Master Socket and Networking

[Qwyatt]

Hi. I am at a loss and need help please.

due to being in a poor / moderate area, we were advised and have recently had 2x BT lines installed into the house. These are located in the loft. From the loft I then have 2x Cat5 cables running to 2 separate network rooms in the house. The plan was to use these Cat5 cables as ADSL cables from each master socket and position the home hubs in each  network room, each serving 1 floor of the house. And then network / wifi from each....does that make sense?

If I position the hubs up the loft, the WiFi signal is not strong enough to reach the whole house

I have taken the orange/white, blue, blue/white and orange as the ADSL cable, with RJ11 ends. So I have effectively made 2 extension leads of around 8m. These  are wired through the house to each floor and connect from the ADSL filter on my master and the DSL in the back of the hub. 

But I get no broadband connection when I try to use them. I have done a continuity test on the Cat5 wires and they are all good. And if I move the hubs back up the loft with the standard wires I get broadband service as I should. Am I missing something here please?

Or alternatively....my infrastructure is in, house is plastered and decorated. Does anyone have a more suitable solution for me to get WiFi around the house and wired connections at each fixed point in the house please?

Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙏 🙂 

Thank you

[licquorice]

No idea how you have wired the cables. All you need are 2 wires connecting the 2 centre pins of the rj11 plugs at each end

Powerline adapters are a cheap and simple method of distributing WiFi and Ethernet.

[Qwyatt]

Hi Liquorice, thank you for the reply.

I have used the white/blue and the blue wires to the 2 centre pins of the RJ11 to for the link. 

[licquorice]

Hmm, that should work ok, don't know why it doesn't.

[Qwyatt]

Well thats at least reassuring to know that it should work and I am not being a complete tool...🤷‍♂️

[gg30340]

Could it be that  when you say you have "connect from the ADSL filter on my master". what you are wanting to do is actually just run them as an extension of your incoming cable to terminate at a new socket which will then become your master socket. ie do away with the master socket in the the loft and just use jelly crimp connectors to extend the cable then terminate it at a new master socket that you can plug your hubs into.

[Qwyatt]

Hi. Yes, pretty much. After reading different posts on here. I was lead to believe that I couldn't really touch the master. That and I didn't fancy messing up my connection. But it sounds like it would be the simplest way forward?

[gg30340]

While everything up to the master socket is the responsibility of Openreach the wiring after that is your responsibility and as long as you are competent and make the correct connections the "master socket police" will be none the wiser if you extend the cables that come into your house. 

The only way that it would become a problem would be if you caused damage to the network, which would be very unlikely, and Openreach had to repair the damage. This would result in you being sent a bill for the repair work.

[Qwyatt]

And that would be the best way to do it, by removing the A B wires and jelly crimping them to Cat5 cabling that runs from the loft to the new location? No way of just taking a data feed from the 2 3 5 points on my side of the master?

Just out of interest, how could I potentially damage the network? Or to put it better, how can I avoid damaging the BT network?

Thank you

[licquorice]

Unless you apply mains voltage to the line you won't cause any damage.

If the master socket is the unfiltered type, you can take the feed from pins 2&5. If it is the filtered type (with 2 sockets in the faceplate), you can take the feed from the data extension terminals on the faceplate.