Incoming Phone cable

[pinnerite]

I hope to move into a bungalow around the end of January. The entrance is to one side of the building, about halfway up. I would have expected to find the incoming BT line not far from the front door. I would want to position my wireless router there

BUT, I found a hefty (ugly) double socket on what formerly was the rear wall of the lounge. There is a conservatory on the other side of wall.

Is it likely that this is the oroginal site of the master socket? Unfortunely, owing to the lockdown I cannot arrange get in there to scratch around.

[Jack Harry Teesdale]

It's possible but without physically checking you cannot be certain.

It much depends on where the nearest BT/OR network connection point is which is not always at the front of a property.

If it's an older property the M/S could be anywhere.

[Mike Clarke]

They do sometimes get installed in the most crazy places. My BT master socket is in the loft!

[Scott]

Yes indeed, my phone line comes in through the bathroom window (shades of The Beatles - Abbey Road). Obviously the master socket cannot be there so the cable runs to a master socket in the hall with an old-style GPR lozenge in the bathroom, which is there to stay.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Mike Clarke formulated the question :

Nothing crazy about it being installed in the loft, that's where mine is. It comes in overhead, so rather than have it exposed going down the wall, often pulling adrift due to weather, I installed it in the loft. Main router next to it, then extension sockets and LAN wired via an internal route to where needed.

The cable down the wall outside, looked unsightly and was forever snapping and needing repairing. It has not required repair in the 40 years since then, though the drop wire was replaced in a general area upgrade around 12 years ago.

[Roland Perry]

In message <rom5bk$1hn1$ [e-mail]>, at 14:31:17 on Fri, 13 Nov

2020, Mike Clarke [e-mail]> remarked:

They were often installed in the hall, near the front door, which was apparently regarded as the obvious place to put a sole phone instrument in a house.

When my line from the telegraph pole was replaced three houses ago (it had been damaged by rubbing on a tree) by agreement with the engineer they wired it instead around the side of the house and fitted the master socket in the 3rd bedroom at the back, which I was using as an office, and was the obvious place for an ADSL router to be situated.

One house ago, the master socket was in the cupboard under the stairs, next to the electric meter and distribution board. But the house had been built from new with phone wiring from there to numerous rooms.

[Owain Lastname]

The phone in a cold hall Will help to keep the bill small And all your visitors can see Your home is equipped telephonically

Owain

[Dave Plowman (News]

Where the phone was installed makes little difference to where the line comes into the house.

[Mike Clarke]

But in this case it had been installed in the eaves where there was hardly any headroom in an *unboarded* loft where you needed to lie on the rafters to connect anything to it.

Fortunately the previous owner had installed extension sockets in more convenient places around the house but the problems arises when you have broadband problems and your ISP casually tells you to plug the router directly into the test socket. After grovelling around in the loft and managing to provide a suitable mains supply you also need to run a very long temporary network cable through the house to where the desktop computer is.

[Roland Perry]

In message [e-mail]>, at 11:15:35 on Sat, 14 Nov

2020, "Dave Plowman (News)" [e-mail]> remarked:

On the contrary, internal wiring was rare. Phones were positioned close to the hole in the wall/door|window frame through which the wire came from outside.

[Theo]

And presumably the hall was a good place the bell could be heard throughout the house.

Theo

[Dave Plowman (News]

The hallway was a very common place for a phone once. Regardless of where the line came in. Doesn't take long to run phone cable round skirting boards and architraves. ;-)

[Owain Lastname]

And you could get there quickly from any room in the house, rather than paying rental on an extension instrument.

Owain

[Roland Perry]

In message <NYq* [e-mail]>, at 15:10:23 on Sat,

14 Nov 2020, Theo <theom+ [e-mail]> remarked:

Yes, that too. Eponymous Alexander Graham would have approved.

[Roland Perry]

In message [e-mail]>, at 15:46:43 on Sat, 14 Nov

2020, "Dave Plowman (News)" [e-mail]> remarked:

But normally they'd drill direct into the hallway, to avoid running any internal cables.

[Tim+]

I think not! Every house I?ve ever lived in has had spaghetti wiring nailed to skirtings, architraves etc, connected to a junction box by the cable entry point to the house.

Tim

[Dave Plowman (News]

We had ours installed in the early 50s, Party line. The overhead cables came in at the back of the house. Internal wiring took it to the hall.

[Roland Perry]

That's to fit additional phones, rather than the original one near the cable entry point!

[Dave Plowman (News]

Are you saying then every phone was fitted where the outside line came into the house?

Be a bit odd, since when our phone was fitted in the 50s, the outside line was two wires from the pole to the house. Converted to a single cable there. They also had to pick up a local ground for the party line.

[Roland Perry]

In message [e-mail]>, at 00:51:35 on Sun, 15 Nov

2020, "Dave Plowman (News)" [e-mail]> remarked:

Very unusual setup. What did the outside cable soar over - your back garden and someone else's and their front garden, to a pole in the next street?

At least that's a conventional place to install it.