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Digital Voice problems in big old house

TechnicMan — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 17:19:47 GMT

Hi all.

A couple in our village have just been moved over to BT Digital Voice. They live in a big old house with really thick walls. Their router is in the centre of the house and the WiFi and DECT signals only travel about one room in any direction. They need a phone in the study and also two phones upstairs, both areas which have no WiFi or DECT signal from the router.

I have a few questions. Firstly, do the Digital Voice Adapters connect to the hub using WiFi or DECT? If it's Wifi, will they work with a powerline wifi extender? If it's DECT, can I use a DECT extender to increase the range? (Any suggestions on good ones would be helpful).

There is a perfectly good set of wired phone extensions in the house, which no longer work as they are connected to the now-dead master socket. If I sever the connection to the master socket, can I connect the phone socket on the back of the router to the extension network and get all the extensions working again?

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated!

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

licquorice — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 17:47:36 GMT

If you simply connect the green socket on the hub to any phone socket after first removing the 2 incoming external wires on the master socket, you will be back to how you were.

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

TechnicMan — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 08:14:08 GMT

Thanks for that. The property is not on fibre though, so the data connection is still coming through the copper wires, which does complicate things. I think I should still be able to get it to work though.

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

imjolly — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 08:36:07 GMT

if still getting broadband from current master socket setup - FTTC- then you cannot disconnect the incoming openreach wiring to enable other sockets as that only works with FTTP

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

TechnicMan — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 09:04:35 GMT

What I'm thinking of doing is disconnecting the extension wire inside the master socket, bring it out and terminate it with a new socket which I can connect with the green socket on the back of the router. That way the in-house extensions will be isolated from the incoming line. Does that sound feasible?

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

licquorice — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 09:06:03 GMT

Yep, that sounds like a plan.

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

TechnicMan — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 09:40:28 GMT

Thanks both, I will let you know how I get on.

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

TechnicMan — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 07:53:45 GMT

As promised, an update. Unfortunately, what I though was the master socket in the kitchen, turned out to be just an extension disguised as a master socket! Which meant I could not relocate the hub there. Turns out the real master socket is in their loft (as is mine) and it's just not practical to locate the hub up there.

The customer has ordered (and received) a digital handset and an adapter. The digital handset does seem to have a reasonable range and works in the study. I haven't been around to check the range on the adapter yet, but I'm hoping I may be able to locate it in the corridor above the hub and then plug in a base unit and a couple of extension phones.

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

licquorice — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 08:19:48 GMT

Are all the extensions star wired from the master socket in the loft or are they properly daisy chained and there is only one cable between the loft and kitchen sockets and then further cables to the other extension sockets?

If the latter, I would simply crimp the connections in the loft and replace the socket in the kitchen with a master socket and proceed with your original plan.

If the loft socket is cabled to more than one extension socket (star wired), you can still possibly make use of the spare wires in the cable to 'backwire' connections.

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

TechnicMan — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 14:05:57 GMT

tbh I haven't ventured into the loft yet so I have no idea how the extensions are wired. Would this be feasible anyway with the line being FTTC and they don't want the hub in the attic? I think we'll see how the adapter works and then maybe explore other options

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

licquorice — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 14:20:21 GMT

Yeah, as long as you have spare wires in the cable you can do all sorts of things. Basically you just need 2 wires for the hub broadband and 2 other wires to distribute the telephony. Just keep broadband and telephony separate. If the master has a filtered faceplate, just connect the pair going to the hub to the data extension terminals and the pair going to the new phone-only socket to pins 2&5

Re: Digital Voice problems in big old house

TechnicMan — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 14:44:33 GMT

Yes! That's a great idea; this never occurred to me. I'll give it a try if the adapters don't work out. Cheers!