[Closed] Broadband router and Ethernet ports

trace where the BT line enters the house. follow it to the first socket. that's the master socket.

Did the last person have virgin media no real need for a phone point.
Is the line over ground on a pole if so trace that back and see where it runs into the house. Underground then look in the garage or under the stairs and just because bt say it's actually active is no indication you have a socket

You are talking about two different things. The Cat5 in each room should all go back and terminate at a single point, this may be a switch or it may be the BB router.
The master socket is BT cabling into the house. As said above the trace the line into the house, the first socket will be master.

The CATs are likely to converge near to the Master.

Wild and crazy suggestion I know, but have you asked the landlord?

How do you know your ADSL modem/router is configured to work from the property you've just moved into ? You can't just unplug the box from one house and plug it onto the phone socket somewhere else....unless I'm mistaken....

you should be able to plug the router's ethernet port into any of the cat5 sockets. then the WAN goes to the BT socket (phone line) in the wall with a filet if it's needed. Unless you have a virgin line.

Ethernet and WAN are two separate things though - I'd get the router talking to BT with a direct connection before trying the household LAN - one less variable.

As above though the WAN may need configuring.

master socket has nothing to do with ethernet

May have got my Ethernet and cat5 mixed up.

Landlord is new and no help
All cabling is hidden. There is a small grey box Outside the front door that has bt on it. Cables come in from underground and seem to go into a wall cavity. So I assume there is a bt line.
There is no master socket in any room, checked understairs etc. Each room has a single plate with cat5 and tv aerial in it.
Bt hub has been in two houses so I figure it is not locked to an address. Plugged straight from the cat5 cable into the wan socket on the bt box. Did not work.
Bt say they can do nothing without a master socket.

I cannot believe the previous owners/tenants did not have broad band, so I am sure it should work. Might have been reworded for virgin or sky.?

Cheers

Virgin and sky would still have a master socket that looks like a phone socket, even if in the case of Virgin they didn't use the phone line. Virgin comes in via coax for broadband/TV and copper for the phone. The master would usually have a coax connector.

Vague possibility it's fibre to premises, but there would still be some kind of master socket and a box to terminate the fibre. Normal fibre to cabinet is just copper into the house and a master socket.

Those are definitely CAT5 sockets, not smaller RJ11 (US type phone socket, same as ADSL routers use), or even the standard BT 631A phone socket?

Do you not have a landline phone then?

[I]Plugged straight from the cat5 cable into the wan socket on the bt box. Did not work.[/I]

Photos please

Plugged straight from the cat5 cable into the wan socket on the bt box. Did not work.

Those are definitely CAT5 sockets, not smaller RJ11

This.

A BT hub will surely have a 4-pin RJ11 socket for its ADSL ("WAN") connection unless it's a cable router which I didn't think BT offered; your Ethernet ports will be larger 8-pin RJ45s. A photo of the back of the router might clear up that bit.

(For all practical purposes here, RJ45 = Ethernet = CAT5e.)

Hub has a 4 pin adsl port and an 8pin wan port. Fixed the problem, took the front of the nearest port to the door and it looks like there are conventional Phone line in there not connected. Will google how to connect a master face plate. Cheers for the help.

Will google how to connect a master face plate.

You can't (well, you can but shouldn't), it's illegal. You'll need to get BT involved to install an NTE5. The master line box is the demarcation between BT's equipment and yours, putting anything behind an NTE (such as fitting your own NTE) constitutes tampering with the telephone network. If it doesn't have one then they'll have to fit one.

Plus you're assuming that's a bare phone line - it could be the end of an extension, which would make more sense to me TBH. Why would the phone line just end inside a network point - come to that, why would a phone line be presented there at all unless that box used to be a phone extension and someone's just swapped it for a network point?

At the very least, I'd be looking inside all those boxes and not just opening one and going "ooh, that's lucky."

You could stick a cheap socket on loose wires. Or get open reach to do what they need to.
Your paying their wages after all

The grey box outside sound like the external nte openreach used a few years ago.The external box will have a screw at the bottom and if you open the cover a module with a yellow fuse will be present inside. If this is a case then there will be no nte within the property just line jack units. Openreach now bypass this and fit an nte inside of property. Speak to your service provider to arrange for a nte shift or a ADSL visit to correct your internal wiring.

Or the grey box could be a BT66 or BT16, both just an enclosure for IDC crimps.

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(There is a grey variant)

This is an external NTE:
[img] [/img]

Check in the attic if it has one, been In a house before that had the master socket in there, with the router connected to that then feeding a hub/switch to all the rooms.

Also might be in a gas or electric cupboard if it has them too.