VDSL broadband phone line connector box - remove?

[minilathe22]

Hi All

I moved into a new house which for one reason or another has not had broadband connected before. Its FTTC. I can see the line come in from the street, go through the small connector box pictured below, and then into the master socket. there is one extension connected to the master socket.

I work from home often and I am in IT so I really want to optimize the reliability and speed of the broadband connection. I will disconnect the extension socket as I believe some "echo" can happen to the signal if these are still connected and I dont need it anyway. My question is can I remove the small connector box and have the phone line from outside go straight into the back of the master socket? The connector box is very old and clearly designed before any from of broadband was sent on the cable.

 

[Sideways]

Personally, being electrically and IT literate, I ran a clean length of twisted pair cable from the outdoor box where the BT cable first hits our property to the master socket positioned in the house where I wanted it.
This is far better than the installation by BT which had the socket just inside the front door and a short piece of cable shoved through a hole drilled in my door frame.
It's all on your own head but my work was never even commented on the couple of times I had to call BT out to do maintenance on their line to the house.

We've gone to Virgin fibre just recently but they are an obnoxious company. I'll ditch them at the end of the contract and If VM don't do a deal to allow other companies to share their fibre, I'll go back to Zen even if this is only 30Mb/s over the copper connection.

 

[minilathe22]

My main concern was that the box pictured might have some circuitry inside that is required. I guess I could carefully inspect the back of the circuit board and if its just a splitter I will remove it.

 

[Stuart Moffat]

Will you actually be having a traditional phone line, or having a voip service delivered over your broadband connection (which is becoming compulsory). If the latter your phone line will be plugged into your router or some other interface, not into the master socket. A traditional phone line uses a pair of wires in a conventional electric circuit. The broadband signal, including any voip type service will be transmitted down just one wire of that pair (more like a radio transmitter /receiver). I once had a fault on my phone line caused by a car crashing into a street cabinet and physically breaking wires. I was left with no phone line, but full broadband. Which rather changed my attitude and understanding.

 

[Lons]

What Stuart said. You'll be losing your landline in the near future and will only be offered VOIP which will be plugged into your router or they give you one of those adapters that connects via your 13amp ring circuit. Either way they'll charge you a few quid a month to keep it.
I kept my 'phone on that basis for a few months then dumped it altogether as the only calls we got were nuisance type. As we both have unlimited minutes and text via mobiles it was a no brainer.

 

[HOJ]

That's all legacy stuff, the old NTTP (Network Test & Termination Point) for BT, using a terminal box 80A, that's their point of entry conversion from the external DON10 type cable to internal CW1308 cable, just thought you'd like to know all that....

You could put a master socket in its place (they have a have a line test resistor and a lightning arrestor on the circuit board) and will have IDC (Insulation Displacement connectors), as your box above has on the right side, then you'll need a "Krone" type bifurcating termination tool to make the connections (not a screwdriver jamming the wires in)

Get them out to do an upgrade, as has been said, its all going digital, and the less mechanical connections in the line the better.

 

[minilathe22]

I will wait until the engineer arrives and suggest/ask for them to replace the box with a fresh new master socket, if they insist on using the wiring still there maybe I will test the broadband speed with it removed and see if its any better.

Thanks HOJ for giving me the exact name of the junction box and its purpose!

 

[Spectric]

My main concern was that the box pictured might have some circuitry inside that is required.

They used to use a filter but that was in the newer boxes to separate the broadband from the telephone line but that is all history as they shut down the analogue and go all digital.

I moved into a new house which for one reason or another has not had broadband connected before.

You could get the provider of your broadband to install a new line and do all the work as you would be a new customer and maybe even have full fibre in your area.

 

[minilathe22]

my area is on the list to get fibre in the future but not yet. predicted 70mb/s through the existing phone line so that is reasonable for now.

 

[Sachakins]

Personally, being electrically and IT literate, I ran a clean length of twisted pair cable from the outdoor box where the BT cable first hits our property to the master socket positioned in the house where I wanted it.
This is far better than the installation by BT which had the socket just inside the front door and a short piece of cable shoved through a hole drilled in my door frame.
It's all on your own head but my work was never even commented on the couple of times I had to call BT out to do maintenance on their line to the house.

We've gone to Virgin fibre just recently but they are an obnoxious company. I'll ditch them at the end of the contract and If VM don't do a deal to allow other companies to share their fibre, I'll go back to Zen even if this is only 30Mb/s over the copper connection.

Virginia don't share their fibre with others.

 

[Richard_C]

I'm with Zen and in the last 7 or so years only had to call tech support 3 times and each time the response was excellent. We do now have FTTP in the village but its a regional company that I don't quite trust (pricing not transparent and loads of introductory offers and no clarity about what you pay after that so I stayed with Zen FTTC and as I can see the box out of the bedroom window I get 76 Mbits/s down, plenty to stream 2 TVs in HD and anything else I might want. Its assymetric, only 20 'up' so I sometimes see a bit of delay if I send loads of photos to onedrive, but it really isn't an inconvenience. I am told that FTTP is symetrical - up speed = down speed) so would go that way if I was working full time from home with graphics-heavy things.

Anyway, I've just changed to 'digital voice', similar price to the bundled broadband/copper phone I had before. Its not quite the same as VOIP, it's SOGEA which essentially works like FTTC with voice carried over copper as digital rather than analogue signal, so futureproof when it all gets switched off. Works fine. The Zen supplied router already has an answerphone and DECT base station built in plus one phone port so was a doddle to pair our existing DECT handset and plug in an ancient push button phone.

One word of warning though, digital voice and VOIP both rely on the router having power to it unlike old fashioned phones which had some power supplied down the phone line. As we have very bad mobile signal here I bought a simple sealed lead acid UPS which will keep the router (with its dect basestation and plug in phone) running for about 5 hours. That will see us through most power cuts. It does work, we had a 1 hour outage a couple of weeks back and the router didn't miss a beat. Cost me about £55.

Suppose we had a power cut and someone needed urgent medical attention or there was a fire - I would have had to run up the hill waving my mobile phone until I found a signal. Now the pseudo-landline will keep working.

If you go to digital voice and have a mobile phone with good signal then you are fine, if no mobile or poor signal you might well want a UPS. Or practice shouting NINE NINE NINE very loud

 

[Richard_C]

I'll go back to Zen even if this is only 30Mb/s over the copper connection.

I'm with Zen and in the last 7 or so years only had to call tech support 3 times and each time the response was excellent. We do now have FTTP in the village but its a regional company that I don't quite trust (pricing not transparent and loads of introductory offers and no clarity about what you pay after that so I stayed with Zen FTTC and as I can see the box out of the bedroom window I get 76 Mbits/s down, plenty to stream 2 TVs in HD and anything else I might want. Its assymetric, only 20 'up' so I sometimes see a bit of delay if I send loads of photos to onedrive, but it really isn't an inconvenience. I am told that FTTP is symetrical - up speed = down speed) so would go that way if I was working full time from home with graphics-heavy things.

Anyway, I've just changed to 'digital voice', similar price to the bundled broadband/copper phone I had before. Its not quite the same as VOIP, it's SOGEA which essentially works like FTTC with voice carried over copper as digital rather than analogue signal, so futureproof when it all gets switched off. Works fine. The Zen supplied router already has an answerphone and DECT base station built in plus one phone port so was a doddle to pair our existing DECT handset and plug in an ancient push button phone.

One word of warning though, digital voice and VOIP both rely on the router having power to it unlike old fashioned phones which had some power supplied down the phone line. As we have very bad mobile signal here I bought a simple sealed lead acid UPS which will keep the router (with its dect basestation and plug in phone) running for about 5 hours. That will see us through most power cuts. It does work, we had a 1 hour outage a couple of weeks back and the router didn't miss a beat. Cost me about £55.

Suppose we had a power cut and someone needed urgent medical attention or there was a fire - I would have had to run up the hill waving my mobile phone until I found a signal. Now the pseudo-landline will keep working.

If you go to digital voice and have a mobile phone with good signal then you are fine, if no mobile or poor signal you might well want a UPS. Or practice shouting NINE NINE NINE very loud