Connecting landline to hub in loft

[Jon615]

My hub is in the loft and broadband/wifi work well. Unfortunately my landline is in a lift so I cannot "just plug it in to the router" as advised by Sky. I have three cables going in to the back of the master socket, two ethernet cables and a white phone cable, which I assume is the cable coming from the phone. If I plug a phone into the router, it works, but if I connect the phone plug on the master socket to the router phone socket, the landline in the lift doesn't work. Can someone tell me if the hite cable would be connected to the phone, and why it is going into the back of the master socket? Also, why di I have two ethernet cables going in to the master socket?

[Mark39]

As you have internet calls, both the white cable, and the telephone port on your Openreach master socket are redundant. 

All calls are made and received via the telephone port at the back of your Hub. If the range isn't excessive, a cordless DECT phone might get around the issue with the phone in the lift. A base unit plugs into your broadband Hub, and a phone handset connects wirelessly to it

From your picture, I can only see one ethernet cable plugged into the Hub.

[Jon615]

Thanks for the reply. The top picture shows both ethernet cables, it is harder to see the other one on the bottom picture. So if the white cable is redundant, why is it connected to the master socket, and if it is from the phone, why didn't the installation engineer plug it into the router? This is so annoying as I basically took over a Sky connection and everything was working when we moved in.

[Mark39]

@Jon615 I don't know why the engineer did what he did. However, if a phone plugged directly into your Hub works, that's where the phone from the lift needs to be connected.

The top picture shows what appear to be two ethernet cables - blue and orange. the blue one appears to be plugged into your Hub, but I can see no trace of the orange one at the Hub end.

To clarify my previous post - the clear cable with the microfilter attached is the redundant cable. The white cable, appears to be the incoming telephone cable which enters your property from outside. Does that help.?

[Jon615]

Thanks for the reply. There are two photos. The first one shows the two orange ethernet cables and the white telephone cable going into the hub. The second photo shows my connction plugging the router into the master socket via the DSL filter. It was a long shot but I was hoping this would provide a connection to the phone via the white cable. The blue cable is the ethernet from the router to the hub.

If I understand you correctly, I should disconnect the white phone cable from the master socket, terminate it with a BS6312 plug and plug it into the router.  

[Mark39]

@Jon615 the top picture shows your Openreach master phone socket.

Your Sky Broadband Hub is in the bottom picture.

The white cable in the top picture looks like the incoming phone cable  - if that's right you'll lose both your broadband and phone services if you disconnect it.

Your Hub is correctly connected to the Openreach socket via the black cable.

Beyond that I'm struggling to see what the other connections are. Sorry.

[Jon615]

OK. Thanks for having a go. Maybe I should get a Sky engineer back in. Not sure how easy that will be!

---

@Jon615 wrote:

My hub is in the loft and broadband/wifi work well. Unfortunately my landline is in a lift so I cannot "just plug it in to the router" as advised by Sky. I have three cables going in to the back of the master socket, two ethernet cables and a white phone cable, which I assume is the cable coming from the phone. If I plug a phone into the router, it works, but if I connect the phone plug on the master socket to the router phone socket, the landline in the lift doesn't work. Can someone tell me if the hite cable would be connected to the phone, and why it is going into the back of the master socket? Also, why di I have two ethernet cables going in to the master socket?

---

[TimmyBGood]

@Jon615 

Sky (or any other ISP) won't help with reactivating internal extension sockets or direct cabling: that's known as 'Voice Re-Injection' (VRI) and is theoretically possible, but isn't the way the digital switch for telephony is being conducted.

Your installer appears to have attempted this with that wiring, but has done so incorrectly.

Any analogue lift safely phone required by law needs to be replaced with a different solution.

[TimmyBGood]

---

@Mark39 wrote:

@Jon615 I don't know why the engineer did what he did. 

---

I'd say it's a bodged attempt at VRI once the installer found there's an emergency analogue 'telephone' in the lift: they probably shouldn't have carried out the installation at all under those circumstances, and may now be rather regretting it.

[TimmyBGood]

@Jon615 @Mark39 

Incidentally I'd say the original installation of that socket is also a bodge, with the orange 'ethernet' being used as the incoming drop cable and the white phone cable as the lift link (or vice versa).  Nasty, really.

[TimmyBGood]

---

@Jon615 wrote:

If I understand you correctly, I should disconnect the white phone cable from the master socket, terminate it with a BS6312 plug and plug it into the router.  

---

That may work, as long as that's actually the extension to the lift and you've no other requirement for analogue telephony.