Extending a Telephone Line for Broadband

[Octet]

Hello CycleChat,

I am planning on moving a telephone socket downstairs so that I can move the router from the back corner of a granite house into the middle of it, so hopefully the wireless signal shall be better for everyone.

In the house there are two telephone lines, one which is used solely for telephone calls and the other which is used for a mix between telephone and supplying broadband. The line which is supplying broadband has it's master, and only socket in the top corner of the house, which is where the router is at present (shall call it Socket1 from now on).

I have an "Extension Kit for NTE5 Line Box" and I was wondering whether wiring this up to the current master socket, dropping it through the eaves and running it to the more suitable location with a face plate would mean I can then attach an ADSL filter and use it as I would normally?

Is this how it works (I wouldn't be doing the wiring, I would use a telecomms engineering, but hopefully someone can tell me whether or not it is even worth phoning them)?
Would there be any significant interferance and/or line quality issues for using this method for broadband?

And finally, the age old question... who actually owns the Master Socket? Me or my telecomms provider?

Thank you to anyone who has any idea in this sort of thing!

 

[slowmotion]

You should be able to wire an extension to the master socket just like a normal master socket that doesn't have the broadband telephone line. Plug an ADSL filter into the new extension and plug your router into it. Technically the master socket is owned by the phone company, but you can easily find them on ebay (complete with BT logo!)

 

[Dan B]

You would be better off transporting the signal around the house as Ethernet than as ADSL. Run a long piece of cat5 from the router in its present location to where you want the wireless signal to emanate from, and buy a separate wireless access point to plug into it.

 

[Octet]

Thanks for the replies,

I was initially thinking about running Cat5, however because of some issues it is more practical to run it from behind the phone jack. As of the present, I am using a PDSL to give me a wired connection, but it just isn't practical to setup a repeater/wireless access point.

 

[400bhp]

what about the broadband plug thingymibobs?

 

[Octet]

what about the broadband plug thingymibobs?

Not entirely sure what you're referencing?

Are you talking about PDSLs, the plugs which you place in a conventional power socket, hook up a Cat cable to it and then it sends the signal using the existing wiring?

 

[400bhp]

Yeah think that's it?

Not sure what a cat cable is?

 

[Octet]

Yeah think that's it?

Not sure what a cat cable is?

A Cat being short for category is a set of cable classifications for data and voice transmission. Most commonly you shall find Cat5 however recently Cat6 is replacing it (and for those who can afford it, Fibre Optics).

It is essentially just the network cable you use on your computer, with an RJ45 connector.

 

[Dan B]

Yeah think that's it?

Not sure what a cat cable is?

It attaches to a cat collar so you can take them for walkies

 

[Broadside]

What you are proposing sounds fine, but... if you already have speed issues on your line then you need to beware that the extra cable and particularly the cable joints will introduce additional losses on the cable which may degrade speed. The only way to know is to try.

You may want to run a new master socket from the incoming grey BT box on the outside of your house which would probably be better. But if that's all a bit difficult to run the cable through then go with your first option and just see what happens.

 

[Octet]

What you are proposing sounds fine, but... if you already have speed issues on your line then you need to beware that the extra cable and particularly the cable joints will introduce additional losses on the cable which may degrade speed. The only way to know is to try.

You may want to run a new master socket from the incoming grey BT box on the outside of your house which would probably be better. But if that's all a bit difficult to run the cable through then go with your first option and just see what happens.

Thanks for the suggestions,

It isn't so much an issue with speed but instead with the signal quality being poor due to the material of the building.
We aren't with BT as we don't live on the mainland and therefore speed is always going to be an issue, but hopefully once the signal issue has been sorted it shall improve internet usage in general.

 

[MrJamie]

From memory I think you own everything from the faceplate outwards, they own everything behind it. You can mess around with it, but if you have any problems I think BT will slap you with an engineer charge to fix it.

If youre on ADSL etc, make a note of your line stats from your router at a few times of day if possible, so you can check it before and after to make sure you've not made it worse

Another option which suited me, was to have my broadband line moved to one of the sockets from the other phone line rather than putting in new wiring and faceplate, which may be a quick and easy job for an engineer. I got mine done free though a long while back during ADSL trials so no idea what they charge for it now.

 

[slowmotion]

dmoran is right about cable joints degrading performance, but this has to be put into perspective. A lot of connections into houses come from the local phone exchange down copper cables. Adding another few metres of copper isn't going to make a whole heap of difference. As for the joints, have you seen the inside of a street junction box? No wonder we got cross-talk with a house three hundred metres away and could faintly hear their phone conversations. (In the end I yelled "where are you?" down the phone and gave both of our addresses to BT for them to trace the fault). "Rats nest" is a grave insult to rodents.

 

[PaulSB]

I live in an old stone house and have experienced similar issues over a number of years. The issue you are most likely to face is what happens when your provider offers new services, upgrades software etc.

I've always understood the fastest broadband comes via a direct connection to the master socket. We live rurally and 2mb is the best guaranteed offer available.

Originally I solved our wireless issues by using a long extension to locate the router centrally. However as BT offered more services the router has been moved closer and closer to the master in order improve the speed to access new services.

Over the years we have had to ask BT to change things internally which they like to charge for. To date we've escaped all charges by arguing if BT introduce a service which although improved actually downgrades what we can receive it is their responsibility to fix it.

Last week we got the master socket and line moved for free to the ideal location allowing the router to be plugged directly into the master for the first time and doubling our speed from 1.8 to 3.5mb.

You may find a telephone extension cable works now but if your provider makes future changes you could suffer a reduction in what you can achieve. For this reason I would hard wire the router to the master socket if at all possible.

PS I'm not technical this is based purely in experience and a small amount of understanding gained from the web.

 

[Danny]

I've tried to do something similar to you and run into problems. For many months I was able to run the router from the extension socket, but at some point the quality of the connection deteriorated and the ADSL signal kept dropping out.

My ISP and BT both refuse to take any responsibility for for problems with the ADSL connection if the router is plugged into an extension, rather than the master socket, so I ended up having to move the router back to the master socket and run CAT 5 cable instead.

More recently I had problems with the connection in the master socket, and was told to remove the front plate and plug my router into the internal test socket of the master socket. According to my ISP BT is responsible for everything up to the test socket, but the front plate is the customer's responsibility. I am not sure if entirely believe this, but haven't had time to look into it.

Anyway, based on my experience I would suggest you either get the master socket moved to where you want it, which will cost £120, or run CAT 5 cable instead.