FTTP being installed now but need to keep landline - not worried about my IP address changing.

[#1]

Thanks John,

What do you mean by "banded"?

--Rob

[#2]

@robsinglehurst 

Is the Hub Two connected to the Openreach Master socket, what type is it?

As you no longer have a landline phone service I would suggest disconnecting any now redundant phone extensions from the master socket, internal cabling can cause issues with the broadband connection.

[#3]

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@robsinglehurst wrote:

Thanks John,

What do you mean by "banded"?

--Rob

---

Because of your recent issues, the connection has been artificially locked into a low speed in an attempt to maintain stability - I would suggest you call PN after the long weekend and ask for a DLM reset, which should allow your connection speed to go higher - whatever was causing your high D/S SNR reading appears to have gone away.

[#4]

I don't actually have a Master Socket - we had an extension a couple of years ago and the sparkies ended up just hard-wiring in the phone line and we lost the BT Master Socket. I still have the cordless DECT phone connected to the landline (being ported to VOIP on 10th June and working currently) through a broadband filter - there are no other phone extensions in the house  - I did the tweak years ago when we had the master socket involving disconnecting one of the wires and that made quite a difference at the time.

From the report that I posted though it is likely to be an issue external to the property?

[#5]

I'm no expert, but what the 'sparkies' did is (a) illegal and (b) probably part of the reason for your issues. I'll leave it to others with probably more knowledge/experience than me to expand.

[#6]

Yes, I was thinking along those lines as well.....🙄

[#7]

I don't actually have a Master Socket - we had an extension a couple of years ago and the sparkies ended up just hard-wiring in the phone line and we lost the BT Master Socket.

@robsinglehurst  as @jab1 says , that's technically illegal, only Openreach are allowed to work on any connections upstream of a Master socket. You really should have a master scoket as it has a ring capacitor and more importantly a zener diode to protect against damage to the network!.

Can you elaborate on exactly how the wiring is configured now , possibly with some photos ? so that we can assess whether it is likely to be affecting your connection

[#8]

So the copper pair from the telegraph pole to the house was replaced about 2 years ago as we were having noisy landline issues etc and the OpenReach engineer said that wire was looking pretty "tired". I'm not exactly sure whether we did have a Maste Socket at that point as while the extension build was ongoing the Master Socket was still connected but wasn't attached to the wall (just inside the front door) (I am presuming we did as otherwise it would have been flagged-up art that point).

We had a media wall built into the ground floor rear extension living room and my idea was that everything telephony / broad-bandy would be located in there behind the TV to keep everything tidy - with no exposed cables anywhere. I designed the sliding mechanism for the TV so it's possible to access the void by pulling the TV forward (it works really well actually and I don't lose any space by having a complicated TV mount)  When they wired this up with Cat5e sockets in the extra bedrooms that were also part of the extension at some point the Master Socket "disappeared" - I queried this at the time but was assured "that it will be fine".......

I am hoping that to make this installation "correct" a Master Socket could be fitted in the media wall next to the phone connection socket on the middle right socket outlet.

Is this something that OpenReach would fit (chargeable of course) - presumably through PN?

[#9]

Well neither of those junction boxes look like Openreach boxes. The 'external connection box' one under the eaves certainly isnt and I'm unsure about the one on the fascia where the incoming line is.

Normally you'd expect the incoming line to be either direct to a Master socket or possibly via an official Openreach external grey junction box at low level.

I'd start by checking the connections in the box under the eaves. Some of the external cable looks worse for wear (or is it just the photos) , is the outer covering cracked in places ?

[#10]

My thoughts - for what they are worth - all those connections look rather 'suspect' and I bet they are the cause of the issues.

[#11]

Know that a lot has been said about the existing connections and use of non BT/OR equipment, but lets get back to the first post.

FTTP is being installed on the 10/11th June and wants to kept the landline number.

Best to put up with the service as it is now for another 2 weeks, get FTTP installed and working, then port number to VOIP.

Only thing I would be looking at is how the OR engineer will get the fibre to your media wall so that you can kept the router there, or looking at it you have Cat5/6 points, can you use one of those and place the router somewhere else?

BTW, the phone module used may be one of  these , albeit not an OR one.

[#12]

So, the OpenReach engineers turned up just before their scheduled time slot yesterday. I explained everything that I knew up to that point - showed them the wiring etc - ok with all of that apart from there being no Master Socket and this is what we have ended up with 😁

I would like to say a HUGE THANK-YOU to everyone who has contributed to this lengthy thread!! 😊  This is the latest from PN that I received yesterday evening>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dear Mr Singlehurst,

Thank you for your patience.

Our suppliers have advised us that they have fixed the issue you reported to us. We have run further diagnostics on the line and an external fault has been detected so we have raised this back to our suppliers for further investigation.

We should have an update on this within 48 working hours. We will continue to monitor for updates and we will be in touch as soon as we have more information.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Kind regards,

Plusnet Robot-032

I have attached the Hub Two Technical Log and my download rate has increased slightly already - the engineers mentioned doing a DLM reset but said it was basically swings and roundabouts as to what affect it will have - so I said just leave it for no.

[#13]

the engineers mentioned doing a DLM reset but said it was basically swings and roundabouts as to what affect it will have

Complete rubbish, the engineer should have done a DLM reset!. Your target SNR is elevated so a DLM reset would likely bring the speed up to the Maximum date rate. Make sure that the next engineer does a DLM reset...

[#14]

Thanks,

Will do 😁

[#15]

@robsinglehurst  Why not ask Plusnet to do a DLM reset, they can action it, and you should get a decent speed increase.