Hi..right, I've finally had chance to try some of your suggestions...

Phone doesn't ring when plugged into the splitter on either the main socket or the test socket.

The phone still doesn't ring when the BB router is unplugged from the splitter.

The call seems to be going through, so if I make a call on my mobile...even though there is no ring, when I pick up my home phone the call is connected and I can hear myself. So this seems like calls are being instantly "picked up".

I don't know if this means anything, but when I removed the face plate of my Master Socket...there were no wires attached to the faceplate...just an orange and white wire going behind the white plastic (presumably directly to the test socket).

If I was being logical, it does seem like the splitter is faulty...but it does seem strange that two entirely different splitters make my phone behave in this way.

Any further help, is greatly appreciated.

Hi..right, I've finally had chance to try some of your suggestions...

Phone doesn't ring when plugged into the splitter on either the main socket or the test socket.

The phone still doesn't ring when the BB router is unplugged from the splitter.

The call seems to be going through, so if I make a call on my mobile...even though there is no ring, when I pick up my home phone the call is connected and I can hear myself. So this seems like calls are being instantly "picked up".

I don't know if this means anything, but when I removed the face plate of my Master Socket...there were no wires attached to the faceplate...just an orange and white wire going behind the white plastic (presumably directly to the test socket).

If I was being logical, it does seem like the splitter is faulty...but it does seem strange that two entirely different splitters make my phone behave in this way.

Any further help, is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for that chrisjr.

Its a jumble of wires behind the faceplate with some not connected to anything but left loose and I didn't fancy attempting to see where the wires came from/went to.

The extension runs outside so its possible water could have got in the cable.

Can you borrow a filter from someone (preferably on a different ISP) in case its just your ISP's filters that are causing the problem because I can't think of any other reason for your problem.

In theory only pins 2 and 5 need connecting. Also it is not unusual to wire extensions with two, three or more pair cable. Normally the Blue pair are used for the line on 2 and 5 and one of the orange pair for the bell wire on 3.

If you have green, brown or any other colour wires then they are likely to be unused spare pairs.

And you may well be right about water getting into the cable. especially if the cable is not designed for outdoor use or has become damaged. I once had to repair a ten pair cable that had sat outside a building for years and the outer insulation had cracked. Rain got in and badly affected the wiring. Some of the wires had cracked and damaged insulation themselves and the copper was black with corrosion and gunge!

A temporary fix if you can establish if all the pairs at one end match up with the wires at the other end is to swap the existing pair on 2 and 5 for one of the unused ones. It doesn't really make any difference which pair you use. But I have known cables where one pair breaks down but the others are perfectly OK.

One way to check is to bare the ends of the spare wires at one end of the cable run and twist them together. Go to the other end bare the ends and use a multimeter to see if it reads a short circuit. then get an assistant to separate the twisted wires to check the short circuit disappears. If so then you've found a potential spare pair that may cure the problem. And easier than running a new cable

Cheers for the advice but I've got basic knowledge and I really don't fancy messing with it as its not my house and could quite easily lose him what he's got.

I think he's going to get BT to move the master socket downstairs.
Its just unfortunate the BT installer ran an extension instead of moving the socket but as he was on dial up at the time, it didn't make any difference speed wise.

Thanks Ajay... The new filter which may be causing the same problem is not from my ISP, but I local store....so I don't think it's the ISP's filters that are the problem.

Have replaced splitter again, and the phone rings now. Thank-you all for your help.

Ant

No it is a modern faceplate. The original faceplates had six connectors but 1 and 6 where never used and so some more modern faceplates have dispensed with them.

BTW I am surprised that you phones didn't ring. I did some tests a bout three years ago and could only find one phone that did not ring without a ring circuit and it was as old as the hills. However when connected via a microfilter it did wring - as was to be expected.

Cheers for the info Beerhunter.

I was referring more to the state of the wires in the master socket when I said it looked like a botched job so apologies for the confusion.

I was surprised that neither of the phones rang, as I thought the corded phone which is plugged into a filter which is then plugged into the master socket would have rung.

But both that and the phone downstairs thats connected to the extension didn't ring.