need to move router to different room

[RicKMalzeard]

We just moved into this house 2 months ago, SKY TV and Broadband connected about 7wks ago.   Broadband in our village is fibre to the box, then via legacy copper phone lines to houses (ie not fibre to the house).   We're getting about 60Mbps consistently via WiFi from the Sky router, so a decent connection.

    The previous owner had the internet connection placed into a 3rd bedroom/office via a very long cable run/extension from the lounge.   It appears the original/main telephone jack for the house is in the lounge.  The cable has been run from the lounge via a hole in the mortar, around the exterior of the house using literally 50m of cable halfway around the bungalow with cable-holders in the mortar, to the 3rd bedroom via another hole in the mortar.  Believe Sky rep booking our move/install said previous owner was a Sky broadband customer - so presume this extension was done by a Sky/Openreach engineer in past few years.

    I would like to put the router in the lounge and remove the cable extension from the outside of our home, as the 3rd bedroom/office will soon become part of the kitchen and no longer suitable for a router.

   How do I get a Sky/Outreach engineer to come and ensure Sky router working nominally from lounge phone jack and remove all that cable, holders, and extra phone jack?

thanks in advance

[Highlinder]

@RicKMalzeardYou would need to call Sky and ask for a master socket move. There is a charge of £65 for this service and Sky should be able to tell you the process and how this will happen. First have to check that you do not have internet calls as they are then unlikely want to move the master socket.

[TimmyBGood]

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@RicKMalzeard wrote:

Believe Sky rep booking our move/install said previous owner was a Sky broadband customer - so presume this extension was done by a Sky/Openreach engineer in past few years.

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Sky wouldn't have done such a thing, and these days Openreach don't do either: their remit ends at the master socket.  Most work like that is carried out by 'handypersons' or enthusiastic amateurs.

As @Highlinder indicates, Openreach may be prepared to carry out a master socket move, on payments of a fee (booked through Sky acting as your telco), but they may well not remove the additional cabling, socket or clips, or do any 'making good', as that's simply not their responsibility.

[RicKMalzeard]

wouldn't the "master socket" be the original telephone jack in the lounge, from which the cable around the house originates?

or is the "master socket" now the one at the end of the extension (3rd br) where the router is plugged into?

admittedly have not yet tried to plug router into the original socket in lounge, to see if it's still functional....will do that tonight when I get home.

[TimmyBGood]

@RicKMalzeard 

The master socket is the one where the inbound cable from the telephone pole / duct arrives at the property.  Extension sockets are spurred off from this (or sometimes just plugged in on a 'doubler')

[RicKMalzeard]

Thanks again for the info.  finally had a good look at the Master Socket, and turns out it's a BT socket with an elongated jack - the Sky router cable will not plug into it.   At some point, the extension was run from this jack around the house to the other room, where a Sky compatible box was installed with the two standard jacks.

   So, looks like what we specifically need is for the old BT master socket to be replaced by a Sky compatible socket and the extension cable disconnected.  I can remove the cable from exterior of hte house.

    Do I request a "master socket replacment" from Sky- who would presumably book in an Open Reach tech to come out?

thanks

[TimmyBGood]

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@RicKMalzeard wrote:

   So, looks like what we specifically need is for the old BT master socket to be replaced by a Sky compatible socket and the extension cable disconnected.

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There's no such thing as a 'Sky compatible socket': it's a standard prefiltered master, which has both a BT jack socket for a phone handset and an RJ11 socket for data.    In the absence of a fault, there's a standard fee of £65 paid to the ISP for Openreach to do such work.

[Eeeps]

The Sky router should have come with two different cables.

There are many different types of master socket.

What type of master socket have I got? | BT Help

Could you provide a photo of your socket?

Do you have your home phone plugged into the socket?

[TimmyBGood]

@RicKMalzeard 

If you're looking at a BT jack socket and holding a Sky RJ11 Hub cable then you need a plug-in microfilter.

 

[RicKMalzeard]

thanks for that link.   I have the first one shown in the single-socket row.

phone:  not using a landline at the moment (but it is active as part of the Sky package), but if was would need to plug into the extension socket with the 2 x RJ-11 jack as it's a standard phone plug (not that funky BT elongated plug).

[RicKMalzeard]

Great suggestion.  Found a bunch on amazon for 5quid - any suggestions on manfacturer?  Rhinocables seems to be most popular - they ok?

will get one of these and then can test if signal still present in the BT master socket, of if whomever did the hack job extension disconnected the master socket in the process....

[Mr+Slant]

If the people you bought the house from lived there a long time (late 90s/early 00s) then this sounds like an original ADSL install. Way back then BT Ignite (not Openreach) supplied a USB modem and installed the filtered (master) socket wherever the owner had a PC as obviously USB cables aren't very long. I had a similar install in a previous house where I'd got the original 256kbps ADSL connection installed by BT Ignite.

What has likely happened is that the drop wire (external connection from BT) went into the living room and still does. The BT engineer would run a (4 wire) cable around the house to wherever the owner wanted the socket, connecting the drop wire to the new master socket (via one pair of wires) and then running an extension from the filtered socket (via the second pair of wires) back to the living room, which then became an extension (filtered).

If this was done correctly then you won't get any service (ADSL/VDSL) in the living room.

Its a 5 minute job to sort out although legally you're not permitted to do it yourself. I did it myself but I know what I'm doing with that sort of stuff.

If its not obvious to you what needs doing then I'd bite the bullet and pay Sky to get it done properly.

[TimmyBGood]

@Mr+Slant @RicKMalzeard 

Yes, good point.  Using a microfilter to convert the socket won't help at all if there's a filtered master upstream of it.

[Mr+Slant]

Having said that, I've yet to come across any (of the "USB-era") master socket which had the "old" master wired correctly - ie from the filtered terminal block.

The engineers didn't understand the necessity of filtering the POTS equipment from ADSL and frankly it made zero difference on the original 256/64kbps services. It was only when we got 2Mbps/256kbps services that issues started to become apparent due to the increased upstream and even then the "fix" was to put a filter "dongle/adaptor" on all the extension sockets.

Either way, having an additional run of cabling from bedroom to living room on VDSL isn't going to help performance. Best to get it sorted if the OP owns the house & FTTP isn't on the way soon.

[RicKMalzeard]

yeap - that sounds exactly like you were describing our place!   Now it all makes a lot more sense, indeed the previous owner has their PC/office setup in the room with the extension, and nothing connected in the living room (original drop from BT).

With this addtional insight, will forego buying a microfilter online.  I could probably sort it, but been a long time since I dabbled in the wires and who knows how long this has been in place and what complications might arise. 

So, as you suggest I will bite the bullet and try to get hold of Sky to ensure done properly and above board - or at least they will be responsible for the work.

many thanks