Page 1 of Moving PSTN master socket for ADSL

After reading the ADSL post by Clayts I decided to look into it for myself. Everything was OK. It was in my area, I`m less than 5.5km from local exchange, etc...

BUT! The ADSL modem needs to be less than 30 cable meters away from the PSTN master socket (main telephone socket). The computer I wish to connect the modem to is in a loft bedroom and the master socket is on the ground floor - more than 30 meters away.

Is it possible and if so does anyone know hoe much it costs for BT to move the PSTN master socket nearer to the loft room (say on the 1st floor?).

Thanks

When the BT guy put my ADSL connection in he was very clever. He ran a cable up the outside of the house from the external BT box thing and into the house in the spare bedroom so that he could put in a new socket in this room. So one pair from the cable (I think there are 3 pairs in the standard cable) goes from the exchange up the side of the house to the new socket and ADSL splitter in the spare room. The split telephone signal is carried on one of the other pairs from the same cable and loops back down to the outside socket and connects back into the house where the original cable connected to the old master socket.

So as long as you can put a socket in the loft room on an exterior wall and you don`t mind the external cable, this option is available to you,

This item was edited on Saturday, 9th February 2002, 00:32

I think Sparkster may have a problem as the Pipex deal is self-install !

Sparkster, I recommend you ring BT and ask them what the damage is with regards to moving the PSTN - it may be cheaper than you think.

Ah.. I see. I`ve only seen USB ADSL modems, I don`t know if there are any other kind for home use. I think the maximum length of a USB cable is about 5 metres, so in that case you might want to look at getting an ADSL router (about 100 quid from Jungle) and using it to take an ethernet cable to your pc.

The master socket is the first socket that the telephone cable hits inside the house. The ADSL needs the master socket because up until it hits the ADSL splitter the signal is a multiplexed data/telephone signal and therefore meaningless to telephones. It must be split before it is passed on to the other sockets. Moving the master socket is basically rerouting the cable to hit a different socket first and therefore isn`t easy to to without stringing a new cable either internally along the wall or skirting (which is going to be ugly) or externally to the house.

Ooops! Turns out there is a load of slack phone cable behind a cupboard. that I forogot about. I think it will be enouh to run to main socket - the cable is only 20m so it`ll work.

Just out of interest - if the cable wasn`t long enough and I didn`t want to move main socket could I use a repreater to regenrate the signal? I know this is used when networking computers together or to a server. The repeater would also probaly cost far more than getting BT to do the donkey work moving socket though but its just a thought.

according to this site: http://www.seg.co.uk/adsl/ar601.html

With the "wires-only" ADSL (AKA self install ?) you use line splitters (see the site) that allow you to place the USB ADSL modem on any extenstion on the line

cw2000`s answer looks like the way to go. I might get one of those myself .

If you wanted to take the USB cable and repeat the signal you can get USB repeater cables and daisy chain them, see http://www.euronetwork.co.uk/item1537.htm.

BTW if you move the location of the master socket, it`s important that you physically move the socket box itself. The master socket contains a surge protector. See http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/UK_telephone/uk_telephone.html.

My Blue Yonder is connected via a network card to the cable modem, there was an option of usb but the engineer said this was the preferred method, this also enables you to wire a cat 5 cable anywhere in the house and not just next to the modem !!

Signed up for Pipex ADSL yesterday. Got an e-mail to say I`ll be hooked up very soon. Cheers for telling us about it Clayts! I`ll be downloading mp3s and surfing DVD Reviewer at 512k before I know it!

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