Soon to get Fibre Broadband (FTTC) – Should i move master socket?

We live in the sticks and our currently lucky to get 1.5mb/s download speeds as over 5 miles form the exchange.

Yesterday I saw an openreach van parked up not far from home and on the off chance stopped to ask the driver if there was any hope of fibre coming our way. Sure enough the openreach website confirms it should be FTTC within the next 4 months. The fibre cabinet will be roughly 1km from our house – sparkly populated area with maybe 30 houses between us and the cabinet.

What actually happens when we upgrade? Will BT/Openreach need to come out and install a new master socket or tweak anything in our house?

I ask because currently the master socket is in a poor location (at on end of the house, bang in the middle of a wall (at eye level!). We’re planning an extension later this year so I’m already thinking about moving the master socket to a more central location.

– Do BT need to change my master socket when upgrading us to fibre?

– Will hey also move my master socket if requested?

– Anything else I should consider before being upgraded?

– Any idea what speeds I might get being 1km from the cabinet in a sparkly populated area?

I’d want it more central so the router can route everywhere. They didn’t upgrade mine, it can be moved but you will no doubt have to pay. I get 36mbps on fibre after some tweekery by open reach last week somewhere on the exchange, previously it was around 15mbps. Sky is my provider for phone line and bband.

As the name suggests, the fibre only runs to the cabinet, it’s the same old bit of twisted copper pair running to your house so there’s no need for them to modify anything in there.

Pretty sure moving the socket will be chargeable.

Had the same problem.

Gave engineer nice biscuits and coffee – got socket moved to somewhere a) central and b) near a power socket for the router.

EDIT – cable was run outside the house. Old master socket has a blanking plate on it now

– Do BT need to change my master socket when upgrading us to fibre?

Probably not.

– Will hey also move my master socket if requested?

Officially, no. Depends how nicely you ask.

Ok – ideally I’d like the cable where the line enters the house moved (via an external wire) to be halfway down the house.

Will they definitely need to come to our house when we upgrade (so that I can plan the necessary charm offensive)?

Gave engineer nice biscuits and coffee – got socket moved to somewhere a) central and b) near a power socket for the router.

Definitely a plan – had a BT guy out due to issues on my line, he couldn’t find anything and should have charged – but noticed the master socket was rather old so swapped that out and marked it as the fault, hence no charge.

ISTR about 18 months ago switching to Infinity/FTTC included the option to move the master socket and that it was a load cheaper than getting it done separately. I was considering moving to fibre just for this reason (didn’t need it) but then we had a very competent sparky in who I mentioned it to and ten mins later the socket had moved.

Will they definitely need to come to our house when we upgrade

There’s no compelling reason to come to your property at all.

we had a very competent sparky in who I mentioned it to and ten mins later the socket had moved.

… illegally.

Key thing is to have the shortest run possible between the router/FTTC box (might be separate boxes, might be all in one) and the master socket. The length of cable there still affects signal quality and strength.

However if you’ll be using WiFi and it comes with a WiFi router, you want that centrally located for better signal coverage.

You can have the master socket moved, or if they fit a separate FTTC box and router, run Ethernet cable between FTTC at the master socket to a central location for the router, or have the router at master socket and don’t use the WiFi built in but run Ethernet to a central point and fit a Wireless Access Point. The latter is often better quality than the built in WiFi in some cheap routers. Depends on the router though.

Visiting the house even if no work needs doing – Had mine through PlusNet and they use BT Openreach who insisted on visiting the house and doing various tests down the line while going to the box down the street to fiddle with it.

Upgrading to Fibre these days means all the work is done at the cabinet and exchange. Highly unlikely you’ll see an engineer. Master socket doesn’t require changing.
2 years ago they used to send an engineer out to change the front plate, but that doesn’t happen any more.

Have a look at wifi extenders if you’re thinking of paying for the Master Socket to be moved. Might be cheaper. We’ve got a netgear job, no significant drop in speed.

Had ours done when infinity came out. Am with IDnet, so they contacted OpenReach and a chap turned up, put something on the wires, went to the local box to check which wires were which I guess and test signal strength. Came back and installed a VDSL modem and went. I supplied my own router. Fortunately I’d laid cat5 around the house in places and a while later got one of these: Coredy Access Point which works great but you do need to know what you’re doing to get it working.

Have a look at wifi extenders if you’re thinking of paying for the Master Socket to be moved

We already use an extender (actually powerline adapter from Netgear). WOrks well but I find it a bit annoying when moving round the house and the signal drops/goes weak.

The house isn’t huge so I’m hoping moving the router/master socket to a central location will mean no need for additional BT externsion sockets or powerline adapters. It’ll also mean when we extend the house it’ll be much easier to run some wired cat5 cables to the TV/office etc if the mood takes us

Fair enough. You could try an inexpensive extension cable, plonk the router in the spot you fancy and see if it covers the house. If it doesn’t, you’ll be using extenders of some sort anyway, so you may as well leave it where it is.

My extender supposedly does up to 450Mbps or something, and it seems to make a negligible difference to the speed I get when I connect to the router by cable. If it’s high twenties by cable, it’s high twenties through the extender, likewise for low sixties.

Doesn’t it depend on the OP’s existing master socket type? If you’re getting 1.5Mbps at the mo I guess you’re already on ADSL so have a filtered NTE5 faceplate on your socket or do you have an extension off it? Personally if I had an old/unfiltered master socket I’d want that changed as part of the FTTC install – you usually have some allowance for a master socket relocation as part of that as well but within certain limits that I can’t remember.

The wiring is complicated. THe line comes in to a single unfiltered socket. it is then routed through to the other end of the house internally where a double filtered ADSL socket is (this area of the house will be demolished when we extend) and the phone signal is routed back to the initial socket where the line comes in. I was planning to attempt to move the master socket to the room where the line comes in as a temp measure before I can get it (hopefully) moved externally to the centre of the house!

you usually have some allowance for a master socket relocation as part of that as well but within certain limits that I can’t remember.

any idea how I find this out?

The wiring is complicated. THe line comes in to a single unfiltered socket. it is then routed through to the other end of the house internally where a double filtered ADSL socket is (this area of the house will be demolished when we extend) and the phone signal is routed back to the initial socket where the line comes in. I was planning to attempt to move the master socket to the room where the line comes in as a temp measure before I can get it (hopefully) moved externally to the centre of the house!

Two things here.

1) It’s no wonder your DSL is slow.

2) WHY would you even do that rather than placing the filter on the master?

2) WHY would you even do that rather than placing the filter on the master?

No idea but I suspect it’s because the house is quite long and thin and has been extended previously on either end. I suspect various previous owners wanted the wifi at differing ends of the house…throw in a little bodged wiring along the way

There is also a 3-way junction box midway through the house (not where I want the master though) that spurs off a series of phone line extensions. I’m going to pull that series out this weekend as a start point – planning to go carefully as I work from home so don’t want to screw up my broadband!

Hang on.

I was planning to attempt to move the master socket to the room where the line comes in

Are we at angry dolphins here? The master socket is where the line comes in, or at least it should be. Are you confusing the master socket with a filtered faceplate?

A modern master socket is recognisable as it has two halves, with the bottom half removable. Google “nte5” for images.

This link might explain things a bit better – I asked on the BT forums a while back about removing the series of phone extensions…

…the second comment seems to suggest that the wiring has been changed such that the filtered faceplate (at the other end of the house from where the line comes in) is in fact acting as the master.

I’m unsure how best to proceed with stripping stuff out so as to get it in a state where I might be able to persuade an engineer to move the line to come in midway down the house.

God’s blood. I’d rip the lot out and start again.

On the upside, you don’t have an NTE5, so Openreach should fit this as part of the install. Flag it up with the ISP.

Just noticed this.

I’d like to strip most of them out and leave us with just the broadband working and one socket to plug the landline in.

It’s a piece of piss then. Ask them to site the NTE5 where you want and then don’t reconnect all the other horrors.

What I’d do in the interim is get a microfilter (which will split the phone line into phone and DSL), plug it in to that “master” and move your router, then rip out the wires from the extension side. I’d be shocked if you didn’t see a noticeable improvement to the connection.

When I upgraded from ADSL to FTCC, there were 2 parts to the job – enabling it at the exchange, and they sent an openreach engineer out to fit a filtered newer sstyle master socket – the older ones are not filtered (hence the use of external filter blocks on older ADSL connections).

Moving the location of the master would technically be chargable, depends how friendly the engineer is or how much of a faf it is I guess.

You dont really need to rip any extensions out, just disconnect them from the inside of the master socket.. or simply disconnect the defunct ring wire (orange and white stripe) as it’s this cable that causes interference and lowers speed.

Wait, I’ve just followed the wiring, and I think I see what’s happened here now.

I’m guessing that socket was originally the master (only) socket, and the black cable was originally connected to the socket in that location. Someone has then decided to add an extension (or I’m guessing wanted to move it) and has hacked it in with those shitty scotchlocks. Which is a criminal offence.

I think your poster may be correct that the kitchen socket is acting as the master. If you take the faceplate off, is there a big capacitor in it? I bet they’ve swapped over the two faceplaces in order to move the DSL socket location. My god, that’s a horrendous hack.

In which case, the almost-correct fix would be to take the kitchen faceplate and reattach it to the black cable.

However, the correct fix here is to ring BT and tell them you need an NTE5 installing. The last time I looked at this, they were charging about 30 quid (and free if you’re disabled). As I said, it’s illegal to tamper with the BT side of the cabling – this is why the NTE5 was invented, it’s a physical demarcation between the bit you can play with and the bit you can’t.

When I upgraded from ADSL to FTCC, there were 2 parts to the job – enabling it at the exchange, and they sent an openreach engineer out to fit a filtered newer sstyle master socket – the older ones are not filtered (hence the use of external filter blocks on older ADSL connections).

When I did, they didn’t.

I think your poster may be correct that the kitchen socket is acting as the master. If you take the faceplate off, is there a big capacitor in it?

The insides of the kitchen faceplate can be see in the last photo on the bt thread I linked to above.

it should be FTTC within the next 4 months

Off topic a little – some of my neighbours missed some kind of boat when our cabinet was upgraded.

It appears that ‘it’ is now full, whatever that means. I have 60Mbps, they are still stuck on 5Mbps ASDL.

If that is a general problem, and not specific to our location or early rollout, then I suggest you sign up for notifications and get in early.

Off topic a little – some of my neighbours missed some kind of boat when our cabinet was upgraded.

It appears that ‘it’ is now full, whatever that means. I have 60Mbps, they are still stuck on 5Mbps ASDL.

If that is a general problem, and not specific to our location or early rollout, then I suggest you sign up for notifications and get in early.

Interesting. I’ve heard similar tales…will be sure to keep hassling BT/Openreach! Out of interest are you in a high density area?

As I said, it’s illegal to tamper with the BT side of the cabling – this is why the NTE5 was invented, it’s a physical demarcation between the bit you can play with and the bit you can’t.

I definitely didn’t move my master socket two feet round the corner including drilling a new hole in the wall and reconnecting the black cable from BT to the back of the mater socket. Previously some joker had drilled the corner of a window frame to allow the black cable to enter the property and run below the windowsill before entering the side of the master socket. Looks much neater now 🙂

The insides of the kitchen faceplate can be see in the last photo on the bt thread I linked to above.

Sorry, I got the rooms back to front. The socket where the router is currently connected, I mean. If it is what I think it is, then it’s as simple as moving that faceplate (back) to the “master” position and connecting the BT white wire to pin 2, the red to pin 5 (which is almost certainly just A & B in a true master) and disconnecting absolutely everything else.

Asides: I’m assuming the blue and blue-white wires are connected to the green and green-white ones in the ADSL faceplate. Also I’ve just spotted, the “master” socket won’t work. The wire going to pin 4 should be on pin 5.

Sorry, I got the rooms back to front. The socket where the router is currently connected, I mean.

Ah ok, thought you might have meant that. I might just bite the bullet and attempt to strip all the wiring out (extensions and all) and do as you suggest and remove the faceplate form the livingroom and rewire it into the kitchen where the (black) wire enters the house.

THen try and get Openreach to move the master to mid house when they (hopefully) come give me a NTE5…wish me luck!

(I’ve edited my post after you replied.)

Take a photo of that socket before you do anything please.

Openreach replaced my “Busby” era master socket just before Xmas as part of fixing the “no internet or phone” problem. No biscuits changed hands, but I did offer.

Thinking about it now, I recall Openreach replaced my faceplate when I got FTTC even though it already had an ADSL one. They also installed an Openreach VDSL modem.

Apparently this has all changed now and unless you pay up for a managed install, they’ll only visit the cabinet and it’s up to you or the ISP to sort everything else out and deal with the socket faceplate/filters/etc.

Thinking about it now, I recall Openreach replaced my faceplate when I got FTTC even though it already had an ADSL one. They also installed an Openreach VDSL modem.

Apparently this has all changed now and unless you pay up for a managed install, they’ll only visit the cabinet and it’s up to you or the ISP to sort everything else out and deal with the socket faceplate/filters/etc.
Yeah, I’d heard that. I was telling someone in the industry about it a while back and they were surprised that they hadn’t provided a replacement faceplate when I moved to FTTC. Made no odds to me anyway as I had an XTE-2005 plate which is probably better than anything Openreacharound might’ve fitted. And it makes even less difference now as the whole point of a microfilter is to protect the voice side from interference and my land line hasn’t worked in over a year.

A friend had crappy spliced in connections like that all over their house, all got ripped out on day one. Lucky for my friend the wiring diagrams are easily available online and they managed to move their master socket to the original cable termination point with zero fuss.

They got their master socket moved when they were getting an extension done, was it not for the fact the cable terminated at a shared box up a pole I dare say they would have done that themselves as well.

BTW, I’m not sure you necessarily have to go through Openreach directly, they ahve a lot of contractors working for them and they may or may not be authorised to take their own jobs on.

Cougar – current NTE is 5A, what I got when my FTTC was installed.

OK, i’ve got myself in a bit of a pickle.

I’ve taken off the ADSL box off the wall and moved it to the kitchen.

Where the black wire comes in the house I have connected the orange to B and the white to A (these were screw fittings). I’ve then plugged the phone line into a the master / test socket but the phone line isn’t there. my phone just say ‘check phone line’.

any ideas what i’ve done wrong?

Cougar – Moderator

Take a photo of that socket before you do anything please.

Not followed advice? (-:

Sorry for this but I have to ask: you did strip the wires before screwing them down, yes?

yes, i stripped the wires!