About my Master socket and test socket (Phone line gurus please)

[qqg3]

So I'm facing the facts that my internal cabling is messed up and I lack the knowledge to sort it out myself and getting someone else to do it for me looks like a costly option I can't afford.

I get the best connection at the master socket using the test socket behind the face plate. I'm looking for ways to use this as a solution permanently (I'll only be living here for another 12 months give or take). The test socket speed is about 15x faster than the speed from the front socket.

Would an ADSL faceplate work? Or does that just split the voice and adsl data?

I know using the test socket would disable any extensions so I could only have the one phone at the master socket but that is a compromise I'm willing to take.

I just don't know how safe it would be to leave the faceplate off permanently (to enable use of the test socket) so was wondering if there was a better (cosmetically) option?

(Incase you ask, I've already gone as far as I know how to to try and fix my internal connection problems. Removing ring wires etc but to no avail, the test socket still gives the strongest connection by a long long way)

 

[ANDARIAL]

What I would do in your situation is buy a NTE5 filtered faceplate,move/plug router into the adsl socket,plug phone into the phone socket(maybe buy a wireless phone if you need it any distance from the main socket)
Run cat cable from router to your pc(or get wireless router and wireless pci card for pc)

 

[Deaco]

Depending on how many sockets you have I would do this.

- Take the bt front plate off the master socket to show the test jack, remove all the wires from that part - making a note if there's anything strange usually it's just 2 wires Blue/Blue and white.

- Screw plate back on and connect the micfrofilter and router, and you should have exactly the same speed as when you were connected to the test jack - if not something is wrong with the plate and put everythign back to how it was and look to get that fixed.

- If all that works. Grab a cheap/redundant cable which has a BT plug on it and strip the sheath to expose the individual pairs of wire.

- Connect the blue/blue white pairs of the little fly lead onto a choc block or similar - making sure to leave enough slack to terminate back to how it used to be when you leave.

- Connect the internal cabling like for like on the opposite side.

- Plug the newly connected BT plud lead into the voice part of the microfilter and voila internal cabling is all clean voice so you don't need to worry about microfilters on the rest of your sockets etc.



Ideally you wouldn't use a choc bloc but I'm guessing you don't have any 78A's or grease conn's knocking about, so that could be a semi temporary fix.

Alternatively the filtered NTE's might do exactly that - havn't used them myself although I seem to be doing a bit more residential stuff lately so I dare say I will be.

 

[iraiguana]

Try the new BT I-plate if you haven't already. I had an unstable 2-3 meg connection and now have a rock solid 3.5mb connection with the new I-plate. Is a safer/easier solution than the above if it will work for you.

 

[Deaco]

I wouldn't use a BT I plate personally, all it does is filter the ring wire (wire 3 - usually orange) so removing it if it's no longer required will have the same effect if not better - you will still need microfilters on all the sockets.

However a filtered faceplate like Andarial would be a better option if you want to go down that route - won't need any filters and you will have to plug the router into the master socket - not a biggy though. Should cost you about £10 plus an IDC tool of sorts (might get away with a thin screwdriver but not tried it myself and wouldn't recommend it).


Or you could use the cheap chearful method which should cost you about £2-3 - won't look as neat though =D

 

[qqg3]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I was about buy a new faceplate, then had one last look at the master socket.

I unplugged everything, leaving wires to just 2 and 5. Voila, phone extensions are still working and the downstream speeds to the router from the front socket are the same as the test socket. Now its just a waiting game to see if my IP profile will catch up.

Cheers.