My bungalow has an old fashioned telephone system consisting of a BT cable connected to a grey box (about 70x40mm tapered with a single screw fixing). From here there is a wire to another identical-looking box - only two core of the wire are connected). From this second box there are two wires going to BT/RJ-11 sockets (65mm square surface mounted bearing the old 'T' BT logo) - there are six wires connected in at least one of these - there are three boxes and the interbox wiring is not easy to trace in the loft. I have ADSL filters on all the used sockets, of course.
Now I'm about to modernise everything, and it's a convenient time to replace this wiring.
1) Can I install a modern Master Box directly from the first grey box? Or do I have to pay BT to do this? (I'm aware that there is moderate voltage (-48V ?) on the wires!)
2) Can I then wire new extensions from the master to ADSL-filtered wall sockets throughout? I'll want 5-6 sockets, although I don't foresee that many instruments - probably: Sky-box, ADSL modem, Speaker-Phone and DECT-basestation (REN < 4).
Pointers to FAQs/HowTos would be helpful. Thanks in advance.
Legally yes, and yes there's about 50 volts DC across the line (changes to 75V 18Hz when ringing ISTR)
After whoever installs the master socket, you can (legally) replace the lower half of it with an ADSL master filter unit. There are two versions of this, both with connections for onward internal network (filtered) but also a version that provides an additional unfiltered feed for an ADSL connection away from the master socket location.
For general information on wiring extensions, etc. see
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others have said, you ain't supposed to touch the wiring on the BT side of the master socket - but many people do, and most don't end up in prison!
I would seriously suggest that you use a filtered faceplate in the master socket - which separates the ADSL and voice signals at source, and does away with the need for plug-in filters. If your ADSL modem/router/whatever needs to be somewhere other than next to the master socket, use the modified version of Clarity's filtered faceplate - which enables you to wire a digital extension into the back, rather than having to plug into the front.
for this, and for everyone else's consistent advice. Fortunately none of us is disabled, so I shall have to pay BT 75 GBP to fit an NTE5 in a cupboard (I don't want the damn ugly gert thing visible - if only there were a neat, i.e flush mounting, equivalent) so that I can manage the rest myself.
This is not "best practice". Far better to split the voice and ADSL signals at the first opportunity and route separate cables for each as required. The existing telephone extension wiring for phones, a new cable for the unfiltered ADSL to your modem/router.
From BT anything from 40v to 100v AC RMS at 25Hz (+1Hz -5Hz).
I'm puzzled as to your wiring, and how it got to be this way. What you describe is typical of older wiring, but unusual for a line that has been upgraded to ADSL.
What you should have is a square, white "New, new style" BT master socket (NTE 5). This is the sort with a removable faceplate on a socket, so that you're allowed (legitimately) to add your own extension wiring to the fixed connectors on the faceplate. The backplate of the box is still "BT only" and contains the incoming wires from the grey oval box 53 and the "master socket" capacitor etc.
What you seem to have is an "old, new style" BT master socket, whether installed by BT or not. I'm just surprised that this survived the ADSL upgrade process without getting replaced - I thought BT policy was to swap these when on-site for any ADSL commissioning.
This is often a source of trouble, You're better off getting a proper BT master faceplate with a single ADSL filter in it, then running voice-only extensions downstream of that. Solwise will sell you one for a tenner or so that plugs straight into an NTE 5
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is what BT usually install when they visit for an ADSL install, but there are some routes (such as migration from ISDN/Home Highway) where you don't get one supplied by BT.
Don't (IMHO) extend the data side of ADSL beyond the filter. If you have to, leave your master socket whereever the phone cable enters the building (but never plug directly into it)), put an ADSL filtered NTE 5 near the ADSL modem and run the voice extensions from that point onwards.
What I think you should do now is to get a new NTE 5 fitted, together with an ADSL filter built into it. You can either install this instead of the existing master or install it downstream of the existing master (Solwise etc. describe the process for this) - this would depend on its location relative to your ADSL modem. Whether you do this yourself or get BT to do it is up to you, BT charges, and whether you're still being billed for an old system with chargeable extension bells etc. (which I think they've stopped doing, but for many years it was cost effective to pay the engineer's charge just to get these stopped so you could have your own non-rented ones)
NB - Always use a real "Krone" tool. This can be either a proper metal one, or a cheap plastic one-job one. But never use a screwdriver blade - if your tool doesn't have a gap in the middle of its blade, then it will distort the IDC tines and cause no end of future trouble. Equally also only use solid core cable and avoid screw terminals.
Not at all. BT make no changes at all to the consumer's installation when they enable ADSL. They normally don't even leave the exchange.
Only if BT have visited for any reason since 1984, otherwise (as the OP has) you will probably have an old GPO hard wired set up.
They don't visit normally, see above.
As long as you use BT spec twisted pair cable (as used for normal phones) you can extend the ADSL feed to anywhere in the house using the Clarity dual output faceplate. Ensure of course you use a twisted pair within the cable blue/white: white/blue etc
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 14:38:23 +0000,it is alleged that Richard A Downing spake thusly in uk.d-i-y: [snip]
If you want an NTE5 flush mounted, BT will install in a pre-existing flushmount box (either the plasterboard fixing or standard metal fixing ones) provided they have some method to get the cables in there.
The fixings are the same as any standard single gang electrical accessory.
BT _may_ visit if they're installing ADSL, and they'll leave you with a nice NTE5 and ADSL faceplate, which is a tidier job than plug-in filters. I agree that they don't always visit (probably rarely), but I'd thought that if records showed the premises to still be wired without sockets then it would trigger this. My own ADSL install involved 3 visits by two different engineers , and that was hardly early days.
As to ADSL wiring beyond the filter then this is possible, but it will involve extra plug-in connectors in the ADSL path. I've had to much trouble with these in the past and I'd rather do it by hard wiring as much as possible.
Plenty of flush mounting ones available. But you can't expect BT to make a neat job of anything. Architrave and skirting board wreckers as a decorator mate once called them...
The wiring was like this when I bought the house last July. How it got to be I don't know.
I ordered ADSL from a non-BT biller and BT did not visit, it just 'turned on' on the day specified and has worked well since. I don't have any problems with it at all.
I suspect your comment of puzzlement reflects BT's early roll out of ADSL, and not the later, lower cost, approach.
I converted my place from a single hard wired phone when I moved in some
30 years ago. First to a couple of extra phones and then to the plug in system. Not had a BT 'inside' engineer ever - although they replaced the outside wiring after an incident with a mobile crane.;-)
a. if you have more than 1 microfilter connected, then they are effectively in parallel across your incoming line & performance degrades ever more as you pile more on, hence strong recommendation to sort this out so you only have 1 main filter at source & have separate wiring for ADSl & voice (as others recommend).
b. some years ago I hit the jackpot when our old style BT terminal at house entry got rusty & as to whether you got a dial tone or not picking up the handset became unreliable.
A call to 151 generated a visit from BT & bingo! a completely new free terminal box (this was when plug in sockets were a new phenomenon).
Could your incoming terminal get rusty somehow ;-) ,,, broken wire ......??
More recently within the last month I've installed an ADSl set up in another house where there was trouble with an out of date BT rfi filter. Again a visit from BT sorted out the filter AND provided a proper up-to-date split ADSL/voice faceplate - all free. Latter visit was more difficult to organize as it had to be done via the ISP who were most reluctant to call out BT Wholesale.
Hence your best bet might be to organize a BT (Retail- ie call 151) visit to clear a voice fault due to rusty connections (assuming you pay line rental to BT) & with luck you'll get both jobs done.
I' d still say it's rare. Certainly not seen many examples of your experience in uk.telecom.broadband, but YMDV :-)
Which you can do now with the Clarity master filter which has Krone terminals for both filtered and unfiltered feeds. Of course the unfiltered ADSL feed is just that, it's the twisted pair from the 'outside world' presented to the terminals and nothing more. Where people run into trouble is having non twisted wiring (predominately plug in telephone extension leads from DIY sheds) feeding their ADSL modems. This can seriously degrade the SNR (particularly if the cables run near or alongside mains wiring) [1] and in turn lead to reduced performance. Providing you extend your internal network using telecom grade twisted pair cable there should be no drop in performance. After all think of all the Krone blocks and damp green boxes your line passes through before reaching your home, another 10, 20, or even 50 metres and and couple more clean and dry Krones will make no difference at all.
[1] My ADSL router is 5 metres from my master socket filter. It's fed by twisted pair BT cable. SNR reads 19 dB. If I replace that cable with a B+Q extension lead SNR drops to 17dB. Connecting the router directly at the master filter also gives 19dB.
(Downstream attenuation remains constant in all three conditions at
Hi all slightly OT... If I get BT to fit/connect a second domestic telephone line, do they just run a connection (eg. using the extra cable traces) to a new NTE5 box? And would they be likely/willing to upgrade my current non-NTE5 master socket to an NTE5 whilst they are at it?
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