Identify this 'box' on my telephone line plz

CSA

CSA

CSA

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Lancashire
My phone line comes off the pole about 10/15 meters from my house, it then fastens to a hook just under my gutter then runs for about 2 meters into a unidentified little black box then down my wall into a master socket

can any one tell me what this box is and what it does plz thanks




Im thinking it maybe effecting my broadband speeds :(
 
I have one of those, I think it's a new type of junction box I doubt it will be affecting your BB though
 
Mr-White said:
you're being tapped :eek:

MW
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hehe

well the thing is weve noticed that none of our neighbours has this box fitted and the guy next door has the exact same sky broadband package as us but gets well over double if not nearly triple the speed we get ? and he doesnt have this box thing :(

weve only lived here a month so have no clue what this box it , what it does and if it could be effecting our broadband
 
It's just a joint.

I imagine it's the internal phone cabling effecting your broadband speeds.
 
They are a junction box to connect the wire coming from the pole to the down lead going into your property. At some point the wire from the pole to your house has been changed and conncected to the existing wire down your wall

They are filled with a gel like substance which makes the joint waterproof. I wouldnt have thought it was affecting your broadband speeds, unless the connection that was made was a poor one.
 
thanks ljt some good info there

RE: internal phone cabling well to be honest there isnt any, the line you see on my wall there goes down to the master socket in my living room right next to the window, i have a adsl wire from the master socket to my router then a ethernet cable from the router to my pc and thats it, theres no other phone sockets in the house at all just that one master socket
 
there arent any old wires coming from the master socket you spoke of is there? If its a standard master socket (NTE5) You could always unscrew the 2 screws, pull the little front plate off and have a look behind, and make sure there are no old wires left attached.

You could then try plugging your router into the socket on the right hand side (known as the test socket) See if that gets you any better sync speed
 
ljt said:
there arent any old wires coming from the master socket you spoke of is there? If its a standard master socket (NTE5) You could always unscrew the 2 screws, pull the little front plate off and have a look behind, and make sure there are no old wires left attached.

You could then try plugging your router into the socket on the right hand side (known as the test socket) See if that gets you any better sync speed
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ok i just tried that and still the same speed, i did noticed my downstream noise margin dropped from 16 to 12 tho

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 4093 kbps 765 kbps
Line Attenuation 47 db 28 db
Noise Margin 12 db 10 db


Theres no extra wires attached to the socket, just 2 in the back of it an orange one and a white one, dunno if thats normal as i know nothing about wiring lol
 
At some point BT will have wanted to change the cabling from the pole to your house, you probably wern't home so they tend to just chop it off and put a junction box in.

We've got one here.
 
CSA said:
ok i just tried that and still the same speed, i did noticed my downstream noise margin dropped from 16 to 12 tho

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 4093 kbps 765 kbps
Line Attenuation 47 db 28 db
Noise Margin 12 db 10 db


Theres no extra wires attached to the socket, just 2 in the back of it an orange one and a white one, dunno if thats normal as i know nothing about wiring lol
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Did your noise margin drop from 16 to 12 when you plugged it into the test socket? or is it 12db when you have the socket as normal?

Orange white is correct. I don't suppose you have a rough idea of your line length?, to know whether your Attenuation is about right. Try going to samknows.com. it'll give you a rough guesstimate of straight line distance.

You could always ask your neighbours for their line stats and see how they compare.

Was their any sign of corrosion/oxidisation of the connections on the socket? i.e. green/black coating on the copper parts
 
Last edited:
yeah it dropped from 16 to 12 using the test socket

will check for corrosion tomorrow, i asked my neighbour yesterday about his connection dunno about his stats but he said he downloads at around 1000kbps and im getting 440 max :(
 
In that case perhaps the line between the joint box and socket is really old and poor quality. Perhaps look into having it replaced?

Also, just on the off chance try a different micro filter as I have come across faulty ones in my line of work.
 
if you have orange wires in the mastersocket, remove them. They are the ring wire and just become an antennae to attract noise. You'll probably see an increase in SNR. also differing SNR from the test socket indicates poor termination. I'd pull all the wires out and re-terminate them after cutting 2-3mm off the ends. (i.e back just past the point where the insulation is cut by the connector.)
It is also possible that water has gotten into the junction box, it won't hurt to open it up and have a look. Don't do anything to it though, BT should do that for free if there's anything wrong.
 
Skidilliplop said:
if you have orange wires in the mastersocket, remove them. They are the ring wire and just become an antennae to attract noise. You'll probably see an increase in SNR. also differing SNR from the test socket indicates poor termination. I'd pull all the wires out and re-terminate them after cutting 2-3mm off the ends. (i.e back just past the point where the insulation is cut by the connector.)
It is also possible that water has gotten into the junction box, it won't hurt to open it up and have a look. Don't do anything to it though, BT should do that for free if there's anything wrong.
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The orange wire that he is on about sounds like the pair coming from the dropwire from the pole. In which case, don't dis that off lol! If its 1 wire orange and 1 wire white going into two cross headed screws then this is perfectly ok. There will most likely be a green and a black wire coiled up there too.

Water damage could be a highly likely problem if you say your socket is mounted on the window ledge!? (although it shouldn't have been put there!)
 
I had issues with my phone a couple of years ago, and it was traced out to a couple of metres from the box in the house. Turned out that I had a junction box similar to that one, and it wasn't terminated correctly!

The BT engineer chopped it off and re-terminated, and the issue with the phone line disappeared.
 
ljt said:
The orange wire that he is on about sounds like the pair coming from the dropwire from the pole. In which case, don't dis that off lol! If its 1 wire orange and 1 wire white going into two cross headed screws then this is perfectly ok. There will most likely be a green and a black wire coiled up there too.

Water damage could be a highly likely problem if you say your socket is mounted on the window ledge!? (although it shouldn't have been put there!)
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Signal pairs are almost always blue for a single line. Generally if you have standard BT 3 pair coming in it'll be Blue first line, green additional line, orange ring circuit. If it's not got cat5 looking solid and striped pairs then have BT replace that stretch of cable as it's really quite ancient. My line has been in place since the 70s and it has modern looking 3pair. If it's not this colour scheme it's also probably aluminium which is a bad thing also. that 2 metres or so of aluminium cable could nerf data connections badly.
 
Skidilliplop said:
Signal pairs are almost always blue for a single line. Generally if you have standard BT 3 pair coming in it'll be Blue first line, green additional line, orange ring circuit. If it's not got cat5 looking solid and striped pairs then have BT replace that stretch of cable as it's really quite ancient. My line has been in place since the 70s and it has modern looking 3pair. If it's not this colour scheme it's also probably aluminium which is a bad thing also. that 2 metres or so of aluminium cable could nerf data connections badly.
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By the sounds of it though CSA is on about the external wire which comes down the wall then into the back of the socket. From looking at the picture and the description of a orange and white cable going into the back of the NTE5, it is dropwire 10 which is a 2 pair wire. Pair 1 is 1 solid orange and 1 solid white and the second pair is 1 solid green and 1 solid black.
 
thanks for the input fellas but i really dont have a clue what your both talking about hehe , what i do know and my wife just pointed it out is that our telephone which is obviously plugged into the same master socket as the broadband doesnt have a proper dial tone , instead of the constant tone when you pick the receiver up is has a intermittent tone like " beep ............ beep...................beep " kinda thing almost like an engaged tone ?

dunno if this is related ? what ever it doesnt look good :(
 
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