Connecting phone cables

[AC/HL]

Exactly. There's everything out there from old hard wired to this week's mark whatever NTE, and the chances of the original Engineer returning, remembering the installation precisely, and being bothered are slim.

Don't do it too well, it would look like a "foreigner". Surface clips and a coat or two of gloss!

[Nickthedentist]

Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell

Don't do it too well, it would look like a "foreigner". Surface clips and a coat or two of gloss!

Look what the BT/Openreach man installed on Monday at our neighbour's premises at work. I'm speechless!

Creative use of a redundant tumble drier duct, nice elegant loop over the incoming gas main and what the pics don't show is that there's almost a metre between clips on the horizontal run too.

Nick.

[Dave Moll]

You forgot to mention the absence of a "drip loop" before entering the hole at a lower level than the wiring - potentially leading to ingress of water as it runs down the cable.

[Nickthedentist]

Oh yes, good point, Dave.

BT "Engineer" not worthy of the title bodger! (Modern sense, not a chair part maker)

[julie_m]

Well, that's going to last a long time -- not!

It looks like the sort of job somebody might do if they were paying for the cable and cleats out of their own pocket, had to be somewhere else later that afternoon were planning on emigrating within a year and didn't really like using the phone anyway. Cheap and rushed.

I suppose it's a sad reminder of a culture which encourages installers to do the maximum number of jobs in the minimum time and using the minimum amount of materials.

[Oldcodger]

As it's ADSL- I'd refer OP to my post #15. No need to play about with BT wiring.
Extend the wiring from pins 2 & 5 ( ONLY) of the BT master socket ( remove the front half and you'll find it detaches from the rest of the socket. On rear is a plug, and pins marked 1-6. ). This is the customer side. Extend the line to a socket where you want it. Plug filter into this socket. Computer side to computer. Phone side ,via a telephone plug ( again use the wires connected to pins 2 & 5) to a master socket. House is then wired from this master using three wires, BEARING IN MIND to maintain continuity of colours. e.g, wiring will be Blue with white marker & white with blue marker - choose which one goes to pin 2 & stick to it. Next pair ( and you only need one wire of the pair) goes to pin 3. Again, choose a wire and stick to this.
Advantages of this system is that you only need one filter for any number of extension sockets and you can site unsightly filter ( both Mrs OC & I agree on this ) out of sight.
Apart from present setup( where filter is plugged into master, with a filter to WI FI router and telephone circuit), I've always set my ADSL up like this.
Having had many arguments with call centre monkeys who insist on a filter per phone, I asked the makers of the first filters to comment on my system( EXCELSUS Z BLOCKER), with a diagram of how I thought the system should work.
My solution was one of the options they suggested.

[Station X]

Are you suggesting the use of TWO master sockets?

[Oldcodger]

Originally Posted by julie_m

Well, that's going to last a long time -- not!
I suppose it's a sad reminder of a culture which encourages installers to do the maximum number of jobs in the minimum time and using the minimum amount of materials.

yEP- jULIE- sad reflection on today's standards. But it's been going on for a lot of years. I remember a conversation I had with a fellow customer engineer at a customer premises ,lots of years ago . Both of us wanted a one visit fix. Management wanted maximum number of calls - i.e- get in guess a repair, order parts and get out in shortest possible time. Reason- the calls were insurance claim based. More calls meant more income for the firm.
Takes me back to one house I owned, where the NTE was in the garage, and the wiring to the rest of the house ran ( like aunties knitting) round the outside of the house. I called BT asking if this could be brought up to an acceptable standards. "At a cost" was the reply. "Ah well, in that case ,I'll do it myself". "You are not qualified" was response .My reply, knowing wiring was after NTE ,was to request this response in writing. "WHY" was reply . I then suggested that if I was not qualified, then she was stating that all BT engineers were not qualified, as I was BT trained. Exit stage left ,one so called customer service assistant, with egg ( or egg yoo yung) on face.

[Oldcodger]

Originally Posted by Station X

Are you suggesting the use of TWO master sockets?

No- BT NTE is used as NTE, with line as TWO WIRE extended to a secondary socket to serve as a filter extraction point. Filter sends ADSL ( HF COMPONANT) to PC, with phone line extended from filter to a master socket to provide for in house wiring.
As such- there's only one master socket in circuit. Out of circuit as far as the ADSL is concerned.
Same principle as how many other systems with power feed over the system was done.
Also same system as how WD x00 was sent over lines to dedicated nuclear attack warning posts in the 60's.

[Tim]

The NTE contains an ADSL filter, so you don't need a separate one.

This is true for the type in post 2 yes.
If you have one outlet on your NTE frontplate, then it needs a filter. If you have two it doesn't.

My commiserations to the OP. I AM an Openreach engineer, and I get very frustrated when I have to go round correcting things other "engineers" have done. I expect I make my own mistakes sometimes though, but not too many hopefully.

Two masters will slow down your internet.
It is possible to run a "data" extension from the combined faceplate. The double connector on the large ADSL faceplate part is for the DSL*, and the three way one on the small section for telephone as usual.


* I/we usually fit an RJ11 socket on the end for the DSL cable to plug into.
Sounds as though the OP has a "standard" NTE5A( the square type) and requires an ADSL faceplate. PM me!

Sadly I see many examples of cabling work like that.
There is no excuse as of course the O.R engineer simply orders the stores he needs. I always keep plenty of everything on the van. We were taught that horizontal cable runs should be cleated every 300mm(1') or 1 and a half bricks. That's roughly the length of an average hammer so there is no excuse.

[Station X]

Originally Posted by Oldcodger

No- BT NTE is used as NTE, with line as TWO WIRE extended to a secondary socket to serve as a filter extraction point. Filter sends ADSL ( HF COMPONANT) to PC, with phone line extended from filter to a master socket to provide for in house wiring.
As such- there's only one master socket in circuit. Out of circuit as far as the ADSL is concerned.
Same principle as how many other systems with power feed over the system was done.
Also same system as how WD x00 was sent over lines to dedicated nuclear attack warning posts in the 60's.

So the second socket is an extension or slave jack with no components?

I think a diagram/sketch of what you're proposing would be useful.

BTW it was WB (Wired Broadcast), not WD.

[Biggles]

I remember the WB, was it 900? with the speaker console and meter on the front pulsing away. Or was the 900 like a 1+1? It's a long time ago now. Apologies for wandering off topic...
Alan.

[Tim]

WB900 was a 1+1 system Alan.
The main line carried the "Audio", which had the 50 volt wetting, and the second line was on the " carrier". This sub(customer) had a mains powered box with re chargeable battery back up, to re combobulate the signal, provided by a nearby filter, and provided ringing and tones etc.
This was later superseded by DACS, which was basically a digital version of the same thing, but the distant end unit was line powered.

The one with the speaker was the WB1400, a distribution system to fire/police stations and CD posts etc. and relic of the cold war I presume.
ISTR it used the TIM ring for reliability/integrity reasons. I can tell you that now because as far as I know it is no longer in service. Any decent spy would probably know about it anyway! The exchange equipment was housed in a steel cabinet and all the cabling was enclosed in steel conduit, diverse routed through the exchange.
I worked on both of these systems, but it was a long time ago now!

[Oldcodger]

Originally Posted by Biggles

I remember the WB, was it 900? with the speaker console and meter on the front pulsing away. Or was the 900 like a 1+1? It's a long time ago now. Apologies for wandering off topic...
Alan.

WB 900, if memory serves. It was a 1+1- HF over audio, split by filter.

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by Oldcodger

Extend the wiring from pins 2 & 5 ( ONLY) of the BT master socket ( remove the front half and you'll find it detaches from the rest of the socket. On rear is a plug, and pins marked 1-6. ). This is the customer side. Extend the line to a socket where you want it. Plug filter into this socket. Computer side to computer. Phone side ,via a telephone plug ( again use the wires connected to pins 2 & 5) to a master socket. House is then wired from this master using three wires, BEARING IN MIND to maintain continuity of colours. e.g, wiring will be Blue with white marker & white with blue marker - choose which one goes to pin 2 & stick to it. Next pair ( and you only need one wire of the pair) goes to pin 3.

Does anything at all these days need the pin-3 "ring" wire? All the phones I've seen in the last couple of decades have only two wires to the modular plug.

Unnecessary ring-wires can pick up noise and cause slower response on ADSL-provisioned services.

Here, the incoming service terminates at the NTE; there's an ADSL splitter plugged into it and the router connects to that. I do actually have a landline phone [a £9.99 Binatone jobbie] but it sits unused in the drawer of my desk and only ever gets taken out/plugged-in if there's a line issue and I need to do the BT "remove the faceplate and plug a phone into the socket so revealed" diagnostic-dance.

[Station X]

I'm sure that a lot of forum members, myself included, use vintage telephones, so if we're not to use ADSL filters (which I abhor), we need the third wire.

If you don't need a phone, you don't technically need a filter.

[McMurdo]

BT and other service providers are used to seeing anything on the end of their line now, since it's deregulated. The high standards of the GPO are long gone. Even BT send subcontractors to do some of their work. Contractors have access to BT/GPO street cabinets. When my BT line went all crackly, (faulty exchange card) the openreach engineer put a new piece of cable in from the street to my house. The original went underground all the way from the pavement into my hall where it emerged from underground and into a flush mounted master socket, extension wiring going from there; he said the new one couldn't do that, so he just drilled a hole from outside through the wall into my lounge (closest room to the road) and put a new socket in there; the cabling was clipped along the outside wall of my house. I had to get all the carpets up to take the extension/internet from across the other side of the house to the 'new' master socket. And it wasn't the cause of the problem as another engineer found out! Dug me drive up as well and left me to put it back