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[holmbase]

I cannot find anything on this so if there is something, apologies and can someone point it out to me?

So I'm contemplating fibre.

The silver plated box (which I think is where the cables come up through the ground into the house, yes?) is in my dining room wall. For some reason, when the house was built they put the phone socket right next to the front door some 20 feet away. The socket is ridiculously located and is nowhere near any power outlet (it wasn't even an NTE5 when I bought the house). I currently have an ADSL cable snaking back down the hall and into the dining room where the nearest power outlet is and where I can put my modem - which is conveniently located the other side of the wall to the silver box (almost to the centimetre).

If I get fibre, is it possible/likely that the engineer would, or could be persuaded to, put a new BT socket in the dining room right next to both the power outlet and the external silver box? Or would he simply snake a cable from the BT socket in the way I have?

Thanks.

John

[adamwalker]

Hi there,

A lot of ISPs offering fibre are able to offer a "data extension kit" which means that the socket from the router can be located up to 30 metres away from the master socket, I'd advise enquiring about that when requesting a fibre installation.

Adam Walker
Plusnet Digital Care Team
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[camallison]

I had BT Infinity installed recently and had exactly the same situation as you - a 70s bungalow with the master socket next to the front door.  I say master, but it has no NTE5, just a standard telephone socket.  When the chap arrived to perform the installation, we "walked" the route to where I would like the modem to be installed.  It involved a data extension kit and, since I had the floor up for other work, it was all put under the floorboards to a more convenient place next to a 4-way mains socket for power.  The installation was tested with the Home Hub 3 router in the same position, but I later put the router in my study and ran a 20m Ethernet cable between the modem and router (again under the floorboards).

Whatever you do, don't be tempted to link them with Solwise Ethernet over mains units - you will lose about 75% of your speed!!!

My installation has been rock steady since the install and subsequent "stretch" between modem and router and today the bRAS rate was 38,710 measured.

During the install, the Openreach chap swapped the incoming socket to an NTE5 with the word Openreach on it.  It also houses the filter.

All in all, a very happy bunny here ...... and a high-speed one too.

Colin

[burakkucat]

. . . the dining room where the nearest power outlet is and where I can put my modem - which is conveniently located the other side of the wall to the silver box (almost to the centimetre).

If I get fibre, is it possible/likely that the engineer would, or could be persuaded to, put a new BT socket in the dining room right next to both the power outlet and the external silver box? Or would he simply snake a cable from the BT socket in the way I have?

That certainly reads as "do-able". Ensure that bacon sandwiches, chocolate biscuits and mugs of tea or coffee are available to the installing engineer. 

What would be most useful is if you could take a series of photographs -- the external box, the "master" socket and your modem/router in its current location. Sight of your pictures will enable us to ensure that there are no pitfalls, into which you might otherwise stumble.

[waltergmw]

@ BKK,

Re

will enable us to ensure that there are no pitfalls,

it might be prudent to say the we might offer opinions on the subjects for the reader(s) to make their own decisions ?


Kind regards,
Walter

[holmbase]

Thank you so far. I realise though that my English was inaccurate: what I meant was this.

Would the engineer
1. drill a hole through the dining room wall
2. disconnect the existing cable to the socket at the front of the house making that socket useless
3. put a new socket in the dining room and connect it up to the silver box

so that my new BT socket is literally the other side of the wall to the entry point into the house.

Thanks.

John

[camallison]

>>>  Would the engineer
1. drill a hole through the dining room wall  Unlikely, unless you feed him well!
2. disconnect the existing cable to the socket at the front of the house making that socket useless  See response to 1.
3. put a new socket in the dining room and connect it up to the silver box  I think you know the answer to this one - although since he is from Openreach, you might just get him to do it - worth trying.

so that my new BT socket is literally the other side of the wall to the entry point into the house.

[burakkucat]

Re

will enable us to ensure that there are no pitfalls,

it might be prudent to say the we might offer opinions on the subjects for the reader(s) to make their own decisions ?

Of course Walter is perfectly correct. It was silly o'clock when I made that post. 

I'm still intrigued by that "silver box". A picture would satisfy the feline curiosity -- perhaps.

[Black Sheep]

I cannot find anything on this so if there is something, apologies and can someone point it out to me?

So I'm contemplating fibre.

The silver plated box (which I think is where the cables come up through the ground into the house, yes?) is in my dining room wall. For some reason, when the house was built they put the phone socket right next to the front door some 20 feet away. The socket is ridiculously located and is nowhere near any power outlet (it wasn't even an NTE5 when I bought the house). I currently have an ADSL cable snaking back down the hall and into the dining room where the nearest power outlet is and where I can put my modem - which is conveniently located the other side of the wall to the silver box (almost to the centimetre).

If I get fibre, is it possible/likely that the engineer would, or could be persuaded to, put a new BT socket in the dining room right next to both the power outlet and the external silver box? Or would he simply snake a cable from the BT socket in the way I have?

Thanks.

John

Yes, we have to install what in effect becomes the new 'Master socket' (with the filtered backplate), wherever the EU wants his router. There are various ways of achieving this dependant on existing wiring, socket location etc etc.

If drilling the wall is acceptable (ie-no electric/water pipes present), then that is what the engineer would do, if of course the EU is happy for him to do so. Regarding your other Q's, the engineer would just patch the 'feed' through to the new NTE5 position, and then 'backfeed' the extentions wiring so that all the other sockets in the house still worked.

If I read your predicament correctly, this is a bog-standard easy-peasy task to achieve.


B*Cat ...... I'm guessing the 'Silver box' is a stainless 'Brushed steel' frontplate that can be purchased from any DIY store ?? Just my guess.

[Bald_Eagle1]

Hi Black Sheep,

Firstly, welcome to the Kitz forum.
We have certainly missed the presence of an active FTTC installing engineer over the last few months.

Regarding your other Q's, the engineer would just patch the 'feed' through to the new NTE5 position, and then 'backfeed' the extentions wiring so that all the other sockets in the house still worked.

If I read your predicament correctly, this is a bog-standard easy-peasy task to achieve.

That's exactly what my FTTC installing engineer did (back-fed to what was the original master socket, making it an extension).

One of the many visiting engineers didn't like it & ran a new drop wire round the back of next door's house to what is now my master socket & then connected various extensions from there.

Strangely, it still didn't get my higher speeds back that I actually achieved at first (when the back-feeding was in place).


Just a quick query - do you have a FTTC connection at home?


Paul.

[burakkucat]

B*Cat ...... I'm guessing the 'Silver box' is a stainless 'Brushed steel' frontplate that can be purchased from any DIY store ?? Just my guess.

Hi B*Sheep,

I wasn't sure if that "silver plated box" was fitted in the interior or exterior wall of the OP's dining room. Hence my interest in seeing some photographs. (Feline curiosity, as you might guess.) Being an underground service feed, I would expect that there would be some form of external junction -- a BT66, maybe -- before it enters the house?

[holmbase]

B*Cat - Black Sheep is correct when describing the box as a "Brushed steel frontplate". The frontplate is on the outside of the house and I know BT have been in there in the past when I've had problems with broadband connections.

Black sheep - that sounds like excellent news. Because the master socket is where it is, we currently have to have phone cable trailing into the house to connect to the cordlesss phone system, so moving the master socket to a discreet location in the dining room will please all.

I have two small additional questions:

1. Regarding drilling through the wall, is this a bit like drilling through to feed a satellite cable or would it be larger scale?
2. When I first had broadband, 512k, there were extension cables fitted in my house (including to the upstairs) which we eventually worked out caused significant interference and poor connection. So when I had the NTE5 fitted, we removed all the extensions and since then, things have been stable. If we 'backfeed' the existing master socket from the new one, are we likely to encounter similar interference?

Thanks

John

[Black Sheep]

B*Cat - Black Sheep is correct when describing the box as a "Brushed steel frontplate". The frontplate is on the outside of the house and I know BT have been in there in the past when I've had problems with broadband connections.

Black sheep - that sounds like excellent news. Because the master socket is where it is, we currently have to have phone cable trailing into the house to connect to the cordlesss phone system, so moving the master socket to a discreet location in the dining room will please all.

I have two small additional questions:

1. Regarding drilling through the wall, is this a bit like drilling through to feed a satellite cable or would it be larger scale?
2. When I first had broadband, 512k, there were extension cables fitted in my house (including to the upstairs) which we eventually worked out caused significant interference and poor connection. So when I had the NTE5 fitted, we removed all the extensions and since then, things have been stable. If we 'backfeed' the existing master socket from the new one, are we likely to encounter similar interference?

Thanks

John

Hi

1) Actually, it will be a smaller hole than that of a Sat Cable

2) This kinda links in with Bald Eagle's query above as well. To work to the 'letter of the law', so to speak, the recommendations stipulate a seperate cable be used to connect any telephone extentions that are required to be left working, rather than 'backfeeding'. This is to prevent 'Crosstalk' which you may get from the PSTN and Upstream frequencies. I have to admit (and believe me, i'm not on my own by a long way), it is extremely rare that I do this, and have only ever seen detriment to a circuit once, when I patched a DSL line through the same 6-wire cable that had an ISDN service going through it. The 'errors' were accumalating rapidly and therefore a new cable had to be run to carry the 2 channels seperately.
This situation is as rare as a Yorkshire man offering to buy a pint, therefore my advice would be to request the engineer connect the extentions up via the 'backfeed' method, and ask him to monitor the 'Error Count' (CRC/ES) and 'Interleaving' (FEC) whilst ringing the landline, or using it on 'Quiet Line Test'.

<Disclaimer> The above is just my opinion based on my experience.

[Black Sheep]

Hi Black Sheep,

Firstly, welcome to the Kitz forum.
We have certainly missed the presence of an active FTTC installing engineer over the last few months.

Regarding your other Q's, the engineer would just patch the 'feed' through to the new NTE5 position, and then 'backfeed' the extentions wiring so that all the other sockets in the house still worked.

If I read your predicament correctly, this is a bog-standard easy-peasy task to achieve.

That's exactly what my FTTC installing engineer did (back-fed to what was the original master socket, making it an extension).

One of the many visiting engineers didn't like it & ran a new drop wire round the back of next door's house to what is now my master socket & then connected various extensions from there.

Strangely, it still didn't get my higher speeds back that I actually achieved at first (when the back-feeding was in place).


Just a quick query - do you have a FTTC connection at home?


Paul.

Cheers for the welcome Paul.

Please see my reply above regarding 'backfeeding'. If there was any evidence of detriment, a seperate cable would definitely resolve the isuue. However, it appears there was no change in circs on your installation ?? Did the engineer verify that there was a high error count due to the 'backfeed', before carrying out the work

Alas, I don't have FTTC and won't until 2015, from when I last bothered to look.

[Bald_Eagle1]

Please see my reply above regarding 'backfeeding'. If there was any evidence of detriment, a seperate cable would definitely resolve the isuue. However, it appears there was no change in circs on your installation ?? Did the engineer verify that there was a high error count due to the 'backfeed', before carrying out the work

Alas, I don't have FTTC and won't until 2015, from when I last bothered to look.

When FTTC was installed, I achieved higher speeds & my connection appeared stable for around 1 month, so I would personally rule out the backfeeding as an issue.

It all fell apart following the complete loss of telephone & FTTC services for 4 days back in July (due to an "issue" unrelated to my connection).

Since then, numerous engineers have visited. Some of them just swapped the OR modem & some did some "work".

The engineer who replaced the drop cable round the back of the house & thus removed the backfed shielded cable did not (to my knowledge) run any error tests. He just decided it would be better to not back feed.

As by then I could access my own stats, it was my own report to Plusnet that I was regularly seeing CRC errors in the millions within a 2 minute period, along with massive SNRM drops whenever a telephone hand set was lifted that prompted that visit.

There was indeed a very slight improvement, but my original speeds & stability have still not returned.

Apparently BT tests run by Plusnet now report:-

"Your current RDSLAM profile is:

"16.2M-32.4M Downstream, Interleaving Low - 3.6M-7.2M Upstream, Interleaving Off"

As previously discussed this assigned dynamically by the DLM system.  Unfortunately as we do not see any details data from the DLM system I cannot investigate as to why the profile has changed at any point."

I did originally have a RDSLAM profile of 20M-40M Downstream.

As my connection is now apparently within "acceptable" limits, Plusnet have informed me I will be charged £60 for another engineer's visit if no faults were found during testing.

I believe we have already confirmed that "certain" tests such as PQT & Eclipse etc. would indicate LTOK.

I did ask what sort of tests I could expect for my £60, but as yet I have not received a reply.
I am only a simple end user, but I would suggest the new CIDT test that is over 90% successful in determining HR issues, or at the very least a full TDR test.

I cannot obtain a straight answer when I query if my connection is speed-capped by BT (for whatever reason) & I am still unable to obtain confirmation that it has ever actually been reset by BT to a 40Mb sync speed following various engineering works.

I still don't know if there is a HR issue & have tried to bid for 'Mole' 301C & even a 'Hawk' tester on ebay so that I could run my own "unofficial" tests.

One engineer did remove a double-jumpered cable in the cabinet after seeing faults via his 'Hawk' TDR tester.
However, as he point-blank refused to retest the D-side after his work in the cabinet, I/we are not sure whether or not that was actually causing the issue.

The very same afternoon I ended up with a crackly phone line again, needing a PSTN engineer's visit.
We discussed HR & potentially high attenuation issues (although he did describe them as high "insinuation" issues) & went off to organise something at the MDF/MFD??? at the exchange.


As I couldn't access my stats when my connection was much "better" I have nothing to compare against & Plusnet have confirmed the original installing engineer's notes (supposed overwritten at one point) didn't report them.

The attachment shows just a glimpse of my "messy" connection from early November.

I am not allowed to speak directly to BT & Plusnet refuse to contact them on my behalf, so I am not really sure what, if anything, I can do about matters other than grin & bear it.

I did spot a couple of guys digging at the pole that my connection is served from last weekend, along with a thick looking underground cable being dragged through.

I got all excited that maybe, just maybe, someone has identified the problem & is attempting to fix it once & for all.
However, the cable has been dragged from the side further away from the cabinet.

Anyway, after hijacking someone else's thread, I had better keep quiet for a bit, or add some more to the previous epic thread that I started back in August.


Paul.

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