FasterFords

Having pulled down an old plasterboard archway in the hall, I've uncovered the surround for the old front door.

Now I have a maze of phone cables, a BT socket near the ceiling that was wall papered over , cable that had a least 2 nails through the middle and a 1950's junction box.

Does anyone know how to remove all this and use the existing twin core cable to a new style point ?

Thanks
Mark

Gman85

Hi, yeah i'm a BT engineer. The feed looks like its an old one that comes through the frame and into the back of that old junction box. The box is nothing but an old style connection box. You could replace it with any sort of box from B & Q etc, will be in their telephone and electrical department and will probably have screw terminals inside a white plastic box. Nothing hard to do except joing the 2 sets of individual cables together (not polarity sensitive) and dont worry there is only 50v dc down the line so you can touch it. You are suposed to get a BT engineer to do this work as its like the gas board and you could get a fine if you cause any faults that then needs an engineer out.

Have you moved into the property recently or had the bt phone line just switched on? If so the engineer should have replaced all of that and changed over to new style socket etc. Let me know if you want more info.

FasterFords

thanks for the info.

we moved in about 6 years ago, all of that was covered up with plasterboard and wallpaper, so never knew it was there.

Ryan

gman,

while your hear, i have a question.

i have a BT line that comes into my house, it goes to what looks like a fairly modern box, but then from that comes 60's wiring to inside the house, to a earching box? (so i've been told) which has an gronding wire which goes back outside and to ground, then from that to a very old master socket.

Is there something that can be done with this? i.e modernising it? as i think this bit of cable and face plate are slowing my internet connection down, as i had a similar problem at my last property. only been here about a month, so its on the list of things to do.

Gman85

Never come across that still in operation, what part of the country do you live in? I have never come across a residential house that needs an earthing strip, definately shouldn't be needed. Do you have special phones in your house or just normal everyday corded and cordless handsets? Also what does the modern first box look like?

Ryan

some quick pictures.

Gman85

where is that grey box fitted? outside wall? are you fed by a telegraph pole, if so is that black cable going back to the pole?

Ryan

inside the porch, so inside technically, yes fed by pole.

yes cable goes direct to pole.

apparantly its to stop electricity going threw the household electrics in the event of a lightening hitting the pole supposed ?

Gman85

Who told you that about the lightening strikes? Complete rubbish, the only lightening protection is in the telephone exchanges and also on some older telegraph pole wires and that looks like a rectangular module on the wire itself somewhere. Have you just had the bt line 'installed'?

Ryan

just some electrician bloke.

nope line has been here for years, we've just moved in and got BB connected.

speed is ok, but im litterally less than 1000 metre from the main BT phone exhange, but speed isnt as it should be.

what is the earthing wire used for then? and can it simply be removed and the new wire go direct from the grey box to a new master socket?

Ryan

there is a biggish black retangular box (i.e 50cmx20cm ish) on the telegraph pole, just below where all the cables meet at the top.

house was built in the 60's if it makes a difference

Gman85

You're very close to exchange, I can tell you exactly why you're not getting good speeds and its all down to the old wiring. The grey juntion box you have is now obsolete and will get replaced when the next engineer visits. The old grey wire that the incoming black wire to is also obsolete but shouldn't be too much of a hinderance.
The big problem is the juntion box in you're second picture, basically your telephone service is 'star wired' which means that all the phone extentions in the property are just joined onto the line in any old fashion. The way of getting the best bb speed is to have the incoming cable go straight to 1 new socket with no joins, then the extensions connect to the front plate of the new socket. Then plug the bb router into the first socket so that it is picking up the best signal and not being interfered with by all the other sockets and cabling.

I fixed a house the other day that was exactly the same, they were getting 2mb and after sorting all the wiring out they were getting 5mb! My advice is to go to your broadband supplier and say that you arent happy with the speed and would like a broadband engineer to sort the line speed out, you will get charged for this so make sure how much. an openreach engineer should then sort all this out for you. The other way is to look in the yellow pages for ex engineers etc advertising to increase broadband speeds, they will be cheaper but cant access some parts of the network. You could also rewire yourself if you were happy with it and understood it.

Gman85

the big black box on the pole is just a distribution box, where the underground supply connects to the overhead cable that feed your houses

FasterFords

I've just ripped all my wiring off the wall and wire the black wire coming from the front door into the master socket in the lounge.

the socket in the 1st picture was a master too, so that was 2 in the loop

the phone line works still and the internet seems a lot faster.

thanks again

focusv8

To all you young B.T engineers, the earth wire was used in a System called Shared Service, in the 60's & 70's when there was a shortage of lines and too many people wanted the service.

2 houses fed from the same D.P shared one line.
It used earth and 1 leg for ring and the pair for speech.

Only one phone could be used at a time and there was a button on the phone to test for dial tone.

The fuse like links in the black box are lightning protection from when phone lines were 2 bare wires from the pole to house.

.

Ryan

cheers focus, i've just removed the old wiring, and wired striaght from the grey box to the master socket, will get a new master socket eventually.

ironically it doesnt seem to have increased my speed at all

maybe its the master socket?

FasterFords

I got over 1mb improvement since the removal of all that crap

Have you rebooted your modem since you've done it ?

pau1rs

blimey g man,,, whats all this replacing old wiring,,, how long you worked for bt openreach...

there are many factors that can effect your adsl speed,,,

i had a adsl job last week with at extension dropping speed from 4.5 meg to 0.3....

always best to take you speeds from your router, not these speed test sites...

also worth disconnecting any bell wires from ext`s as this can help also....

Ryan

this is what my router says speed wise

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:1,325 / 16,953


yes on speedtester which i've always always used, it says around 10mb.

Ryan

just reset my router as i forgot to do this after i had installed the new phone line.

now is says.

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:1,308 / 17,002

Gman85

I was trying to explain stuff in human terms and not do what bt has a habit of doing and overly complicating things with slang such as dp's etc. Im not saying get rid of all the old stuff as some of the better copper is in the older wiring, but in this case, things are uncesessarily star wired etc. If I left people wired up like that in our area then the auditor would murder me, suppose it's obviously never gone faulty yet.

Broadband can be affected by millions of things yes but its always worthwhile bringing things up to standard and eliminate them. Oh and yeah I have never come across any of the earlier line sharing devices but there is still a bit of earth calling around here.

BRAMMER

iTrader: (23)

I have a question,

I've just bought a new house just built and it needs the line connected - whats involved and does it have to be done by an engineer or can i do it???

Any info