Moving BT master socket

[Medic1281]

Can anyone advise how big a job it’ll be to move the phone line master socket from a bedroom down to living room. I’m not wanting to run an extension so hoping to extend the cable down the outside the house and through the wall into living room. Not doing a diy job. Any idea how much I should expect to pay, does it have to be Openreach or can I get a sparky type person to do it? 

[spandit]

I think you need OpenReach to move a master socket but if you are planning on running a cable down the outside then you might as well just add an extension. Fairly easy job so shouldn’t cost too much

[RockySpears]

  No one but Open Reach to touch that socket regardless of how qualified they appear.

  Why move the socket at all?  Radio telephones are cheap enough and a WiFi signal or hard wiring is no issue these days.

  Can you say why you want it moved, you might get helpful alternatives that cost less,

 

RS

[mossy835]

if the master socket is up stairs,then the drop wire must come from a pole out side,that will be a hard wire as we call it,so its not a quick job,you realey want the wire to come from the pole into the room down stairs.

[Jonty]

If you get anyone else to do it other than open reach, you'd be liable for a call out charge if you have phone line problems later where the problem is deemed to be inside your house and Openreach clock that it's been moved.  There are lots of ex BT engineers about who  advertise and would do this for you at a lower cost than Openreach - but will apply the same caveat as above.

I appreciate you said it's not a job you'd do yourself but with minimal kit it can be done quite easily.  Route your cable between oexisting and new location (you can get internal external 3 pair which would do nicely) Take plenty of pics of the wiring inside the master socket, disconnect it, use a telecom junction box £3 ish To joint the existing incoming line to your new cable at the old master socket location, either re- use the existing socket or buy a new master socket £3 ish and terminate in the same fashion as the pictures you took before disconnecting.  Depending on the age of the existing and how it was installed originally, the colour codes of your cables may not be identical, but as long as you mirror your colour codes/terminations at both ends it'll work.  Again, you'd be liable should you have an internal fault in the future, but, telecoms cables are passive, they don't usually just 'go wrong' faults usually occur as a result an external influence such as drilling holes in walls etc.

just remember, if you do opt to do it yourself, when routing a cable down the outside of your house, always run the cable below the entry hole and back up in a small U shape, this will stop rain running down the cable and into your house.

[nobbyathome]

openreach  have quoted me  £120 to move a master socket to a different place in the same room 

[norfolk dumpling]

Yep to all the above and having recently had some serious broadband issues the thing I was told a million times was "....if you have tampered with our equipment..." So I suspect there is a lot of this going on and any excuse to blame you, even if a BT truck has taken out your telegraph pole, will result in you being charged. 

[Medic1281]

Well I’m having broadband and phone issues, the engineers are constantly needing to access the master socket which is in our nursery, inside the wardrobe of all places!! So that’s why we were thinking of moving it, 1 for convenience and 2 so all the electrical equipment and WiFi router isn’t in my little girls room. 

[Ricko]

When I moved into my house my master socket had been smashed off the wall, so I obtained another out of a building at work that was being demolshed.

Coming into the house are a pair of wires (usually referred to as A & B on diagrams etc.), in my house they came into a small white telephone junction box. From this the pair of wires went into the master socket. All I did was to re route the wires from the junction box to the master socket when I relocated its position and fitted the replacement one. The extensions are taken from the master socket by using terminals 2, 3, and 5, and taking them via wire to the extension socket.

In theory you need a telephone IDC tool to slot the wires into the terminals.

The REN (ringer equivalence number) for the uk is 4, that is to say you can have 4 extensions from one master socket. I ran mine daisy chain ie one to the next.

I did this in my home 15 years ago and have had no faults, only when bale trailers have damaged the outside line!

[RockySpears]

21 hours ago, Medic1281 said:

and 2 so all the electrical equipment and WiFi router isn’t in my little girls room. 

  Now we get to the Crux of the matter.

  You do not need to put any of the equipment in there.  There is one, small cable that goes from the socket to the router, stick it through an internal wall or under the floor boards.  There is no reason why the equipment and socket should be near each other,

 

RS