Fibre - master socket positioning

I've had FTTC with Zen for a while now and an very happy with it. My father has ADSL with Zen and is looking at having FTTC too.

One issue may be the positioning of the master socket - it's in the hallway of his house, with no power socket near it. The cable simply seems to come in from under the house, as there's no obvious cable coming from the junction box at the end of the drive.

There is an extension wired to the master, which goes upstairs and provides ADSL.

When BT installed FTTC at my house, they used my existing extension and mounted the socket in my office, at the end of this extension - that socket is now purely for data, but that's fine.

Any ideas as to what BT are likely to do in my father's situation?

Hi

BT wouldn't move the existing socket, they will however fit an additional 30m of data extension kit as part of the install.

They won't however drill through anything or bury the cable. They will simple tack it to the skirting boards or around a door frame.

I hope that helps

That's pretty much what I expected, Mick - I know that they tend to take the 'path of least resistance', so to speak.

I just wondered, as the existing extension is nice and neat, under the carpets and hidden - I think the last thing my father will want is wiring stapled to the stairs / door frames / skirting boards.

Hi

The official BT line is that they won't use existing wiring that is beyond the NTE5 socket and will fit the extension kit.

Having said that the engineer may deem the current extension socket is suitable and use it.

This would be down to the engineer on the day.

I hope that helps.

Thanks
Mick

In reply to a post by mickbzen:

Having said that the engineer may deem the current extension socket is suitable and use it.

What are you suggesting? The engineer could fit an interstitial plate on the existing NTE5 and use one pair for filtered voice and the other pair for vdsl using the existing extension cable, depending on it's suitability, to a dual unfiltered phone and rj11 socket?

Edited by 4M2 (Mon 14-Oct-13 16:32:50)

In reply to a post by 4M2:

What are you suggesting? The engineer could fit an interstitial plate on the existing NTE5 and use one pair for filtered voice and the other pair for vdsl using the existing extension cable, depending on it's suitability, to a dual unfiltered phone and rj11 socket?

If the current master socket is "unused", (which we don't know), what's the problem?

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

If the current master socket is "unused", (which we don't know), what's the problem?

Sorry, what do you mean? Possibly the current master NTE5 is "unused" in the sense that there is only the one extension connected to it and a phone would not be required for use there?

If the extension socket was fitted with a filtered faceplate for both phone and vdsl use then that would certainly render the NTE5 with a unfiltered standard bottom plate usable only with a dangle filter which would probably not be satisfactory. If there are other extensions connected to that original NTE5 bottom plate then they would also be unfiltered and require dangle filters.

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Sorry, what do you mean? Possibly the current master NTE5 is "unused" in the sense that there is only the one extension connected to it and a phone would not be required for use there?

Yes. We also do not know if it is a NTE5.

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Sorry, what do you mean? Possibly the current master NTE5 is "unused" in the sense that there is only the one extension connected to it and a phone would not be required for use there?

Yes. We also do not know if it is a NTE5.

Very true, but the OP did say: "One issue may be the positioning of the master socket - it's in the hallway of his house, with no power socket near it. The cable simply seems to come in from under the house, as there's no obvious cable coming from the junction box at the end of the drive.

There is an extension wired to the master, which goes upstairs and provides ADSL."

Perhaps one can assume that the "master" is an NTE5 since there is an extension wired to it, although of course the OP hasn't mentioned that it includes a test socket and could just be a phone socket linked to an NTE5 elsewhere

In reply to a post by 4M2:

....although of course the OP hasn't mentioned that it includes a test socket and could just be a phone socket linked to an other non NTE5 socket elsewhere

My thoughts entirely!

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

In reply to a post by 4M2:

....although of course the OP hasn't mentioned that it includes a test socket and could just be a phone socket linked to an other non NTE5 socket elsewhere

My thoughts entirely!

But that takes me back to the question I asked Mick Bolton from Zen to clarify his statement: "...the engineer may deem the current extension socket is suitable and use it."

BTW. Please don't misquote me when you wrote "other non NTE5"

Edited by 4M2 (Mon 14-Oct-13 19:46:00)

Hi all,

The engineer may move the NTE5 socket to the end of the extension but this all depends on the extension itself and the engineer on the day, this is be no way guaranteed.

The official line is the fibre needs to be fitted on the NTE5 and the engineer will do up to 30m of internal cabling. However they may take the course of action I've detailed above but that is decided on an install by install basis.

Thanks
Mick

In reply to a post by mickbzen:

The engineer may move the NTE5 socket to the end of the extension but this all depends on the extension itself and the engineer on the day, this is be no way guaranteed.

The official line is the fibre needs to be fitted on the NTE5 and the engineer will do up to 30m of internal cabling. However they may take the course of action I've detailed above but that is decided on an install by install basis.

Thanks for the clarification Mick

The 'master' downstairs is indeed an NTE5 - I asked my father and it will split apart to reveal the test socket.

As I understand it, the problem is likely to be that if the BT engineer is happy to use the existing extension wiring, then would the extension then be usable only for VDSL?

Not a dire problem as DECT phones are used throughout the house, but we'd then need to install a power socket next to the NTE5 downstairs - which then sort of negates the need to run wiring upstairs for VDSL, as the router could be downstairs and use either wireless (my father tends to use a laptop more than the main pc upstairs anyway) or run ethernet over powerline adaptors.

If the extension cable is of acceptable quality then the installing engineer may be happy to use it. If you don't need a phone on that extension then it may be possible to utilize it for the vdsl signal using one of the twisted pairs linking the A&B terminals on the NTE5 filtered faceplate to the modem upstairs via a rj11 socket (replacing the existing phone socket upstairs) and a short rj11 to rj11 lead.

Personally, I wouldn't rely on the BT engineer being very competent (they may just send out a [censored] contractor like they did with me). Perhaps you could extend the master socket yourself to somewhere downstairs nearer a power source and have the master socket moved to there by the engineer. Then get BT to install the data extension from there to upstairs. That way you may have less phone line distance over which the signal will attenuate.