telephone line split before master socket?

[bestda]

At the front of my house, the main BT line comes up to a grey box (slide cover) shared with neighbours house. From here two wires come out and go to my house. Two go to neighbours. First wire goes into hall and connects to the master socket (very old - not NTE5). Second wire goes up to bedroom and connects to a slave unit.
Theoretically everything before the master socket is BTs. Does this mean i cannot change the slave unit in the bedroom and the wiring back down to the grey box at the front of the house?

Problem is the wiring is really old (probably 1960's) and we can only get a poxy 0.3 Mbps broadband speed. Not too sure why as friend 300m away can achieve 6.5 Mbps. I want to upgrade line and slave unit in bedroom to see if this improves things. Is this possible??

Thanks iin advance

David

 

[Chivers7]

Normally you have the incoming pair into the Master line jack and from it you then have three wires (the two speech wires plus the third wire for ringing), ran from the MLJ, sometimes it is easier for an installer to run a seperate wire from the incoming box rather than the Master line jack and they often "back leg" the bell wire by crimping it in the incoming BT termination box - this shouldn't be done but it sometimes is and to answer your question it's not normal but sometimes gets done. Make sure you have a ADSL splitter in both sockets as this can often effect the boradband and if you have sky make sure the sky box is fitted with one too.

 

[bestda]

Thanks for the info.

Ill try a filter from the downstairs socket too. However, although this shouldnt be done, but has - am i allowed to remove the cable up to the bedroom from the MLJ.

Id like to get rid of this wiring and tidy up from the master socket, and rewire from the master socket only using new cable and slave units.

 

[lvsystems]

All wiring from the master socket onwards is your reponsibility so if you want to rewire it you can. However if you put a fault on it and BT come out they will charge you if the fault is not at the master socket.

 

[bernardgreen]

All wiring from the master socket onwards is your reponsibility so if you want to rewire it you can. However if you put a fault on it and BT come out they will charge you if the fault is not at the master socket.

The "stub" on the incomer may be why you are not getting good broadband. ( a "stub" is a branch cable like the one going upstairs which if not teminated can create electrical echos which mess up the broadband signal )

If you are on BT broadband call them and ask if they can replace your master socket with an NTE 5. You then replace the front plate of the NTE 5 with an ADSL front plate. This provides an ADSL socket for you computer / router, a phone socket and provision to DIY wire all you phones to the single ADSL filter in the new front plate.

Worth a try and it may be done for free if you broadband is bad and your neighbours is far better.

 

[plugwash]

what i would do is the following

find the incoming pair, it will be the one connected to pins 3 and 5 on your master socket, connect this to the A and B terminals on a new NTE5 removing any branches (you will need to open up the grey box to do this). plug a single broadband filter into it and plug a phone and your DSL modem/router into this.

If it still doesn't work very well i would put the original master socket (and the extention socket if and only if it has the BT logo on) back and complain to BT. Unfortunately you may not get very far as afaict broadband speeds are not gauranteed.

if it does work then i'd get a filter plate for your new NTE5 and wire phone and broadband seperately from there.

in principle you aren't supposed to touch wiring before the master socket, in practice people do and BT don't bother too much (and it sounds like someone else already has in your case).

 

[JOHNBOY42]

It appears you have the old master socket without the frontplate that comes off but I would open this take off the extesion wiring and then try your dsl signal there, if still no joy have a look at the wiring going to external grey box..........if it is grey in colour the chances are this could have a earth or rectified loop on it as this is common with that wiring as the insulation is not very good and the old GPO stopped using this mid 70s .........but if you keep going to isp over slow speed they will blame everything from your pc to your dog and tell you its your fault. If it does not resolve post back and I will give you more info

 

[Paul-man]

what i would do is the following

find the incoming pair, it will be the one connected to pins 3 and 5 on your master socket,

Try the 2 and 5!

3 is the ringer...

 

[ugjointer]

Bestda ,when you say' two wires coming out of the grey box,one going to the old master socket and one going to another socket,can you explain that more clearly.If you have an old master socket ,not an NTE5, then BT should come and convert it for an NTE5 free of charge.When they have done this If I was you I would run a completely new extention socket from the NTE.