Who do I call?

Grant Stevens

Hello, Hopefully this is the correct place to post.

I have a 1995 built home, not ancient by any means but the phone line coming in looks archaic! The short story is I am redecorating and will be removing a dado rail from the hall. A wire is coming from what appears to be the main in-feed from outside (near front door). In turn, this messy junction (pic below) feeds another box down the hall where my router is plugged in to. When the dado is removed I will need to pin the extension wire to the skirting instead, resulting in needing an extra bit of length. I wouldn't know where to begin. I'm handy enough with Cat6 and electric in general but I'm not well versed with phone stuff.

The question is who owns the lines coming in from outside? My broadband is with Vodafone but I don't imagine I'd need to call them for line issues upstream of the router. My guess is it's Eircom that dealt with this stuff but they're gone aren't they? Do I need a 'phone engineer/ technician' or will an electrician/ regular sparks do the trick?

I've included a few images I'm sure some of you will find comical!

Thanks in advance.

The Cush

You can easily do this yourself, just need to plan and tidy it up. Gel connectors for joining wires and cat5/6 for any extensions.

ED E

Removing some crap from the loop there may improve your xDSL too.

Unmount the little brown junc. box. Make a hole there to fit a socket and just get a blanking plate. In there join a new run of CAT5 and bring that to your NTU beside the modem(router). Do you have any traditional landline services hooked up by the socket nearest the door?

Grant Stevens

From what I can see the main wire coming into the house seems to be a 4 core cable (black sheath) with 4 coloured cables (Green, Black, Orange & White)

Here's a picture of that.

I'm not sure what each wire is for as I'm not familiar with how phone cabling works. There are gel connectors that link orange with blue/white and white with blue. This then travels into that box to the right. I'm not sure what what is going on inside that box to be honest. It says "line in" and then "Alarm in" on the RHS. This must be legacy cabling as there is no home phone alarm. There are actually no phone services at all connected. Just broadband via dsl.

If the old brown junction box is the primary incoming feed then what is going on in the other box? Does anyone recognise that piece of circuitry?!

In the last photo below you can see that the extension cable has 2 x gel connectors that link directly to the feed at blue & blue/white (1&2), however, the orange & orange/white are connected to the 'line in' on that circuit at 3&4 in the picture. The other side of the square circuit as line in/ out going to alarm box but i guess that was probably connected previously, we don't use that.

Can someone tell me what wires are important here, what does the router require?

Thanks,

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118626744#Comment_118626744

How many separate telephone cables are coming into that old telephone socket beside the double socket? I'm assuming they were feeding telephone sockets in other rooms/alarm etc. previously. If there is no phoneline service to the house that old phone socket circuitry can be removed.

The live pair appears to be the orange/white wires at the junction box and the blue/white and white/blue wires at the old telephone point, if you have a multimeter to check there should be 50v DC on them. The junction box appears to be serving no purpose other than contain the gel connections to connect to the old telephone socket.

The NTU (at the router) could be moved to the junction box location or the old telephone socket, removing some of the crap between the junction box location and NTU, as suggested by ED E above.

If you decide to move the NTU connect the live pair to L1 and L2, doesn't matter which wire goes to which terminal.

Grant Stevens

Thanks for the replies guys. I am learning fast. In the messy junction box (nearest double socket) I notice 2 x feeds going up (most likely to 2 x points located in bedrooms). As I have the carpet up in the landing I was able to pull back one of the cables from the rear of one of the bedroom points. Could I in theory attach on with a wire join there and drop down to the NTU box, thus eliminating the extension through the hall (eyesore)?

Am I correct in saying that the internet is only concerned with 2 x wires Blue & Blue/ White in the traveller cable? I have a ream of Cat6 there, could I use that to attach on to the cable upstairs? That would be a join of only 2 strands though, the other 6 do nothing?

Also, where can I buy those gel connectors?!

Thanks!

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118627761#Comment_118627761

Did a similar job in my brother's house a few years ago, moved the NTU, got the gel crimps in a local electrical wholesaler, very cheap.

The external feed is just a pair of wires to the NTU and you just use a single pair in the Cat6 cable for extension, remember the less joins the better. All the way back to the brown junction box if you can.

Grant Stevens

Thanks, I just had a look back through that thread. There's a good bit in there. I'm missing the fundamentals though.

If the active pair coming in is just 2 x wires, why is there 4 wires in the phone cable? Also, in my case above, the blue & blue/white seem to be 'carrying' the signal to the extension box. Is it correct to say that the internet signal is carried on 2 x wires only?

Here are two pictures of what is going on at the extension box down the hall. I can see that the blue & blue/ white are coming in and connected to L1 & L2 but can someone please tell me what the orange pair are doing? What are they carrying?! I have a multimeter but not overly familiar on how to use it. I have it set to 20v DC and have tried to assess. the incoming voltage at L1 & L2 but I'm not getting a reading. Most certainly not doing it correctly.

The Cush

The extension box is called the NTU, the network demarcation point normally for the copper line into the house. Internet and phone are carried on a single pair of wires only.

Why the extra wires in the incoming cable, spare wires if the other pair is damaged, second phone line etc.etc. I think the line into my has a couple of spare pairs iirc.

The orange pair could be the regular phone line extension back to the old telephone socket.

The Cush

NTU 2001.pdf

Yes, the orange pair is the extension for a regular phone line. Was there a phone line in place when the NTU was installed?

Not required now if there is no phone line.

Grant Stevens

Thanks for all your help. It helped me solve this issue and I was able to do a number of things like use an existing phone line that ran to the upstairs as the extension. With the carpet up on the landing upstairs i found the line, disconnected it from the disused phone socket and ran this down to where the NTU is placed. This means I have gotten rid of the wire in the hall downstairs. Looks far neater and i'm getting 86mb down/ 16 up (100/20 Vodafone) when hardwired. Seems faster than before. I have also removed the old brown junction and put a surface box and blank there. Also blanked off the old phone cover. Will look nice when painted up in a few weeks!

Thanks again :)

ED E

Nicely done!