Rewiring BT extensions in the passage

BruciesBonus

Hi, this is my first thread on this site. Recently I've had to move a tangled mess of BT wires in order to wallpaper my passage, and now I need some advice reconnecting everything back - I have 1 socket in the passage, 2 sockets in two bedrooms downstairs, and 2 sockets in 2 bedrooms upstairs. 5 sockets in total.

Before I wallpapered, the Main BT Line came into my house through a downstairs bedroom and ran into a box by the bedroom window with A/B connections. From this "Window Box", a slimmer cable ran out of the bedroom into a second box in my passage, which had a "rats nest" of cables inside it. BT engineers charged me a fortune to run 5 x separate cables out of this "rat-nest" into 5 x NTES around my house. This is the problem. One cable connected to 1 x NTE5 in the passage (I assume this is the master socket), 2 separate cables ran to 2 x NTE5's in downstairs bedrooms, and 2 separate cables ran to 2 x NTE5's in upstairs bedrooms. I had 5 x working NTE5 in total, all connected by 5 x separate cables to one "rats nest" junction box, and it looked a complete mess despite BT engineers doing all the work.

But after doing some research online, I now understand that one cable could've been run from the window box straight into the first NTE5 in the passage, without the need of a "rats nest" in between. From this "master socket" NTE5 in the passage, ONE cable could have ran to 1 x NTE5 in one upstairs bedroom, and ONE cable could have ran to 1 x NTE5 in one downstairs bedroom. I could have then added another 1 x NTE5 in the second bedroom upstairs and another 1 x NTE5 in the second bedroom downstairs, as extensions from the NTE5's in the other bedrooms on the same floor (through the wall). This would (hopefully) bring me back to the 5 working NTE5 sockets I had before I started decorating. The only difference would be an improvement in wiring.

If this makes sense, this is what I would like to do. Hopefully I haven't made it sound too complex! I would just like to buy a new reel of cable, and rewire my 5 x NTE5 much neater than they were before.

Any suggestions or questions are welcome, thanks a lot!

bod1467

I think you've got it. Make the closest socket to the incoming box your "master" socket (wiring A and B from the box to A and B of the "master"), then wire the extensions from there - having upstairs and downstairs spurs off the master, each with an additional extension, should be OK. Only terminals 2 and 5 are needed to be wired from the "master" faceplate. And use twisted-pair cable for all wiring - even from the incoming box to the "master".

Do you plan to make the "master" socket also your broadband point? If yes then fit a filtered faceplate (e.g. XTE-2005 from ADSLNation.com - other suppliers are available, like Clarity?) and wire the spurs from the filtered side of the faceplate (terminals 2 and 5). That way you won't need to fit filters at the extensions (although it doesn't hurt to do so anyway).

BruciesBonus

Cheers - glad that made sense to somebody as it was confusing enough just writing it!

So to clarify, I wire the A/B connections on the window box (first point of entry) to the A/B connections on one-side of the Master Socket.

Heres the tricky bit.

I understand that I need to use terminals 2 and 5 on the Master, but since I am going to initially need 2 x spurs (one upstairs and one downstairs) do I attach 2 x pairs of cables (4 x wires total) into terminals 2 and 5 on the Master?

bod1467

Yes. A+B from incoming box go to A+B at the BACK of the "master" NTE5 box.

Extensions are wired from the back of the FACEPLATE. And since you'll have 2 spurs you'll have 4 wires in total - 2 on terminal 2 and 2 on terminal 5. In each case wire the spur from the master faceplate to the faceplate on the extension, then wire the NEXT extension also faceplate-to-faceplate.

The diagram below might make things easier to comprehend.

2 _____________________ 2 __________________ 2
   A ----- A   |   \              UPSTAIRS FIRST     UPSTAIRS SECOND
BT      MASTER |    \_____       _______ 5 __________________ 5
   B ----- B   |          |     |
                 5 ______ | ____|
                   \      |
                    \     |_____________ 2 __________________ 2
                     \           DOWNSTAIRS FIRST   DOWNSTAIRS SECOND
                      \_________________ 5 __________________ 5