frontplate exactly according to the convention already discovered in the extension socket. Less to go wrong doing that way.

Even though the electricians have the wrong colours going into 1, 2, 5 & 6; that doesn't really matter too much (if they're the same on all sockets - You must check this), it just doesn't follow the standard convention

It does matter, very much. The requirement is that pairs are respected: 1-6, 2-5, 3-4 [pins nos add to 7] which seems to be the case here

Edited by deleted (Mon 04-May-09 14:30:40)

A big meal of it. Rather than worry about which 3 zarjaz said, just connect all 6 cores on the NTE5 frontplate

...... shame theres only four IDC points on the OP's frontplate .....

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

A big meal of it. Rather than worry about which 3 zarjaz said, just connect all 6 cores on the NTE5 frontplate

...... shame theres only four IDC points on the OP's frontplate .....

Interesting, I have one with 6. But the number matching principle still applies

After a bit more digging I found the green/white-green pair of wires behind the master - was worried for a minute that I didn't have them.

My master socket front plate does indeed only have 4 connectors on it - 1 and 6 are missing. Still, I think I know what I'm doing now so I'll give it a go as soon as I can get a wiring tool.

Thanks to everyone who helped me with this - appreciated.

The Openreach badged NTE's they have finally admitted that greens were never more than spares, so just have 4 IDC terminations on the rear of the frontplate. In fact the new internal wire being installed has only two pairs, and has gone back to the 'old' colour codes..... blue/orange and green/brown.

Greens (pair 3) were / are used on a lot of PABX systems for featurephones.

Yes, I know that, thank you Jon. But it's only going to 'fog' the waters if you start mentioning stuff like that, in this respect.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The Openreach badged NTE's they have finally admitted that greens were never more than spares, so just have 4 IDC terminations on the rear of the frontplate. In fact the new internal wire being installed has only two pairs, and has gone back to the 'old' colour codes..... blue/orange and green/brown.

Interesting. I think that the 3 pair cable is more satisfactory for pulling, but the extra pair never seems to have been any use.

Does the new cable have a new spec no or is it still cw1308?

Still CW1308, it's available in a number of different sizes (ie. numbers of pairs).

Thanks. Found it on RS. 2 pair appears to be back to the old colours, whereas 3 or more stays the same as up to present.

The Openreach badged NTE's they have finally admitted that greens were never more than spares, so just have 4 IDC terminations on the rear of the frontplate.

Update: The very latest batch of NTE's now have IDC terminations for the incoming pair, rather than the traditional screws. And now only have three IDC points on the frontplate.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

In fact the new internal wire being installed has only two pairs, and has gone back to the 'old' colour codes..... blue/orange and green/brown.

Interesting that. Could you please give the appropriate colours for IDCs 2,3,4 & 5?

Thanks.

Cheers!

Blue to two, orange to five, green to three, and brown...... don't bother.

Thanks.

Cheers!

Just as a follow-up to this, I got my IDC tool and made the connections as suggested above and unfortunately it hasn't worked. I don't seem to have done any damage, the DSL and phone is fine when used from the master socket or test socket, but there's no dialtone on any extensions still.

The only thing I wasn't able to do is to get into the other 2 extensions to check that the wiring colour scheme matches the one I was able to get in to, I can only assume that it doesn't since I'm pretty sure I've done the wiring correctly at the master faceplate.

The 2 extensions I refer to are part of big multi-plates with 2x satellite TV, aerial and radio on them so I'm really not comfortable taking them off the walls.

I think I'll do better to get a professional in at this stage. But still, thanks to everyone who replied to this thread.

The 2 extensions I refer to are part of big multi-plates with 2x satellite TV, aerial and radio on them so I'm really not comfortable taking them off the walls.

Running the phone so close to all this and the mains probably too, is not great, i.e. the chance for this introducing noise is much greater.

I'd suggest if looking for someone to do this, make sure they know about things like the I-Plate and ring wire, if so then a good chance they may know some of the better practices. Too many people claim to do phone wiring, but do things like use sub standard cable, or use the wrong wires

Hi
I am in the very same situation - just moved into a new build where the master socket is also in the utility cupboard, and I also have other extension sockets around the apartment. The developer told me the very same thing, so I asked the BT engineer to connect the extensions when he came to connect my master socket, but he refused to do the extensions, saying i would have to pay another 125 for a different engineer to come out.

anyway, just wanted to know if you managed to get this working on your own, or if you resorted to calling BT. I am hesitant to even try because I can't follow any of the diagrams online and am really far from handy...

If anyone else can help, it'd be really appreciated. Also, can I hire any electrician to do this, or do i HAVE to use BT??

Thanks in advance -

BT are only responsible for the wiring up to the master socket from the exchange. You can do what you like with the extensions.

Anyone can connect extensions from the master socket. Dosnt need to be an electrician, though someone with an understanding of telephone wiring maybe helpfull

hi could please help me - i had a new BT Openreach master socket face plated fitted by bt engineer (replaced from old )bt engineer disconnected extension cable which was originally connected to master socket. extension cable have blue & blue white, orange and orange white and on the face place nothing connected to pin 5 pin 3 pin2 could pls advise me what colour cable should i connect to what pin

thanks
tony

You should only need to have the blue/white striped wire connected to IDC2 and the while/blue striped wire connected to IDC5.

That assumes the extension socket(s) was (were) wired correctly, in the first place. To be absolutely sure, check the colours of the wires at the extension socket(s).

There may well have been a valid reason why the engineer left the existing extension dis. Fault on the extension wiring going away, etc, etc.

disconnected extension wires inside master socket bt engineer said i can connect if i want to,between blue & white blue what colour cable should i connect pin 2 or pin 5

thanks for speedy reply

Normal would be

blue with white stripe to 2
white with blue strip to 5

BUT it all depends on what the wiring is on the extension socket of course

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

There may well have been a valid reason why the engineer left the existing extension dis. Fault on the extension wiring going away, etc, etc.

Indeed there might be but, in that situation, I would expect the engineer to explain her/his actions to the EU.

After all if you were that engineer, you would have explained . . . wouldn't you?

....and if you were a punter smarting from having found out the cause of your woes was an extension, why not try and prove 'them' wrong, and try and establish how to reconnect it ?

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

....and if you were a punter smarting from having found out the cause of your woes was an extension, why not try and prove 'them' wrong, and try and establish how to reconnect it ?

I have no idea what it is you are attempting to say. Would you like to try again?

I know, full well, who you are and with whom you are employed. Are you forgetting who I am?

"Do you know who I am" lol

thanks for your help , extension wire were blue & white with blue stripe, orange and white with orange stripe.
i have connected
pin no 2 with blue cable
pin no 5 with white with blue stripe cable.

all good.

tony
newport

Are you forgetting who I am?

I never knew in the first place ??