I don't know what to make of this (BT master socket / adsl improvement issue)

pawlala

I've been reading up on trying to improve broadband speeds by analysing the telephone wires on my side of the connection, trying the microfilter in the BT master socket and possibly removing the bellwire disturbance.

So I thought I'd give it a go and see what I could do behind the faceplate. I opened it up and saw this:





The faceplate wasn't connected to any of the telephone wires, no bellwire, no nothing. Just a mass of wires and a bit of building debris. When I connected the router to the master socket just as I suspected - same internet speed and absolutely no change whatsoever, because the bellwire has not been bypassed.

Nothing connected to the pins:



What do I do now? Anyone got any suggestions or seen this configuration behind the faceplate before?

Close up of the bundle:



And here's me thinking a telephone cable had only four wires!!

iniltous

You dont have any wired extensions so there is nothing for you to try to improve, if you had any conventionally wired extensions, the wiring would be connected to to removable plate in your hands in picture 1, thats how you can separate the end users own wiring from the openreach network when that section is removed....(male/female plug & socket arrangement)
Plugging directly into the test socket also visible in picture 1 ( the part of the socket still attached to the wall ) may give a slight improvement but you dont have any bell wire issues as you dont have any bell wires...
The external network (2 wires) is in effect connected on the back of the socket still attached to the wall, the cable from outside may be a 4 wire or a 6 wire (depends on what was the standard at the time) but other 'pairs' in the cable would only be used if you had more that 1 telephone line ( 6w...upto 3 lines), the other wires behind the socket are not in use or connected to anything, so they are just left coiled up behind the socket

cally6008

phone bt n ask them to come and sort it out ?

espresso

cally6008 wrote: »

phone bt n ask them to come and sort it out ?

Bad advice - there is nothing to "sort out" and the OP would be charged heavily for an unnecessary home visit.

:mad:

Gloomendoom

I can see the problem. Your connection box is at least twice the size of everyone else's.

My BT box is barely three inches square.

cally6008

espresso wrote: »

Bad advice - there is nothing to "sort out" and the OP would be charged heavily for an unnecessary home visit.

:mad:

I wouldnt call it bad advice as such and certainly doesnt need the cross smiley.

To my mind, the socket would have been put in by a BT person who obviously hasnt connected it up how it should be (wires connected to the faceplate etc).

If the OP decides to ring BT and query the wiring with them, they (meaning BT) should run through the relevant charges and it's up to the OP to decide how to procede.

You never know, the OP could hit lucky on phoning BT and addressing his/her concerns and may end up not having to pay anything at all.

Owain_Moneysaver

If you do have extensions, they have been wired into the back part of the linebox which is naughty. Somebody who knows what they're doing would be able to separate them from the BT line wires which are the only things which should be connected to the back.

espresso

cally6008 wrote: »

I wouldnt call it bad advice as such and certainly doesnt need the cross smiley.

To my mind, the socket would have been put in by a BT person who obviously hasnt connected it up how it should be (wires connected to the faceplate etc).

If the OP decides to ring BT and query the wiring with them, they (meaning BT) should run through the relevant charges and it's up to the OP to decide how to procede.

You never know, the OP could hit lucky on phoning BT and addressing his/her concerns and may end up not having to pay anything at all.

Your advice was bad because you obviously do not know anything about this topic!

The master socket is correctly wired as it is. If extension sockets are required, then they are wired to the removable lower face plate.

This allows any extension wiring to be isolated from the BT part of the master socket for testing purposes. Any extension wiring is the the property owners responsibility, not BT's.

An unnecessary BT engineer visit would result in a charge of well over £100.

pawlala

There is only the one box in the house, so no other sockets in any other rooms. I've not had any problems at all with using either the phone or internet in 7 years since new (newbuild). Just surprised me to see this setup when I was expecting to see all the pins connected on the faceplate and a telephone wire rather than a mess!

C_Mababejive

Your NTE5 master socket is connected correctly..you just cant see the IDC connections as they are hidden. The bit you have pulled off is for you to wire extentions to. It isnt the input side of the line.

spike7451

The is no extensions wired into that socket,the cables that you can see are from the incoming drop wire.The can be up to 8 (4 colour bundles) wires in a drop wire,normally you can only have up to IIRC 3 feet of external flooded drop wire in an exposed living space due to the fumes given off by the flooding gel if the is a fire.That's why the incoming drop wire is changed over to internal wire as soon as possible on entering the home.
The cable in your picture looks like internal wire so more than likely the is a 77A junction box fitted in the meter cupboard.