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Author Topic: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)  (Read 6340 times)

risk_reversal

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Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« on: January 02, 2018, 05:54:47 PM »

Happy New to Everyone.

Firstly, thank you to everyone who contributed to my previous thread.

I did resolve the problem relating to high levels of hiss when I changed my router from the DG834GT to the TP Link W9970. It turns out that I had a microfilter plugged into a telephone socket which did not have a phone connected to it. The microfilter was hidden behind a piece of furniture. When I removed that microfilter, the hissing stopped and the phone line returned to how it was. I did replace that microfilter with a different one and no hiss on the telephone line. I have now placed a DECT wireless phone on that socket and so far no issues.

So looks like it was a microfilter that was the issue with my new TP Link W9970 router.

I have had the TP Link W9970 connected now for a number of days and all seems ok for now. No reboots or loss of sync so far.





I have intensively investigated my wiring and although it is still my intention to get a telephone engineer in to have a look at it, I wanted to get your opinions first.

I am currently on ADSL2+ C&W LLU with Xilo and wanted to upgrade my BB connection to VDSL (40 dn, 10up). My ISP, Xilo (Uno), are having a special on the TTB Fibre LLU this month with no inward migration and they confirmed to me that there is room on my exchange (so far).

I have read that VDSL is much more susceptible to noise on lines and ‘irregular’ wiring and as such I wanted to make sure that I attended to matter now rather than after my migration to VDSL.

Let me give you all the details.

I live in a two bedroom maisonette in a Victorian conversion. There are other residents in the building and some commercial units at ground floor level.

The telephone lines come in underground to a utility room in the basement of the building.







My telephone line seems to run up the skirting board of the communal parts and enters my flat



The layout of my flat is as per below.





I have 3 telephone sockets in my flat as shown. I have taken pictures of each socket and the wiring inside

Socket 1
This is a twin socket. There is nothing plugged into either slot. The right socket has my phone line. The left socket although wired has no dial tone at all. Perhaps it was used previously as another line for a modem.







Socket 2
Microfilter and DECT wireless phone







Socket 3
Microfilter with BB and hardwired telephone. I intend to keep using this socket with my VDSL connection.





I have trawled all over my flat (including under my staircase) and cannot find anything that resembles a junction box or block. Also, there are no wires of any kind that are affixed to the outside of the building and enter my property.

As an aside when I first bought this flat some 4 years ago I did remove the ring wires from all the sockets and it led to an increase in the SNRM on my downstream from 8.3db to 10.9db as per below.





The current stats from my TP Link W9970 are as follows and are pretty much the same as those from my old router the DG834GT.  I did have interleaving removed a while back so the photos above of the DG834GT stats are pre that.



My old DG834GT was very stable. Some reboots but nothing that would cause concern. Seems the W9970 is on par here also.

With the TP W9970, the telephone line for voice calls is very clear. The QLT on all sockets is very good. There is possibly a very but very low hissing in the background (mute was on). Pings are very good, 12ms to the bbc.co.uk. This is important to me as I use a Linkys ATA for VOIP calls.

My old DG834GT was the same as in para above, re QLT and pings.

1. I could not locate any drop wire / BT line in any of the sockets.

2. It looks like I may have star / spur wiring in my flat. Socket 1 (which has two plugs) has 2 capacitors in it and appears to be a master socket but there is no drop line / BT line attached to that socket. Searching on the net, I think that this socket looks to be a LJU4/1A (has capacitors, surge protector, resistor, IDC). It is manufactured by MK.

2. Socket 2 appears to be daisy chained to socket 3 in my living room which is where my BB resides. I did not confirm this by removing the 2 wires leading to the living room socket at this stage. But the colours of the wires seem to indicate that.

If it is the case that I have star wiring then the internal wiring to my flat should look like this.



Clearly, if I cannot find any type of junction box or block inside my flat (it could be under the floorboards, then it is going to make changes to the existing set up and wiring particularly difficult as I have wooden floors throughout.

3. Is it possible that my telephone line is connected straight to the junction box in the basement so that a telephone line runs from socket 1 to it and a separate cable feeding socket 2 (and 3) also runs to that same connection in the basement and that there is no block which spurs the wiring inside my flat, if indeed I have star wiring. If you see what I mean.

I would like to have your opinions as to my wiring, is it star or could it be point 3 above, or other?

Also what changes can I make to improve my set up so that I can at least have a viewpoint when the engineer arrives.

As a footnote, I have found my BT cabinet and there is a Huawei VDSL cabinet adjacent to it. The BB FTTC checker says



Sorry long post. Ps can resize the images if too small let me know.

Any info much appreciated

Cheers
« Last Edit: January 03, 2018, 09:52:12 AM by risk_reversal »
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licquorice

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2018, 06:28:39 PM »

If you are only looking to upgrade to a 40/10 product and judging by the checker figures,  I wouldn't bother doing anything with the wiring until you have seen what speeds you get.
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NewtronStar

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2018, 09:39:37 PM »

Can see the BT cable coming in and then enters the Two Big Grey BT boxes the last time I've seen those boxes was in 1996 in are office it then goes to a patch panel which I can't trace from the picture TBH it a bit of a mess if you have OCD
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burakkucat

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2018, 10:55:46 PM »

Looking at the image named "Basement 3.jpg" we can see the incoming multi-pair service feed is the black cable which drops down (by the water pipe) to the connection box (without lid). It has a white two- or three-pair internal cable cable-tied to it. When looking at the image named "Basement 2.jpg" we see the various telephony connection boxes square-on and the one to which the incoming pairs are terminated looks to be a right "pig's ear"!  :D

I suspect that there is no junction box under the floor of the flat. The various connections and sequence of the wiring to each socket could be determined by the judicious use of an audio tone generator. Likewise the pair(s) up to the flat could be found at the basement connection box.

It looks a daunting task but methodical investigation will disclose "what's what". Once that has been done, a flush mounted NTE5/A + Mk 3 SSFP could be fitted and the appropriate wiring adjustments made so as to provide the desired signals at the various sockets.
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risk_reversal

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2018, 10:59:52 AM »

Many thanks for your replies.

Can see the BT cable coming in and then enters the Two Big Grey BT boxes the last time I've seen those boxes was in 1996 in are office it then goes to a patch panel which I can't trace from the picture TBH it a bit of a mess if you have OCD

If OCD means Open Cabinet Door. Then see photo below. I could only open the door to the bigger grey unit. The smaller one below was a bit loose from the wall and I did not want to force it.



Looking at the image named "Basement 3.jpg" we can see the incoming multi-pair service feed is the black cable which drops down (by the water pipe) to the connection box (without lid). It has a white two- or three-pair internal cable cable-tied to it. When looking at the image named "Basement 2.jpg" we see the various telephony connection boxes square-on and the one to which the incoming pairs are terminated looks to be a right "pig's ear"!  :D

I presume that you are talking about the thick black cable indicated by the yellow arrow in the photo below.




I suspect that there is no junction box under the floor of the flat. The various connections and sequence of the wiring to each socket could be determined by the judicious use of an audio tone generator. Likewise the pair(s) up to the flat could be found at the basement connection box.

Are you saying that I may possibly have 2 telephone wires running from my flat to the connection box in the basement indicated by the white arrow in the photo below. basement.



Socket 1 in my flat has only one incoming cable as per photo below.



Socket 2 has one incoming external wire (running along skirting board) and then is daisy chained with an internal cable leading to socket 3 in my living room. If there is no junction box or block in my flat, then does this not mean the existence of at least 2 cables leading to the basement?




It looks a daunting task but methodical investigation will disclose "what's what". Once that has been done, a flush mounted NTE5/A + Mk 3 SSFP could be fitted and the appropriate wiring adjustments made so as to provide the desired signals at the various sockets.

As regards installing the NTE5/A presumably this would be installed within the boundaries of my flat and not in the basement.

Many thanks for your kind help

Cheers
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d2d4j

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2018, 12:52:18 PM »

Hi

I hope you don’t mind but one of your sockets look like it’s wired for digital (pins 1,4 2,5)

Most likely the norstar 616 - if this is not your telephone exchange please do not touch it (it could either be norstar 608 or 616)

I would advise to follow buracat advice

OCD did not mean open cabinet door :)

I am not sure what your issue but I would remove the link to socket 3 and correct all wiring as buracat advices, by back toning to find your correct pstn line, and making sure it terminates into a proper nt5 master socket, then the additional sockets are feed from the extension pin outs of the master nt5 socket

Many thanks

John
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risk_reversal

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2018, 01:55:25 PM »

Hi

I hope you don’t mind but one of your sockets look like it’s wired for digital (pins 1,4 2,5)

Most likely the norstar 616 - if this is not your telephone exchange please do not touch it (it could either be norstar 608 or 616)

I would advise to follow buracat advice

Well I only have 2 services

1. Phone line provided by BT
2. ADSL2+ BB

Are you saying that the left socket on the master socket which is dead ie no dial tone, photos below, is required for my BT telephone line to work?





Hi
OCD did not mean open cabinet door :)


I must admit, I did think that was probably incorrect   :)

I am not sure what your issue but I would remove the link to socket 3 and correct all wiring as buracat advices, by back toning to find your correct pstn line, and making sure it terminates into a proper nt5 master socket, then the additional sockets are feed from the extension pin outs of the master nt5 socket

I will have to get a telephone engineer in to do this as I am not able to.

As per my original post, no issues with ADSL2+ BB or phone line.

Purpose of this post is that I wanted to upgrade to VDSL BB. Prior to so doing I wanted to have wiring investigated and checked. I wanted an understanding of my internal wiring and how it is connected to the junction box in the basement so that I could have a new NET5A master socket replaced as well as using filtered faceplates where possible and remove the microfilters which impede Fibre BB.

Before getting the telephone engineer in, I wanted to see what info could be gleamed from the photos and details I have posted.

Many thanks
Cheers
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licquorice

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2018, 02:01:31 PM »

Microfilters don't impede fibre broadband. I would still suggest you leave things as they are until your FTTC 40/10 service is provided and see if there is any impairment.
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d2d4j

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2018, 02:49:29 PM »

Hi

Many thanks

The dead left socket is not connected I would think then or the norstar is not powered on (could even the gold star exchange)

As this is dead, you can ignore at this point for now

I would follow liquorice advice then, if no issues as you say and how it performs

Myself though, I would remove socket 3 for now

Your photos are very hard to view in Tapatalk on mobile, old eyesight sorry

If you have any issues moving forward, the wiring looks to be likely cause

Many thanks

John
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burakkucat

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2018, 06:36:05 PM »

I presume that you are talking about the thick black cable indicated by the yellow arrow in the photo below.

[http://www.photos.desertdune.com/kitz/drop wire.jpg]

Yes, I believe that black cable is the multi-pair service feed.

Quote
Are you saying that I may possibly have 2 telephone wires running from my flat to the connection box in the basement indicated by the white arrow in the photo below. basement.

[http://www.photos.desertdune.com/kitz/basement 2_2.jpg]

Your white arrow points to the connection box that I believe to be where all incoming services are terminated. As such, it could be considered as an internal DP (distribution point). Perhaps the cover is collecting dust in another corner of that basement area and, just maybe, it has a DPxxxx descriptor marked upon it. (The xxxx being numeric digits.)

At this point, we cannot be absolutely certain of the way the various sockets were wired in the past nor how they are currently wired.

Quote
As regards installing the NTE5/A presumably this would be installed within the boundaries of my flat and not in the basement.

Yes, definitely within your flat.

I have downloaded copies of the images and will study them later on, in the hope that further information may be gleaned from them.

As for the control unit -- the front door of which you opened -- and the other box labelled "GoldStar" they are/were for telephony services to other occupants of the building, probably a commercial/office concern.
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Black Sheep

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2018, 07:40:33 PM »

Incredibly difficult to comment on how your circuit is 'Put together' .... even with your excellent photo's and additional comments.

With that in mind, but trying to answer one of your questions above ... '3. Is it possible that my telephone line is connected straight to the junction box in the basement so that a telephone line runs from socket 1 to it and a separate cable feeding socket 2 (and 3) also runs to that same connection in the basement and that there is no block which spurs the wiring inside my flat, if indeed I have star wiring. If you see what I mean.'

This would be my guess from the info we have.

I suspect that when the flats (or offices etc ??) were first commissioned, that two circuits were provisioned for by way of installing the cable from the box in the basement (not the messy one, the other one with blue BT writing on it), to your socket 1.
The cable has far tighter twists than what we were using 'back then' and the double-socket is not a typical BT front-plate .... which further leads me to believe that the wiring and socket 1 was installed by a business systems engineer/contractor. 

As is common practice these days with the all-but demise of the business systems, (in your photo - the Norstar box) ..... engineers will utilise this in-situ cable for obvious reasons.

So, that leaves sockets 2&3 which are fed via a different internal cable (less twists) that you can see coming into your flat, and attaches to the skirting board.
As you point out, this goes to socket 2 first, then via another extension cable to socket 3.

In essence, although you appear to have a decent DSL connection, you in fact have probably got quite a bridged tap going on there, with it's 'common point' being the messy looking box (the DP) in the basement.

If this is the case, then there are plenty of options available to the engineer to remove the bridged-tap and make any one of your 3 sockets into a new NTE5C with MK4 SSFP. A piece of .... as we would say.  ;) ;D ;D
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risk_reversal

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2018, 09:20:29 PM »

Many thanks for all your replies.

burakkucat, I appreciate that it is not possible to give a definitive answer to my questions from the photos alone but any help much appreciated.

Black Sheep, many thanks also for taking the time to look at this

If a bridged tap does indeed exist as you surmise Black Sheep with the common point being the messy ‘distribution point’ (DP) in the basement and this can be corrected, would this mean that further telephone cabling would have to be installed in my flat.

I am guessing that the answer to this question must be yes as Socket 1 would have to be somehow connected to Socket 2 (and 3) which it is not at the moment so that the current 2 strand wiring leading to the basement DP could then become one circuit. Is that correct? Sorry, hope I explained this clearly.

BTW when I was nailing down the wooden separator plate under my front door a few weeks ago, I do recall seeing a white cable running underneath the wooden plate (because I had to be careful where nailing). This wire could only have been the telephone wire which entered my flat from the communal parts. It was heading in the general direction of the wire tacked to the skirting board and connected to Socket 2.

I did have a conversation with a telephone engineer today (not the one I mentioned in a previous post as he did not reply, may still be on holiday) but another one. I sent him photos and description. I asked if he could check the phone wiring from my flat to the basement DP and he said that he did not want to touch the DP in the basement at all.

I will give the other one a go next week but I am now wondering if he will also balk at this. Unless you have any idea who I could use, I live in Central London.

I would rather try to get this wiring 'normalised' but having said that, if a bridged tap does exist can I leave the current wiring as is, especially so since I do not use Socket 1 at all but only Socket 2 (and 3) and my ADSL2+ BB and phone are running good.

If I have no choice but to leave the existing wiring as is (because no engineer wants to touch it), could the following work.

1. Replace Socket 1 with a filtered extension socket Solwise FFP85D (baring filter compatibility issues)

https://www.solwise.co.uk/adsl_splitters-extensions.htm

2. Replace Socket 2 with a filtered extension socket Solwise FFP85D and wire up so that downstream connection to Socket 3 is unfiltered (baring filter compatibility issues) and connect my dect wireless phone to it.

https://www.solwise.co.uk/adsl_splitters-extensions.htm

3. Replace Socket 3 with an NTE5/A (seen the C and don’t like it) and fit a VDSL faceplate filter (2nd one down on link page) to use for my (new VDSL) BB and wired phone.

https://www.solwise.co.uk/adsl_splitters-faceplates.htm

Lastly, I guess it is safe to remove the apparent ‘dead’ wiring on the left slot of Socket 1.

Again many thanks to all for your kind help.
Cheers
« Last Edit: January 03, 2018, 09:27:28 PM by risk_reversal »
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Black Sheep

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2018, 09:45:49 PM »


If a bridged tap does indeed exist as you surmise Black Sheep with the common point being the messy ‘distribution point’ (DP) in the basement and this can be corrected, would this mean that further telephone cabling would have to be installed in my flat.

I am guessing that the answer to this question must be yes as Socket 1 would have to be somehow connected to Socket 2 (and 3) which it is not at the moment so that the current 2 strand wiring leading to the basement DP could then become one circuit. Is that correct? Sorry, hope I explained this clearly.


Got to be a quick reply for now, I'm afraid ................. in a nutshell you say you have dial tome on the right hand port of socket 1, and also at sockets 2 and 3 ??
If this is correct, then I am guessing that the two separate feed cables (for S1 and S2 - ignore S3 for now as this appears to be an extension), both go into the basement and are teed-in at the DP (messy box).

They will have been able to do this by extending the wiring out of the other basement box ( the old business system wiring box with the blue writing on it), into the messy DP. Ergo, dial tone and DSL presented at all three sockets.

As I say, if this is what is going on, it is a very simple job to re-hash the configuration to ensure the DSL signal and dial-tone goes to anyone of your 3 sockets (your choice), and have a SSFP fitted ensuring the dial-tone is back-fed to the remaining two sockets.

Yes, the other wires feeding the other port at socket 1 can be removed.  :)
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Black Sheep

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #13 on: January 03, 2018, 09:47:25 PM »

PS - can't help with London engineers ... I'm a northern monkey, not a southern softie !! I didn't even need my big-coat for todays storm !!  ;) ;D
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risk_reversal

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Re: Help with Internal Wiring (longish post with pics)
« Reply #14 on: January 03, 2018, 11:29:36 PM »

PS - can't help with London engineers ... I'm a northern monkey, not a southern softie !! I didn't even need my big-coat for todays storm !!  ;) ;D

Rather you than me. I was freezing my thingies off today and that was with my big coat on and hoodie underneath...

Yes I have dial tone on S1 (right port) and S2 (and S3) all the sockets work, although I have only ever had the BB connection on S3.

Many thanks for your added thoughts on this matter.

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