Hi,

I have BT Infinity and the master socket is situated in the hall. In the lounge, there's what looks like an extension - just a small white phone cable coming out of the wall and into a small filtered faceplate with a plug for phone and a plug for ADSL.

Would this even work with Infinity instead of the wall socket?!

Also, regarding WiFi, I get full signal upstairs, but barely any signal in the conservatory! Any way of improving this?

Thanks

It all depends on how it is wired back to the master socket and whether the master socket faceplate was replaced for a filtered type itself.

In the original Infinity installs a new front was put on the master socket with a separate socket for the Infinity modem/router on the top half and the normal phone socket on the lower removable section.

If that is the type of master you have then the extension could be filtered so no use to move the BT hub. The faceplate on the master includes a filter and normally the extension terminals are connected after the filter. Some types of master face plate do have a set of unfiltered extension terminals however.

If your master does have both filtered and unfiltered extension terminals then you might be able to swap the lounge cable onto the unfiltered terminals which would make the lounge socket available to plug the Hub into.

However it might depend on what socket the hub has to plug into the master and what socket is on the lounge plate for the "ADSL" connection. The Infinity master sockets are usually fitted with RJ45 sockets but the ADSL plate may be RJ11. If the hub has a RJ45 plug it won't fit the RJ11 ADSL socket. However if it has a RJ11 plug it will fit either.

So depending on how it is all wired up and what plugs and sockets are involved there is a fighting chance you could move the hub into the lounge. How well it will work there is impossible to say. With decent wiring properly terminated there may be only a negligible drop in performance, if any. But with really poor quality cable and bodged termination then it might not work well at all.

You may also find that it improves the WiFi problem as well, depending on the geography of your house. Though equally it could adversely affect WiFi upstairs. No way to know without actually doing it.

The Master Socket is quite thick! There's a small socket on there for the phone and another for the broadband cable.

I removed the cable in the lounge from the little faceplate as I didn't think I'd use it, however I'm going to plug the cable back into the faceplate and check if it works. The cable is very thin coming out of the wall, so I'll be surprised if it's going to be suitable to use it for infinity. I do think the phone cable coming out of the wall is coming from the master socket. I honestly don't know.

Does it look like this

https://community.bt.com/t5/image/se...7D966?v=mpbl-1

There are also replacement units for the removable lower section of a standard master socket like this

http://www.solwise.co.uk/images/imag...slface-sol.png

They do increase the thickness of the socket box a bit but also taper at the top as you can see.

The extension cables would commonly be run into the back or side of the socket and be pulled through internally to hook up onto the extension terminals which are circled in red in this image

http://www.run-it-direct.co.uk/image...ockbranded.jpg

In this instance there is only one pair of terminals which would very probably be after the filter. In which case that makes them useless to extend the infinity connection as the filter removes the hight frequency signals Infinity uses from the line.

Some of the second type of faceplate I linked to above do have two pairs of terminals for extensions, one pair filtered the other unfiltered. With the second type you could use the extension by connecting to the unfiltered terminals.

Standard phone cable can be quite thin, especially the basic two pair stuff

http://www.tandyonline.co.uk/media/c...c/w/cw1308.png

Probably about half the diameter of a standard ethernet cable. If the cable cores look like the image above then it is probably OK.

Thanks, yes the master socket I have is like the one in your first link.

I want to get this extension wired back to see if I can use my hone hub 5 with infinity from it, would you be able to advise where the wires go and if this is suitable please?

http://i61.tinypic.com/21bms6.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/2wh07eh.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/23k7lon.jpg

The first thing to ascertain is whether the master socket has unfiltered terminals or not. If there are only two terminals as shown in the third link in my post then you cannot move the hub by wiring up an extension phone socket. Though I have a feeling that the bog standard Openreach installation does not have unfiltered connections. So this project may be a none starter unfortunately.

However if the master socket does have unfiltered terminals you may be onto a winner. A lot of such faceplates may actually have 6 terminals four labelled 2, 3, 4 and 5 and two labelled A and B. 2 and 5 are the filtered line and A and B are the unfiltered line.

But before wiring up anything get rid of that cable and get some proper CW1308 spec cable. The cable in your image is not really the correct type to use in the type of terminals on the master.

You need something like this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Generic-CW13...dp/B00TU2OKJQ/

And a tool to punch down the wires into the terminals on the master socket, a cheap one like this will do

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Network-Tele.../dp/B000Q8FKHE

Use the blue pair of wires and ignore the orange.

On the master you simply lay the wire into the slot in the terminal then use the tool to push it down firmly. Then trim any excess. Use the A and B terminals and note which wire you use for A and which for B. You'll see one wire is mainly blue with white stripes and the other mainly white with blue stripes. Doesn't really matter which way round they go as long as you remember how you wired them.

Then run round to the lounge and into the extension. This uses screw terminals so just bare a bit of the end of the wires and use the wire from A on the master to connect to terminal 5 on the extension and B on the master to 2 on the extension.

Bit more of a hassle than using the existing cable but I would not recommend you try using that. It may compromise the broadband performance more than using "proper" extension cabling.

But as I said right at the start if there are only two terminals on the master for extension cabling then you won't be able to wire up a phone extension to move the hub. In that instance the only option is to use a longer lead from the back of the Home Hub to the top socket on the master and use the extension for the phone only.

In that instance the existing cable will probably do. Just pick one wire colour for the A to 5 link and another for the B to 2 link. Or 5 to 5 and 2 to 2 depending on how the terminals are labelled.