Replacing Master Socket with NTE-5

I've been taking more of an interest in my telephone wiring because my
exchange is enabled for Easynet, Ukonline 22Mbit, Bethere, Bulldog,
Homechoice (and ADSL Max of course). I am about 1.5 km from the
exchange and various line checkers are telling me I could get somewhere
between 4 and 8 Mbits. I also live in an NTL area with a 10 Mbit
option.

Therefore, I'm trying to see if I can boost my SNR. So I take a look at
my sockets and I notice that the Master Socket is not the NTE-5 type.
Nor is there any BT logo on the faceplates. So I'm thinking maybe I've
got some dodgy install and I'm wondering what I can do about it.

So I read this forum and like the look of the Clarity faceplate for
NTE-5 and decide that I'd like to get a BT engineer over here and get
him/her to replace my Master Socket with the newer type.

Also, there are a lot of nods and winks about doing it yourself,
creating your own line faults, tea and biscuits etc.

What if I just want to pay BT to sort it out? What number do I call and
how much will it cost? I know what someone will tell me: ring 150 and
ask BT. But I'm sure that there will be wrinkles to this, especially if
my equipment has been illegally installed by a previous owner of my
property.

Incidentally, I'm on the second floor of a six-flat building and when I
look out my window, I see a white wire, maybe 5mm diameter running
along under a window sill, where it meets a tired looking adapter with
a BT piper logo on it, from where a thinner wire goes down the side of
the property into a very ratty looking bird's nest of wires from the
other flats and into a grey circular box , perhaps 15 cm diameter.

Also, my router is plugged into what seems to be the Master Socket but,
confusingly, when I unscrewed the faceplate of another socket, it too
had a yellow capacitor at the top.

janderson wrote:

> What if I just want to pay BT to sort it out? What number do I call and
> how much will it cost? I know what someone will tell me: ring 150 and
> ask BT. But I'm sure that there will be wrinkles to this, especially if
> my equipment has been illegally installed by a previous owner of my
> property.

http://www.bt.com/faults/ or dial 151

there is a standard fee for "regularisation of an illicit master
socket" its just under £30 see the bottom of
<http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/current/docs/Exch_Lines.boo/00023.htm>

it also covers "Conversion of hard-wired master socket to Linebox" but
lets not go there :-)

if the above doesn't apply you'll be looking at around £130 for a
call-out and an hour's work.

Phil

Thanks for that link PhilT.

One other thing: if there is no BT logo on the faceplate (no piper, no
"T", nothing), does this mean that my installation will be defined
automatically as "illicit"? I hope so, because £30 sounds very good
value but £130 not so good. I'd rather not call BT out only for them
to tell me that I have a perfectly legal installation!

PhilT wrote:
> janderson wrote:
>
>> What if I just want to pay BT to sort it out? What number do I call and
>> how much will it cost? I know what someone will tell me: ring 150 and
>> ask BT. But I'm sure that there will be wrinkles to this, especially if
>> my equipment has been illegally installed by a previous owner of my
>> property.
>
> http://www.bt.com/faults/ or dial 151
>
> there is a standard fee for "regularisation of an illicit master
> socket" its just under £30 see the bottom of
> <http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/current/docs/Exch_Lines.boo/00023.htm>
>
> it also covers "Conversion of hard-wired master socket to Linebox" but
> lets not go there :-)
>
> if the above doesn't apply you'll be looking at around £130 for a
> call-out and an hour's work.
>
> Phil

Some might believe the £10 a month you pay the thieving bastards to 'rent'
the line, would cover the cost..

Gaz

Gaz wrote:
>> there is a standard fee for "regularisation of an illicit master
>> socket" its just under £30 see the bottom of
>> <http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/current/docs/Exch_Lines.boo/00023.htm>
>>
>> it also covers "Conversion of hard-wired master socket to Linebox" but
>> lets not go there :-)
>>
>> if the above doesn't apply you'll be looking at around £130 for a
>> call-out and an hour's work.
>
> Some might believe the £10 a month you pay the thieving bastards to 'rent'
> the line, would cover the cost..

Why would your line rental cover regularising an illicit master socket?

On Sat, 8 Apr 2006 20:32:53 UTC, Simon Dobson
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Gaz wrote:
> >> there is a standard fee for "regularisation of an illicit master
> >> socket" its just under £30 see the bottom of
> >> <http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/current/docs/Exch_Lines.boo/00023.htm>
> >>
> >> it also covers "Conversion of hard-wired master socket to Linebox" but
> >> lets not go there :-)
> >>
> >> if the above doesn't apply you'll be looking at around £130 for a
> >> call-out and an hour's work.
> >
> > Some might believe the £10 a month you pay the thieving bastards to 'rent'
> > the line, would cover the cost..
>
> Why would your line rental cover regularising an illicit master socket?

And why, indeed, did he put the word in quotes?

--
[ 7'ism - a condition by which the sufferer experiences an inability
to give concise answers, express reasoned argument or opinion.
Usually accompanied by silly noises and gestures - incurable, early
euthanasia recommended. ]

Apologies for using Google's broken implementation of newsgroups...

Anyway, from looking at http://web.ukonline.co.uk/freshwater/bterm.htm,
the 15cm diameter round box I was referring to looks like Block
Terminal No.17 (very ancient looking). The "tired looking adapter" (see
above) could be any of Block Terminals 77A to 89A, which are said on
that web page to be suitable for use inside only, whereas mine is
outside.

Also, I have been reading more about the fact that sometimes multiple
master sockets are installed but that this shouldn't be done, except
maybe you can do it if you really know what you're doing. I do appear
to have at least two masters.

I wish I hadn't looked at all this now. What a horrible set-up! Now to
look on the Price List for:

1.Replacing Stone Age external Block Terminal.
2.Running new wire up house and in through a hole in the
newly-decorated study wall, and there fitting a new Block Terminal
inside the flat, where it should have been in the first place.
3. Fitting new Linebox
4. Fitting customer-supplied Clarity faceplate (less allowance for tea,
biscuits etc.)
5. Replacing three extension sockets, wrongly fitted as Master Sockets.
6. AOB?

Have I left anything out?

"janderson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
> I've been taking more of an interest in my telephone wiring because my
> exchange is enabled for Easynet, Ukonline 22Mbit, Bethere, Bulldog,
> Homechoice (and ADSL Max of course). I am about 1.5 km from the
> exchange and various line checkers are telling me I could get
somewhere
> between 4 and 8 Mbits. I also live in an NTL area with a 10 Mbit
> option.
>
The old style master socket and the Linebox NTE5 have exactly the same
circuit.
Wring in to the front half of a Linebox will produce no improvement
whatsoever over wring into a plug into the front of an old master
socket, or wiring into the back of an old style master socket (unless
for any reason the old master socket is damaged/corroded).
Regards Mike.

Mike GW8IJT, Thank you. This is really an important point - if I cannot
achieve any improvement to my signal, then it doesn't really matter how
old or out-of-spec my equipment is.

I can't help feeling though that, looked at as a whole from ancient
whole-building Block Terminal, via brittle plastic terminal block under
my window sill, through a 1980s socket, then an Excelsus microfilter,
and then an unnecessarily long cable to my Draytek 2600 ADSL
modem/router, there must be _something_ I can do to get a better sync.
I think maybe I'll regrade to ADSLMax and establish a baseline and then
see if I can tweak things. Atm, I'm on a 2Mbit service with SNR margin
of between 19 and 23 and Loop attenuation of 32 db.

If the internet is your whole World, then your link to it has enormous
psychological importance ;-).

On Sun, 9 Apr 2006 08:12:10 UTC, "Mike GW8IJT" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> The old style master socket and the Linebox NTE5 have exactly the same
> circuit.
> Wring in to the front half of a Linebox will produce no improvement
> whatsoever over wring into a plug into the front of an old master
> socket, or wiring into the back of an old style master socket (unless
> for any reason the old master socket is damaged/corroded).

Except, of course, that one can then use one of the faceplate filters,
which many regard as some of the better filters. I think that may have
been the motive behind this originally, but I've forgotten, and the OP
isn't quoting context.

--
[ 7'ism - a condition by which the sufferer experiences an inability
to give concise answers, express reasoned argument or opinion.
Usually accompanied by silly noises and gestures - incurable, early
euthanasia recommended. ]