New Master Socket installation

[#1]

Hi all,

I recently signed up for the Plusnet broadband extra package with a phone line and am scheduled to be online next week.

My house does not have any BT type of phone sockets as I had the whole property renovated and had Virgin BB for the past couple of years.

I have a few questions I hope someone will be kind enough to help me with.

1. Will the engineer install a single port master socket that requires a micro filter to be used or will they install a dual port master socket with built-in filter?

2. If the engineer installs a single port master socket, can I buy a dual port master socket and change it myself or get someone else to do it? Or will that not be possible because a dual port master socket requires extra cabling?

3. Is there any real benefit to having a dual master socket over a single + micro filter set-up apart from a tidier looking install?

4. My garden is accessed from the living room, the virgin cable comes up from the corner of my garden and into the living room through a conduit inside the wall which then exists behind the t.v. cabinet.

This gives a clean look as the two coaxial cables (virgin and TV aerial) are inside the conduit inside the wall so no ugly cables along the skirting etc.

I have bought some fishing tape which I will insert inside the conduit in readiness for the engineer's visit so all he will need to do is simply selotape the Plusnet cable (RJ11?) to the end of the fishing tape that will poke out of the conduit outside in the garden, and then I will pull it back through the conduit and into the living room and out of the exit hole behind the t.v. cabinet. He can then install the master socket behind the t.v. cabinet. The router will sit on the tv cabinet 50 cm away from where the exit hole is behind the cabinet.

Will that be ok or can the engineer refuse to do this? I honestly can't see any reason why he would have a problem with this as it saves him having to drill holes through a wall etc. but I have heard some engineers can be difficult.

5. This is all assuming that the cabinet is somewhere at the back of my house so that it can come in via the garden. If the cabinet is at the front of the house then I guess the engineer will not be able to route the cable to the back of the house?

I am dreading the cable coming in through the front as my living room is at the back of the house which means drilling through several walls to have the master socket installed in the living.

Sorry for the many questions but would appreciate your thoughts on any of the above.

Thanks

[#2]

1. Will the engineer install a single port master socket that requires a micro filter to be used or will they install a dual port master socket with built-in filter?

Are you signing up to fibre, or is it just standard ADSL?  Chances are if you've signed to ADSL a standard NTE5C will be installed without an integrated filter.

2. If the engineer installs a single port master socket, can I buy a dual port master socket and change it myself or get someone else to do it? Or will that not be possible because a dual port master socket requires extra cabling?

You could get one yourself, however, unless you have additional extensions required throughout the home, there is little to no bebefit to installing one.

3. Is there any real benefit to having a dual master socket over a single + micro filter set-up apart from a tidier looking install?

Nope, in fact I find the filtered 5C plates to be quite inferior to the standard filter scheme.

4. My garden is accessed from the living room, the virgin cable comes up from the corner of my garden and into the living room through a conduit inside the wall which then exists behind the t.v. cabinet.

This gives a clean look as the two coaxial cables (virgin and TV aerial) are inside the conduit inside the wall so no ugly cables along the skirting etc.

I have bought some fishing tape which I will insert inside the conduit in readiness for the engineer's visit so all he will need to do is simply selotape the Plusnet cable (RJ11?) to the end of the fishing tape that will poke out of the conduit outside in the garden, and then I will pull it back through the conduit and into the living room and out of the exit hole behind the t.v. cabinet. He can then install the master socket behind the t.v. cabinet. The router will sit on the tv cabinet 50 cm away from where the exit hole is behind the cabinet.

Will that be ok or can the engineer refuse to do this? I honestly can't see any reason why he would have a problem with this as it saves him having to drill holes through a wall etc. but I have heard some engineers can be difficult.

I can't see why this would be an issue.  I'm sure the engineer would be appreciative of anything you could do to make their life easier

5. This is all assuming that the cabinet is somewhere at the back of my house so that it can come in via the garden. If the cabinet is at the front of the house then I guess the engineer will not be able to route the cable to the back of the house?

The cabinet is not going to be of much relevance to be honest.  It's really going to boil down to where the pole is located (unless underground fed)

[#3]

Hi notmyname,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly,  much appreciated. 

Are you signing up to fibre, or is it just standard ADSL?  Chances are if you've signed to ADSL a standard NTE5C will be installed without an integrated filter.

I signed up for Fibre Extra which I believe is the fastest availabe from Plusnet upto 80Mbs, with a guaranteed speed of 60Mbs. I currently get 100Mbs with Virgin but the latency is awful hence the move. 

You could get one yourself, however, unless you have additional extensions required throughout the home, there is little to no bebefit to installing one.

So I take it the cabling is the same for both types of sockets? I'm not sure what you mean about the extension, I just need one master socket in the living room where the router will be.

But if as you say there is no benefit in having a dual socket setup and it's actually inferior to the old one socket than I'm actually not bothered about that anymore .

Out of curiosity, would you mind explaining why you think the dual socket is inferior? The only reason I liked the idea is due to past experience with BT fibre where the filters would need changing once in a while so I thought the new dual sockets may be better at least in that regard.

As for the cabinet and pole I had a good look today around the back and the front of the house, but couldn't see the green cabinet and I didn't know about the pole . I guess I'll just have to wait for the engineer and see what happens on the day. 

And that brings me to my two final questions, if the cabling has to come in through the front, will the engineer drill holes through the front wall, along the skirting in the passage and then into the living room? Or could he just install it in the passage? 

Would it be possible for someone (checkatrade) to extend and move the location of the master socket? Bearing in mind that I only need one socket in the living room. I guess the wiring of the socket isn't difficult it's more the actual cabling and if they'd be able to extend it without affecting speeds. 

Thanks again for taking the time to reply to my message. 

[#4]

The latest master sockets come with a clip on faceplate. This plugs in to the BT Master Socket located on the fixed part of the box. This is either a single socket or a thicker version that includes the filter and dsl and phone outlets. To change them you just click off the one and push on the replacement, no wiring is involved. If you ask others they will tell you that filtered faceplates work better than microfilters. To be honest I don't think there's any difference. I have fitted a filtered faceplate as it's much neater.

When you are ordering you need to make it clear where you want the master socket fitting and insist that if necessary cables must be routed around the outside of your property. Do not give the installer carte blanche to take the easy option. If it costs more then take the hit now. The cabling up to the master socket is essentially the responsibility of BT and should not be moved by third parties.

If you are interested in the location of your fibre cabinet put your phone number in here. This will tell you your cabinet number  https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.TelephoneNumberOutput

Next follow these instructions and you will find the post code for your cabinet location. You will then have to go and look.  https://kitz.co.uk/adsl/cabinet-lookup.htm#pcp

[#5]

A warm welcome to the forums … a good set of questions … it is good to have a plan! 

Generally speaking the engineer will put the master socket where you want it … within reason.

Pulling the cable through a conduit - you need to be sure that will not add an undue amount of time to the task - note that the feed is not terminated until the cable is in place (no plug on the end as you implied).

Out of personal preference I would go for a filtered face plate, which I have found to be superior to the dangly ones.  I am not convinced that BTOR will install a filtered faceplate these days, even for VDSL which is now considered to be self installable with a dangly filter!  If you want a faceplate filter and BTOR do not install one, they are readily available and do not cost that much.

Installing a wifi router close to a TV is not ideal practice - it can severely impact the wifi performance around the house.

[#6]

Hello and thank you to everyone for taking the time to reply to my thread.  

The latest master sockets come with a clip on faceplate. This plugs in to the BT Master Socket located on the fixed part of the box. This is either a single socket or a thicker version that includes the filter and dsl and phone outlets. To change them you just click off the one and push on the replacement, no wiring is involved. If you ask others they will tell you that filtered faceplates work better than microfilters. To be honest I don't think there's any difference. I have fitted a filtered faceplate as it's much neater.

When you are ordering you need to make it clear where you want the master socket fitting and insist that if necessary cables must be routed around the outside of your property. Do not give the installer carte blanche to take the easy option. If it costs more then take the hit now. The cabling up to the master socket is essentially the responsibility of BT and should not be moved by third parties.

If you are interested in the location of your fibre cabinet put your phone number in here. This will tell you your cabinet number  https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.TelephoneNumberOutput

Next follow these instructions and you will find the post code for your cabinet location. You will then have to go and look.  https://kitz.co.uk/adsl/cabinet-lookup.htm#pcp

Hey Baldrick, regarding the dual socket faceplate, are you saying that if BTOR install a single socket that requires the separate dangly micro filters, then I can purchase one of these from ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/302682875882 and install it myself by removing the single socket faceplate?

Regarding the cabling, thanks for the heads up, I will insist that they install it around the back of the property. If the engineer annoys me then I will just cancel the whole thing and stick with Virgin (I haven't cancelled Virgin yet but the contact has ended, just need to give them 30 days notice. It's essential that I have Broadband as I work from home a lot so I will keep Virgin until Plusnet have activated my line and I'm confident everything is working fine).

Also, I don't have a phone line at present so I'm unable to check where the cabinet is but thank you nonetheless for your help and advice.

A warm welcome to the forums … a good set of questions … it is good to have a plan! 

Generally speaking the engineer will put the master socket where you want it … within reason.

Pulling the cable through a conduit - you need to be sure that will not add an undue amount of time to the task - note that the feed is not terminated until the cable is in place (no plug on the end as you implied).

Out of personal preference I would go for a filtered face plate, which I have found to be superior to the dangly ones.  I am not convinced that BTOR will install a filtered faceplate these days, even for VDSL which is now considered to be self installable with a dangly filter!  If you want a faceplate filter and BTOR do not install one, they are readily available and do not cost that much.

Installing a wifi router close to a TV is not ideal practice - it can severely impact the wifi performance around the house.

Hello Townman, thanks for the warm welcome. I thought I'd ask these questions as I spent £30k + renovating my property and have everything nicely routed and all cables and pipes are hidden out of sight, and now the thought of BTOR coming in and drilling holes everywhere and installing cables along skirting boards etc is really bothering me. If they do then me being me, I will probably get some third party technician later on to rewire everything nicely and out of sight which obviously means more cost for me.

I have posted a link above for the dual socket face plate from eBay, if that is the correct type of socket shall I just buy it and have it ready for the engineer so I can ask him (nicely) to install it for me instead of the single plate?

Hmmm, I had no idea that installing the router next to the TV causes WiFi issues, my Virgin router is currently hugging the TV although I have disabled both of the WiFi channels as I have an Ethernet cable running upstairs to an RE450 Access Point. The RE450 AP is doing all the WiFi duties and the Virgin router has WiFi disabled. The same will apply to the Plusnet hub. The reason for this is because the router is unable to provide a good signal to one of the upstairs bedroom, the AP on the other hand is located centrally upstairs and is able to reach all the rooms including the living room downstairs.

You may ask "Why don't you then just have the Master Socket installed where the RE450 is and just use that and do away with the RE450?", if I do that then I will need to run 2-3 Ethernet cables from the router back down to the living room to my YouView box, PS4, NAS drive etc. which means more cabling. This is the main reason why I have the router on the TV cabinet, so that I use use short ethernet cables to all my devices. I prefer hardwired connections for streaming videos, playing games and transferring files back and forth to the NAS.

But good to know that having the WiFi enabled near the TV affects the WiFi performance.

Thanks again to you all.

[#7]

You clearly have this well thought through.

If you do not intend to use the WIFI on the router, then it being near the TV is not going to be an issue.  To be clear, the router being near the TV can mean that the WIFI signal around the house is not as good as it might be … not that the wifi interferes with the TV.

Good luck.

[#8]

@mannaahmed

Providing you have the latest socket fitted then yes, that is the one you want. However, if you look at the bottom of this page you will also see the older model, which is retained by two screws. Just in case the old type is installed I would wait until the job is done so that you make sure that you get the right one (the installer might even give you one). You can order one as soon as you confirm which you need and in the meantime use the dangly filter that will be included with the router.

[#9]

@mannaahmed wrote:
...I have heard some engineers can be difficult.

Speaking from experience on both sides of the fence - most BTOR engineers tend to soften in the presence of tea/coffee and chocolate biscuits.  

[#10]

Thanks all, I have run the fishing tape inside the conduit from the living room and it's now poking out at the other end outside in the garden. All the engineer has to do is tape the cable to the fishing tape and I will pull it back into the living room in less than 10 seconds, if anything it should be a dream job for him.

A fancy selection of buttery, choclatey, pistachio'ey biscuits, cookies and pastries will be on display in a buffet style setting and he will be offered various types of beverages and plenty of Schloer to keep him hydrated. He will not want to leave my premise, that's what I'm aiming for.

No less than two fans will be blowing on him from two different angles to ensure good coverage.

I shall update this post next week once the line has been installed.

You guys have been a great help which I really appreciate.