NEW INTERNET CONNECTION - NEW HOUSE - NEW PHONE LINE. Master Socket Vs Test Socket

antman123

antman123

antman123

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Joined
15 Jun 2011
Posts
7
Guys,

I've moved in to a shiny new house and have got sky in for tv, phone and broadband.

Everything is now installed and sky sent a BT engineer over to put the new phone line in. I have up to 20mb connection

Setup:
I have NO OTHER PHONES plugged in the house.

When I plug the router in to the master socket, It's very inconsistent and only get about 2 -3 MB through online speed tests. AS SOON as I plug it in the test socket I am getting 11MB from the online speed test.

My question is:

As I haven't had it for more then a month yet, can I ask sky to send the BT engineer back over and fix the line? Or is this a problem with the internal wiring of the house? I don't know how it can be seeing as though I have no other phones plugged in and the router is in the master socket?

Also, is there a way to fix this on my own? I read somewhere about taking the bell wire out, but when I did that, I didn't get any internet connection, so I put it back. I currently have 3 wires on the master socket.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ant
 
Problem with that is the master socket is the other end of the room from the sky box, and the test socket won't send a signal to the other extensions in the house.

So this isn't a fault by the BT Engineer then?

p.s. I should learn how to type properly. I was getting too excited typing away!!!
 
BT are only responsible for the line up to the point where it enters your house. They will be responsible if the incoming BT master socket is badly fitted to the internal test socket but you'd better make sure it's not something you have done as they'll charge you if they find no fault their end.

Is it a new faceplate? Might be worth grabbing a filtered faceplate from adslnation.

The best way to ascertain speed is by checking the router stats rather than speed test site as they can give variable results.

If you connect to the test socket and get a vastly different Attenuation, connection speed and noise margin from when you connect to the master socket then something is amiss.

The bell wire is not needed in a modern installation. Are you sure you took the right wire out? The bell wire is notorious for dropping connection speeds.

As far as I remember you only need a pair connected to slots 2 and 5. Anything else is not needed.

Might be worth checking your faceplate for bent pins and contamination.
 
Thanks guys.

When I remove the orange wire from number 3 on the plate, then the internet just doesn't work. The router can't connect to the internet. The wire I remove is deffo from number 3 and is orange. When I put it back again it works.

Can it be to shoddy wiring in the new house? Even though I don't have anything plugged in to any of the other phone lines? I'm only using the master socket at the moment.

Understand about the router statistics. They are pretty similar from test and master socket, but the master just doesn't give the internet speed out.

Can I just get sky to come round and say it's a faulty socket plate? The fact iv'e only had it for 14 days and I can get perfect speed out of the test socket must mean the engineer has fitted a dodgy plate or something??

Thanks,

Ant
 
Impossible. Wires 2 and 5 are the only ones used.

Coming in behind the master socket will be a pair of wires connected to A and B, then a faceplate on the front of the socket is where your extensions are wired from.. Usually daisy chained from one socket to another.

Disconnect any wires on the rear of then faceplate (3 terminals, 2, 5 and 3), then put it back on (wihout the wires connected) and test again. At this point you will have no extensions, so you'll have a perfect way to rule out a faulty faceplate / extension problem.
 
@antman, it would be helpful if you could take a couple of pictures of your socket / any extensions etc. As above, 2 and 5 are used for signal, what you're experiencing is very odd so pictures may be useful.

There's almost no use getting Sky to call an engineer out as you'll almost certainly be charged a call out fee, considering your internet isn't actually inactive as such.
 
Copper wiring in old or new builds is just plain crap, they never put it in right. About time they move with the times and start fitting houses with better formats and materials. Give me an internal ethernet network with proper RJ45 sockets in each room any day, I installed four Cat5 cables all over my parents house under the floor boards when I was a teen.
Mind you WiFi wasnt around in those days, but I still wouldnt have used wireless since its not that reliable or capable of fully transmitting the full bandwidth.
 
I have just moved in to a new build. Test socket gave 12mbit, any other socket gave 3-4mbit.

I unscrewed every socket, pulled the wiring off then reconnected just 2 and 5 (using solid / striped blue). The rest I just tucked away. Boom, 11.8mbit to any socket.
 
Defiant306, yes must agree with you on that about CAT5. Its the only way to do it really if you want top performance from your network.

Buy some CAT6e and sockets and fit them in all the rooms. That what I am contemplating at the moment. House is OK for WiFi but I think when I get FTTC to the house I will go totally wired.

At the Mo my rooms down stairs are all wired but still use WiFi for my workshop / office and the wifes laptop, and lads iPODS, but my main PC, HTPC, PS3, and Xbox360 are all wired.

Need a 8 Port GIG switch and will buy the CAT6 cable and sockets and do the whole house with cat6.
 
Guys, please believe me when I say it doesn't work when I remove the number 3 (orange wire)!!

I am only working from the master socket, but would I have to remove the orange wire (if there is one) from the other 3 sockets in the house?

The faceplate is brand new. There wasn't even a plate when we moved in, so the bt engineer put it in.

Would you recommend removing all the wires from the other phone sockets so it's only the master socket that is functioning?

I will attach a picture so you can see the wires from the master socket.

Sky aren't being very helpful. They say once the line is activated, then it's my responsibility.
 
Surely that's just the extension wiring in the picture.

I was rewiring my extension from cheapo flat to BT spec cable today and it looked just like that, but without the bell wire.

Check the way the BT engineer has wired up the box behind the test socket. It should again be just be the one pair in use. Striclty you aren't supposed to do this but who will ever know.

Remove all ring wire from every extension.
 
Last edited:
That's the extension faceplate that goes on the master socket, yeah.

Ideally you'd need to remove the orange ring wire from ALL sockets as by leaving it connected on any you're offering a way for bad RF to be introduced to the existing 2/5 pair. This wouldn't account for you losing internet when disconnecting the ring wire on the main socket, though, that doesn't make sense at all.

So in your picture, you've removed the extension plate, then when you plug the modem in to the master socket behind you receive no internet??? Or is it when you reconnect the extension plate, you fail to receive internet on any extension sockets?

See if you can get a picture of behind the master faceplate...
 
Thanks Benftl.

Removing the orange wire from the first photo (master socket) and then screwing the plate back in makes the internet no longer work.

The situation is that when I remove the face plate and plug the filter in to the test socket (which is the socket behind the face plate (on the right hand side), my internet works 100% @ 11mps. When I screw the faceplate back on and plug the modem in to the master socket, I get a very poor 4mb. (It's not even 4mb because youtube takes ages to stream a video).

Nothing is plugged in to any other phone line, so I don't see how removing the orange wires would have an impact?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64361854@N08/5857690624/

Regards,

Anthony
 
Right okay, try disconnecting all three wires from the customer plate, then reconnect it to the master socket and see what sync you get when you plug in the modem to that socket.

The customer socket part is connected directly to the master so it would be VERY odd that you suffer such a loss of sync when connected, it's sounding like there's interference along the customer side or one of the customer sockets or even the plate is faulty, this is why I ask you disconnect the wires from the customer plate to isolate that length from the line first.
 
Antman123, you need to remove the orange wire from ALL the extensions as its picking RF/EMC noise from the wires. All they are doing while they are still connected are picking up electrical noise and inducing it back on to the 2/5 pair and killing your internet.

Do your phones work with the orange wire removed? They should do as all the 3rd orange wire is for the OLD style phone that needed a RINGER voltage fed by a capacitor to make the phone ring hence the name RINGER WIRE.

On new systems/phones it is not needed. BOTH of my phone lines ( one business and one private) have only the pair 2 and 5 connected.
 
Guys,

Thanks for all your help. I have now solved the problem.

Basically whilst I thought I was only using the master socket for my tests, I noticed that the phone socket across the room (where my sky HD box is) has some stupid filter thing attached to it. The sky HD guy must have fitted this when he came and installed the box (please see picture link below). This is the wire that connects a phone port from the sky box to the access point. I don't know why they added this filter, but my original set up was that the filter in the picture was going directly in to the phone line and then my micro filter was plugging in to that. But removing this filter and plugging my micro filter straight in to the phone port gives me 11mbs straight away. Plugging it back it really messes the line up.

Stupid sky!

P.S. The removing that orange wire from the master socket stopped my internet from working (but the phone still worked). I won't be investigating this one any further as I now have the speed I want. :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64361854@N08/5859598460/

Ant

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64361854@N08/5859598460/
 
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