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[jarvo]

Hi All ... Happy New Year to you all.

I've got a curious one ... I have recently replaced my partners wired telephone with a BT Dect Unit. 

When the phone initiates an outgoing call, or receives a call, then the Broadband Connection drops and then immediately starts to renegotiate its connection.  After about 30 seconds, broadband is reconnected, has external IP address etc.

What have I looked at?

• I have moved the router downstairs, and wanted to try the test socket, inside the master socket, with just the router and phone connected.
• I have removed the faceplate from the "master socket", I expected to see all the other extensions wired into the back of the faceplate ... they weren't there! aaaargh.
• I established that on the wall the other side of the "master socket", there appears to be a ground level "line jack".
• From the ground level "line jack" there is a wire which goes upwards, over the porch, around the side of the building and into the wall where her study is.  The other side of the wall in her study there is indeed an extension.
• I have removed the faceplate from the study extension, and there were two wires into Pin2, two wires into Pin 5, and two wires into Pin 3.
• Initially I went around the extensions disconnecting the Pin 3 - Ringwire.  No Improvement.
• She has an extension in her bedroom, which she tells me, when she used to have a wired telephone connected would make a funny ringing in the night ... apparently when the BT engineers were doing 'stuff' in the exchange.
• I returned to the study extension, and assumed that the bedroom extension was from the office extension.  So I removed the office faceplate, and removed both Pin 2 wires, attached a telephone and only re-inserted the wire which provided a dial-tone.  I repeated this for Pin 5 wires.  So I am now assuming that the office extension, is now only an extension to itself, and no onward connections.
• She believes there may be one more extension, in the kitchen, hidden behind an appliance which I am loathed to move at the moment.
• Regardless of the above, her broadband stats for ADSL2+ are pretty good, 18Mb/s downstream and 1Mb/s upstream.

I think from above, I've established that the wiring comes from a BT Line Jack, and then onto various extensions.  Her broadband is provided by $ky and I will be unable to change the router.

Placing a call to $ky to explain the problem with entail all the same scripted fault finding above.  Then $ky will tell me that if they call an OpenReach Engineer, that if the fault is inside the property that it will be chargeable. 

What I think really needs to happen is the main-line to go into the NTE Master Socket, and potentially the Study Extension to be wired into the backplate for the Master Socket.  All other extensions can be removed.  Because they seem to be wired back into the Line Jack, this will be a call to BT.

How is best to initiate this?  Call $ky and raise a fault?  I guess $ky need to be the interface to OpenReach regardless.

Anything else I could/should try???

Thanks in advance for any thoughts/suggestions.

[burakkucat]

Welcome to the Kitz forum.

I've got a curious one ...

Having read the details three times, I would agree. And one upon which I would enjoy placing my paws!

I established that on the wall the other side of the "master socket", there appears to be a ground level "line jack".

Inside or outside the house? Could you possibly take a photograph or two -- with and without its cover -- so that we can see "what's what"?

From the ground level "line jack" there is a wire which goes upwards, over the porch, around the side of the building and into the wall where her study is.  The other side of the wall in her study there is indeed an extension.

I presume there is also another cable that goes through the wall to the NTE5/A, on the other side?

She has an extension in her bedroom, which she tells me, when she used to have a wired telephone connected would make a funny ringing in the night ... apparently when the BT engineers were doing 'stuff' in the exchange.

That would have been back in the 1980s. (I can well remember the effect of the nocturnal automatic testing. It was the swapping of the polarity on the pair that caused bells to "ping" and tone-callers to "chirp". Many complaints were made, from all corners of the U.K. The only quick solution was to opt-out the circuit from the automatic testing process. Eventually the nocturnal testing process was discontinued.)

From your description, there appears to be star wiring which originates prior to the NTE5/A and, as you correctly say, is within Openreach's domain. The correct procedure is to tell your ISP/CP of the star wiring prior to the NTE5/A and ask them to book an Openreach engineering appointment to have the non-standard wiring normalised. Such a task is FOC to your ISP/CP and to yourself.

[Weaver]

It will be all the better for being sorted out. You'll really feel the benefits. You can call you phone service provider, as was mentioned earlier it is FOC.

[jarvo]

Thanks for the speedy reply.  It was a little late last night to go taking photos, so I waited until this morning!

Welcome to the Kitz forum.

Many thanks for the warm welcome.

I've got a curious one ...

Having read the details three times, I would agree. And one upon which I would enjoy placing my paws!

It's most definitely been perplexing!

I established that on the wall the other side of the "master socket", there appears to be a ground level "line jack".

Inside or outside the house? Could you possibly take a photograph or two -- with and without its cover -- so that we can see "what's what"?

Please see attached image:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d0ycb3elurw55tc/Phone-LineJack%202.jpg?dl=0

Sadly, it is a unit with a security seal.  Loathed to open it, unless I can get away with "ooops it just fell off!".

From the ground level "line jack" there is a wire which goes upwards, over the porch, around the side of the building and into the wall where her study is.  The other side of the wall in her study there is indeed an extension.

I presume there is also another cable that goes through the wall to the NTE5/A, on the other side?

Yes, correct.  On the picture:

• Ground to Line-Jack - Incoming BT link
• White wire - LineJack into Lounge - to the NTE5/A in the lounge.
• Black wire - Up, over the porch, around side of house and into the wall where her study is. 

She has an extension in her bedroom, which she tells me, when she used to have a wired telephone connected would make a funny ringing in the night ... apparently when the BT engineers were doing 'stuff' in the exchange.

That would have been back in the 1980s. (I can well remember the effect of the nocturnal automatic testing. It was the swapping of the polarity on the pair that caused bells to "ping" and tone-callers to "chirp". Many complaints were made, from all corners of the U.K. The only quick solution was to opt-out the circuit from the automatic testing process. Eventually the nocturnal testing process was discontinued.)

Aaaah ... makes sense now.  She thinks it was shoddy wiring, which I'm pretty sure some of it is!  But it's the reason she removed the phone from her bedroom!

From your description, there appears to be star wiring which originates prior to the NTE5/A and, as you correctly say, is within Openreach's domain. The correct procedure is to tell your ISP/CP of the star wiring prior to the NTE5/A and ask them to book an Openreach engineering appointment to have the non-standard wiring normalised. Such a task is FOC to your ISP/CP and to yourself.

Fantastic, thank you ... I'll get onto $ky ... and endure the scripted fault finding team!  Fingers crossed I can avoid that by telling them exactly what she needs.

I'll just wait for a quick confirmation, after seeing the picture that your suspicions are correct.

It will be all the better for being sorted out. You'll really feel the benefits. You can call you phone service provider, as was mentioned earlier it is FOC.

Totally agree.  For ADSL2+ she's getting a great connection, so if we can get rid of all the superfluous cabling, that is probably degrading her signal, then she can use her dect phone when working-from-home, without her VPN line dropping.  Plus, when I convince her to go with fibre, it should be plain sailing!

Besides she has one of the old $ky routers too, so that could do with being replaced ... plus she's never negotiated a better deal.  So in approx 15 years she's continued to pay the same, and never had her TV box replaced! (another story!)

Thank you both for your help so far. Much appreciated.

[Black Sheep]

I'm not here to steal B*Cats thunder with his usual bang-on advice. Just to say that the grey box (BT66) won't have a security seal, there's nowhere to have one in place. It simply requires the screw on the front loosening and push the lid in an upwards direction. If it hasn't been opened in a while, be prepared for all the creepy crawlies. 

I'm pretty sure you will find that the two cables are 'crimped' to the underground 'feed' cable. Or connected on screw-terminal blocks in the same manner ?? In other words, there are 'star-wired'.

Finally, welcome to Kitz.

[jarvo]

I'm not here to steal B*Cats thunder with his usual bang-on advice. Just to say that the grey box (BT66) won't have a security seal, there's nowhere to have one in place. It simply requires the screw on the front loosening and push the lid in an upwards direction. If it hasn't been opened in a while, be prepared for all the creepy crawlies. 

I'm pretty sure you will find that the two cables are 'crimped' to the underground 'feed' cable. Or connected on screw-terminal blocks in the same manner ?? In other words, there are 'star-wired'.

Finally, welcome to Kitz.

Ah my apologies.  Cursory glance I saw the wire which I'd assumed was a security seal.  I'll take another look.  Bugspray at the ready!! 

Thanks for the warm welcome.

[Black Sheep]

No worries. 

As an aside, if you find it is indeed star-wired at the BT66, if the upstairs extension is not required, you could simply cut the wires away from where they are terminated ?? If you were unawares, it is only 50Vdc that supplies the circuit, so there's no danger of receiving a shock.

[jarvo]

No worries. 

As an aside, if you find it is indeed star-wired at the BT66, if the upstairs extension is not required, you could simply cut the wires away from where they are terminated ?? If you were unawares, it is only 50Vdc that supplies the circuit, so there's no danger of receiving a shock.

I'd considered just removing the wires.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sv69fh4b2so0n5p/InsideBox.jpeg?dl=0

Inside the was a 4ft coiled Boa!

Not sure what the grey cable on the right is for.

[tickmike]

Not sure what the grey cable on the left is for.

On the other photo you put that it goes to the 'Master socket in lounge' 

[jarvo]

Not sure what the grey cable on the left is for.

On the other photo you put that it goes to the 'Master socket in lounge' 

Ooops yes. White is lounge. Not sure what the grey is.
(Before opening the box, in my mind there was black and grey cables .. so with the introduction of a proper grey ... aaargh you know what I mean!)


Stealth Edit !

[burakkucat]

Ooops yes. White is lounge. Note sure what grey is

By grey, do you mean the cable at the far right? 

To be honest, I am not sure how many cables are entering/exiting that BT66. The far right cable has the typical orange/white and black/green wire pairs that I would expect to see in a Drop Cable 10 aerial feed.

Essentially, it would be a simple task for the service feed to be connected directly to the NTE5/A (using the blue pair of the white cable) and then the second pair (orange pair of the white cable) be connected to the IDCs on the front face-plate of the NTE5/A. Back at the BT66 that orange pair could then be crimped to the relevant pair of the black cable, thus feeding all the extension sockets.

[jarvo]

Ooops yes. White is lounge. Note sure what grey is

By grey, do you mean the cable at the far right? 

To be honest, I am not sure how many cables are entering/exiting that BT66. The far right cable has the typical orange/white and black/green wire pairs that I would expect to see in a Drop Cable 10 aerial feed.

Essentially, it would be a simple task for the service feed to be connected directly to the NTE5/A (using the blue pair of the white cable) and then the second pair (orange pair of the white cable) be connected to the IDCs on the front face-plate of the NTE5/A. Back at the BT66 that orange pair could then be crimped to the relevant pair of the black cable, thus feeding all the extension sockets.

Yup, the far right one.  It has orange, green, black and white cables.  I'm examining the photo and can't quite see where they go to.

I wonder if they were put in as pre-wiring for the properties then for a roof feed.  Hmmm.

Understood. So the feed coming from the cable protected strip into the BT66 would be wired directly to the NTE5/A in the lounge.  then the "black cable" which goes off to the left of the picture would be wired through into the back of the NTE5/A front-plate, thus being disconnected when wanting to test the engineering master socket ... as most houses would be connected. 

Thanks so much for the help so far. 

Just a couple of remaining questions I guess ....

1) would I be best to cut the orange ring-wire connections at the BT66 point, so that they are effectively as short as possible?

2) I guess I should get onto $ky to get the call into OpenReach so that they can re-wire appropriately. 

3) It now seems that there is the ground feed, with wiring upwards to the roof (via the grey cable on the far right), and other than that there is the lounge (white cable) and study (black cable).  So being fairly minimal, I wonder what's causing the Broadband to disconnect with incoming/outgoing calls?

Filters are in place in lounge and study.  Could be a line-card problem I guess.

[burakkucat]

Just a couple of remaining questions I guess ....

1) would I be best to cut the orange ring-wire connections at the BT66 point, so that they are effectively as short as possible?

No. Please do not cut wires as short as possible. If fact I would recommend that you leave the wiring within the BT66 "as is".

2) I guess I should get onto $ky to get the call into OpenReach so that they can re-wire appropriately.

Yes. And if you are located in Black Sheep's area, then there is the possibility that you will have an Openreach technician attending who has prior knowledge of what the job will entail.   

3) It now seems that there is the ground feed, with wiring upwards to the roof (via the grey cable on the far right), and other than that there is the lounge (white cable) and study (black cable).

Not necessarily so. I was just caterwauling musing upon what I could see.

So being fairly minimal, I wonder what's causing the Broadband to disconnect with incoming/outgoing calls?

Your guess would be as good as mine . . . at this point. I think the best thing would be to have the wiring normalised from the current star configuration to the preferred daisy-chain configuration and then see if the xDSL service "behaves".

[jarvo]

Just a couple of remaining questions I guess ....

1) would I be best to cut the orange ring-wire connections at the BT66 point, so that they are effectively as short as possible?

No. Please do not cut wires as short as possible. If fact I would recommend that you leave the wiring within the BT66 "as is".

Won't touch them, will leave it to OpenReach to sort.

2) I guess I should get onto $ky to get the call into OpenReach so that they can re-wire appropriately.

Yes. And if you are located in Black Sheep's area, then there is the possibility that you will have an Openreach technician attending who has prior knowledge of what the job will entail.   

Now that would be amusing! To be fair, there is an OpenReach engineer who lives opposite her!

3) It now seems that there is the ground feed, with wiring upwards to the roof (via the grey cable on the far right), and other than that there is the lounge (white cable) and study (black cable).

Not necessarily so. I was just caterwauling musing upon what I could see.

More *cat* puns!

So being fairly minimal, I wonder what's causing the Broadband to disconnect with incoming/outgoing calls?

Your guess would be as good as mine . . . at this point. I think the best thing would be to have the wiring normalised from the current star configuration to the preferred daisy-chain configuration and then see if the xDSL service "behaves".

Indeed, can wait and see what happens with an ideal wiring config, and then raise it as a fault if there is a still an issue!

Thanks again ... I'll get onto $ky!

[jarvo]

Update:

Called Sky ... and they said that we must log a call directly with OpenReach.  I queried this with the call operator several times, and they said "Because it's not within our network, we cannot log a call on your behalf".



So I went to the OpenReach site and there was a place to log for an engineer visit.  Despite multiple warnings that if it is for internal wiring to contact the ISP.  Also it stated that ALL calls are chargeable.


Partner received a response via Email today from OpenReach stating "We cannot help you, please contact your ISP for internal wiring."  This is despite mentioning that the problem with within the BT66 box.

#StuckBetweenRockAndHardPlace!