This topic

New cable to master socket

JWilson9 — Wed, 01 May 2024 05:21:11 GMT

Hi, I've just moved into a new house and it seems to have been lots of DIY but none of it any good. In the livingroom there is the labelled BT master socker.

I'm decorating a downstairs bedroom and want to get rid of old fused spurs, storage heater boxes and telephone extensions. I cut the phone extension and my broadband stopped working. I managed to twist the wires back together and get it working but I think this "extension" might actually be the master socket. Anyone know how much BT charge to run a new cable. I just want the one guaranteed master socket so I can rip out and bin the rest in the house.

Re: New cable to master socket

Keith_Beddoe — Wed, 01 May 2024 05:41:26 GMT

@JWilson9

Welcome to this user forum for BT Retail phone and broadband customers.

Its Openreach that would do any changes to the master socket location. You would have to request that via your Service Provider, and they would raise a charge.

Your master socket is most likely the one in the living room, so all you have done is cut off the extension, your broadband should still work in the master socket. Extension wiring is your responsibility.

If you get your broadband from BT Retail, and you want your master socket moved out of the living room, then the charge used to be about £130. Its called an internal shift.

Re: New cable to master socket

JWilson9 — Wed, 01 May 2024 07:49:41 GMT

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the quick reply. The home hub is connected to the supposed master socket in the livingroom. Broadband stopped working after the faceplate in the bedroom was removed and the wires cut. I'm guessing this is the proper master socket. The bedroom is in a newish extension and I suppose this would be the first point of entry.

It seems odd that BT would use an mk branded faceplate as a master socket. I will need to phone BT and see about an engineer. Do you know how long roughly you have to wait for a call out for something like that.

Thanks.

Re: New cable to master socket

Keith_Beddoe — Wed, 01 May 2024 08:08:33 GMT

@JWilson9

You should be able to determine the point of entry of the cable. Is it underground, or does it come from a pole? If its underground, you may be able to find someone local who can replace the master socket. But if you want it in the lounge, then it may get more complicated if it comes in on the extension.

Not sure how long Openreach would take to visit, but I would expect within a week, depending on how busy they are.

Re: New cable to master socket

JWilson9 — Wed, 01 May 2024 08:31:11 GMT

Thanks Keith.

I'd actually rather have it in the bedroom where I cut the wire. I can't see any wires going into the property but I will check again. I also don't want to have this problem when I come to decorate the livingroom as there is 2 phone sockets in there, one which is marked as a master socket. Ideally I just want one socket in the house and get rid of everything else.

Re: New cable to master socket

Keith_Beddoe — Wed, 01 May 2024 08:39:27 GMT

@JWilson9

From what you have said, it looks like it may be coming into the bedroom already, and you must have simply cut the feed to the living room, where the home hub was plugged in.

Are you intending to plug the home hub into the bedroom instead? If that is the case, then there is nothing to do, just plug it in there.

With the pending cessation of the PSTN phone network, the extra components in a master socket are superfluous, so a simple extension type socket is just fine.

Re: New cable to master socket

iniltous — Wed, 01 May 2024 09:07:10 GMT

Housing built in the 1960’s through to the late 1980’s used DIG armoured cables ( direct in ground ) so there is no evidence of where the cable actually enters the property, typically the ‘master socket’ would be where the developer thought the phone line would be most useful, so in the hallway in 1960-1970’s and probably in the living room in the 1980’s ,

if your house is of similar construction to neighbouring properties you could possibly ask neighbours where their master socket is , FWIW , I owned a property built in the 1960’s ( many years ago ) , the master socket ( in fact the only phone socket ) was AFAIR not branded as Post Office Telecommunications ( as it was back then ) but the same as the electric socket outlets ( may well have been MK ) as the builder was involved in getting the armoured cable through the foundation etc to the location of the socket , developer provided decorative phone sockets were a thing back then .

As far as moving the master socket , obviously if it’s a DIG cable , the point at which it appears is fixed , if that location isn’t suitable then a blanking plate and surface wiring connected to the external cable behind the blanking plate ( to the new master socket location ) is all that could be provided, a new external cable won’t be supplied

Re: New cable to master socket

Jane2018 — Wed, 01 May 2024 09:58:02 GMT

(That is very useful. The oldest looking BT thing in my house built about 1989), a little grey covered thing, is in the home office at back of house but the telecoms wirings are so complicated in my house I have decided never to pull anything out ever as that seems less dangerous in terms of cutting signals even if it leaves things a bit messy in some rooms)

Re: New cable to master socket

JWilson9 — Wed, 01 May 2024 12:36:39 GMT

The house was built in 1980 and the extension was put on 20years later. I'm not sure if there was maybe some rewiring done when the extension was done. The problem I have is I should have picked the individual wires out of the faceplate but I cut the cable with the plan of removing the back box and filling it in. The home hub is plugged into the livingroom "master socket" so I thought this cut cable was just another extension run to a bedroom. There's not much slack at all to rewire it properly or it wouldn't really be a problem. I can lift the floor to see if I can see any wires but failing that I'm snookered as to what I can do.

Re: New cable to master socket

chrisjp — Wed, 01 May 2024 13:15:42 GMT

Presumably, if the bedroom socket is actually the master and feeds an extension in the lounge, there will be TWO cables in the bedroom socket - one coming in from the BT exchange and a second one feeding the lounge extension.
If that's the case, and you've managed to reconnect the wires inside these cables by twisting them together, as you say to restore your broadband, then it should be possible to get a standard telephone cable joiner to join the cables permanently. These are small enough to locate in the back box and you could then replace the socket front with a blanking plate.
Much better than trying to get BT-Openreach to move the master socket!

Re: New cable to master socket

JWilson9 — Wed, 01 May 2024 14:14:12 GMT

There seems to be only 1 cable fitted into the face plate. I also lifted a floor panel and I can access the cable going to the bedroom socket. It will be easy enough to splice a new cable on so I'm happy with that. I will need to lift another area of flooring to see where the cable actually comes from as it's definitely not the master socket in the livingroom.

There's no water ingress under the floor and it looks like it's free of any mice, is there a recommended type of connector I should use?

Thanks again all.

Re: New cable to master socket

imjolly — Wed, 01 May 2024 14:31:34 GMT

the certainly looks like just an extension socket. be helpful if you can find where the main openreach cable enters your home.

have you checked to see if your property can get FTTP? just enter phone number or address and post results

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

if FTTP available then fixing existing wiring not needed

you could just look at local paper and get a telecom person to sort out wiring if needed and probably quicker and cheaper than openreach

Re: New cable to master socket

JWilson9 — Wed, 01 May 2024 16:15:05 GMT

No fttp available unfortunately. They are doing work on my exchange to upgrade it, so hopefully it's not too far away.

I will try and get my floor up in another area to see where this cable runs from. I plan on putting down carpet after decoration so whatever fix I do needs to be long term reliable.

Re: New cable to master socket

NonnyM — Wed, 01 May 2024 16:39:21 GMT

Best splice is solder and heat shrink. If that's not your "thing" maybe its time to learn 8-))

Rgds

Re: New cable to master socket

imjolly — Wed, 01 May 2024 16:55:41 GMT

To join the thin phone wires I would use small gell crimps. Easy to get and easy to use and neat job

Re: New cable to master socket

chrisjp — Wed, 01 May 2024 16:56:07 GMT

If I interpet the picture correctly, that's 6 cores from a single cable that run to the bedroom socket. You cut through each and, mysteriously, your internet broadband went down, so you twisted the cut cores together again and your broadband came back on. But, if your broadband router is plugged into a different socket in your lounge, that's impossible! Cutting the wires going to an unused socket should end you up no different from having the socket connected to the cores but not in use. There has to be another cable running from the bedroom socket to the lounge socket

Re: New cable to master socket

JWilson9 — Wed, 01 May 2024 17:45:59 GMT

Hopefully you can make it out but at the back right of the picture it looks like one cable come into the house under the floorboards and then splits into 2. One cable doubles back to the socket in the bathroom and the other disappears under the floor again into another room. I can't really lift anymore floor until I get a circular saw from work and cut a hatch. All seems a bit odd though.

Re: New cable to master socket

JWilson9 — Wed, 01 May 2024 18:08:10 GMT

On closer inspection that picture doesnt show a wire coming in then looping back to the bedroom socket. It's just one wire that looks like it's joined to another one. The joint is under an ensuite so I doubt I will get access to it now without a lot of work. I think I'm just going to join the cables using jelly crimps. Fit a new faceplate and just leave it till I can get full fibre.