I have just moved and was wondering why my broadband speed is nowhere near as good as it was before I moved (have gone less than 400m down the road).

At the old apartment, I used to get 18Mb with Sky, however I'm now struggling to get above 4Mb. Stats are roughly the same as the old place (27dB downstream attenuation) but the SNR is 7dB, which led me to look at the extensions.

All the sockets are BT branded (4 in total including the NTE5), but upon opening the NTE5, I discovered the extensions are wired directly into the back of the socket, and not on to the removable faceplate.

What do you think are the chances of BT charging me for sorting it out? It looks like BT fitted them for the previous owner, but wired them incorrectly and I cannot (legally, at least) sort the cabling out myself due to anything beyond the test socket being BT property.


Regards.

BT (or more correctly Openreach) would never wire extensions to the back of the NTE5. or it was a seriously incompetent engineer who did so.

But it may have been done by the sparkies employed by whoever built the property. It is not unusual for builders to prewire phone sockets and all BT do is hook onto them outside.

BT may well charge you for removing the extension cables. They will certainly charge you to re-connect them properly as I suspect they never wired them in the first place.

Thanks for the reply. I would have thought BT wired all the extensions in because they all have the BT piper logo on, unless they sold branded ones at some point?

It is possible BT may have installed the extensions at some point. But whether they still regard them as their property or not is another matter.

But as I said no competent BT (Openreach) engineer would ever wire extension cables into the back of an NTE5. It would not surprise me to find that a previous occupant installed the NTE5 himself, replacing a LJU style socket. That would have had the incoming BT wires and the extensions all connected up together. perhaps whoever did it thought that was how an NTE5 should be wired also.

The other possibility is BT changed the socket but left the extensions unwired because they didn't think they were BT's. Leaving it to the owner to wire them up. But he/she/it couldn't work the IDC connections in the faceplate out, so hooked the extensions onto the screw terminals on the line instead.

If BT have records of them changing an LJU style socket or a junction box for an NTE5 and re-wiring the extensions then they may change the wiring for you as it clearly was not done properly. But if they have no record of such a change then they may say it was you or a previous occupant who changed it and that they will charge you to sort it. That may apply if they only say they changed the socket and left the extensions unwired.

OK thanks for your input.

BT arrangement with building developers is to deliver stores to them, cable/duct jointbox covers etc. and then pay them a fee per tenancy for installing this stuff, with apartments its likely that the building was given a DP (distribution point) fitted in somewhere like the utilitys area and then internal 6 wire (or similar) and sockets (nte5 master and extension sockets if requested) given to the developer who then uses the electrician or whoever to fit then stuff, probably old figures now but BT used to pay £250 per house and £116 per flat,
Even on brand new service, if its faulty exetnsion wiring or sockets you will be charged if you report them faulty and BT attend, if BT fit an extension (badly) and it goes faulty in the first 12 months you should have a warranty card ( left by the BT engineer) so you can get them back FOC to fix it

The apartment (new build) I was in had one a DP in a cupboard, which the Openreach engineer informed was the demarcation point, so if faults arose after that, it was my responsibility to fix it.

In the house I've moved to, it's older and fed by a pole, rather than underground. The previous owner has told me that they had BT come and install the extensions in the late 90's, so I guess I'll have to pay or have a fiddle myself, even though I shouldn't!

Sorry to dig this thread up again, but I thought I'd let you know I've done a bit more investigative work and have found out some rather odd things.

I have taken the NTE5 fully apart and have found that there are only 3 wires screwed into the back, so the extensions aren't wired into the back of it. It is fed by a cable, which I believe means it isn't directly fed from outside because the drop wire coming down the front of the house is black.

There is a double extension in the office, which is to the rear of the house. I took that socket apart to find it being fed by a black wire from outside. It is a double socket LJU 4 1A (Master). The other extension is disconnected.
This has led me to believe that the NTE5 in the lounge is being fed by the socket in the office upstairs. Only thing is, all the wiring is under laminate flooring so will be hard to get to and find out exactly how the NTE5 is fed.

The drop wire from the pole goes in by the front door then disappears due to the walls being replastered. There is a defunct BT linebox on the inside of the doorway.
There is no visible sign of the main line coming in and going round the outisde of the building, so I will have to investigate a bit further to see if I can find out where the office socket is being fed from.

This leads me on to my question - will having two master sockets on one phone line make the BB speed deteriorate? The BB works in the office and the NTE5 with little change in stats from either socket.

I hope I've explained it clearly, but if you need any clarification, please do ask!

If what you though was the master socket has 3 wires connected then it sounds as if the bellwire is connected, only 2 wires need to be connected on terminals 2 and 5, disconnect the unrequired wire on all sockets, this may improve your speed, the master socket has a capacitor between the a and b leg, extension sockets dont, having 2 master sockets will increase the capacitance on the line but doubt if this will have a negative effect on broadband, the capacitor in master sockets is only there for dc testing purposes, so without a tele plugged in the line wont test disconnected (dis) and potentially cause lines to be reported faulty when they are not

The bell capacitor is between the b leg and the bell wire (pin 3 of the terminal block). With a resistor from the bell wire to the a leg. the only thing across a and b legs is a surge arrestor.

A NTE5 will not have a bell wire connection on the back plate, only the line a and b leg connections and on early versions an earth terminal. Only the IDC terminals behind the removable front plate will have a bellwire connection.

If the incoming BT line is connected to a LJU style socket then it should be fairly simple to determine if the NTE5 is fed from it. A LJU socket has only the one set of connectors. Therefore the incoming and extension wires have to be connected to the same pair of terminals.

If there is only one wire on each terminal in the back of the LJU in the office then it is not the source of the NTE 5 connection. The cable must be split off somewhere else.

If the BT cable does come in next to the door then the termination point will be very close to that location. There are regulations about how far outside grade cable can be run indoors so the cable will terminate within a few feet of where it comes through the wall. So if the office IS the termination point of the incoming BT cable then that cable must go into the office close to where the LJU is located.

As for having multiple master sockets. That should not affect broadband performance. Many ADSL filters are fitted with the bell capacitor/resistor combination so in effect turn a secondary socket into a master. Although the filter components may well be before the bell components which will isolate them to some extent.

Actually, if you have a problem with your extension wiring who can you call to get in sorted?

I had a fault of a buzzing on an extension when I moved to my new house. We called BT and the engineer came and tested the line at the master socket and diagnosed that this was ok and therefore the problem was not under BT's remit. Luckily I was able to trace the problem myself to some bodged up wiring behind one of the extension sockets where someone had directly wired in some old pre ADSL modem type box.

There are a number of former BT employees out there doing this type of work. Can be a faff tracking them down though.

Case of trawling through the Yellow Pages or Thompson Local or the free ad papers for something like "Ex BT engineer" in the entry/ad. Probably under Electricians.

BT advised me they would charge for a callout due to having no records of the extensions being fitted by them, and Sky aren't bothered because I'm getting the right speed according to them. 4Mb max on a ~30dB line...doesn't seem right to me.

The line loops round from the the drop wire to go the back of the house into the double socket LJU, which is the current master (no test socket to isolate extensions) so I believe that is the problem; there is a wire that drops down the lounge wall then disappears under the floor to emerge at the NTE 5, so that is being fed by the 'old style' master.

I'll have a look in the phone book/Yellow Pages to try and track an ex-BT engineer down.

Thanks for all the advice guys.