BB speed

[#1]

From what WILT said earlier

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I am afraid I have to disagree with you Jelv.  Since no cables are in contact with the test socket at all ,confirmed by a complete lack of dial tone with an ordinary phone.

it does look like the master socket may be wired incorrectly if I understand correctly what WILT's saying that there is no dial tone from the test socket. Looking at those photos, is that corrosion around the test socket ? I wonder if someone has bypassed the test socket because it was faulty. Those wire colours attached to the front plate do tend to indicate that the incoming pair ( white and orange ) do seem to have been connected to it. If thats the case then the surge suppressor ( and ring capacitor ) have also been bypassed. I would have thought that BT should rectify this situation ?

[#2]

The next question - if the above is correct - is whether that is the master socket as the wires connected to the faceplate aren't correct for a master socket which usually has only one pair feeding out whereas having two pairs as shown is normal for a slave socket.

[#3]

What I suspect has been done is that the incoming pair ( white & orange ) has been connected to the faceplate and the blue/white & white/blue pair are a separate cable feeding a hardwired extension.

[#4]

Confirmation of whether there is a ring tone on the test socket will tell us a lot.
If there isn't the BT engineer bodged it and BT should correct it at no charge.

[#5]

    As stated earlier there is no connection  to the test socket the white and orange are affixed with the Blue/White  and Blue  to the front plate as you can see on the photo!.
    If I carefully remove the white/blue and solid blue from the push in connectors., I could then establish if the white and orange  (BT line in) is working correctly and move forward to a solution?  Is this correct?
 

[#6]

HI WILT,
If, as I suspect you mean, there's no dial tone when plugged into the test socket, then this indeed is not correctly wired. I would certainly get a fault raised so we can get the ball rolling on this for you.
Jojo

[#7]

  I have just formerly logged a fault at Jo Jo's suggestion. I am fearful of getting stung with a penalty payment from BT Outreach though !! .My inability to isolate the extension from the incoming line [ due to the master socket being incorrectly wired] means there could , in theory,  still be an internal line fault on the fixed extension lead. I repeat I have not tampered with the wiring of this socket in any way since its installation 10 yrs ago. 

[#8]

Hi WILT,
I doubt there'd be any charge, as you are unable to discern between your master or extension.
Jojo

[#9]

  Tried to get some sense out of Sky talk ,( mission impossible! ) , went through all the rigmarole yet again ended up using our mobile at great cost as part of THEIR  checking procedure .promissed tp phone back --- call never came !
I gave up and decided to take a risk and disconnect the white/blue  and the blue/white from the connector in the face plate and see if we could get calls incoming with just the white and orange.
The experiment didn't improve matters any and Ive put it back as it was originally wired, because the router runs of the blue/white pairing. I am tempted to connect the orange and white to the proper A&B terminals on the inside of the BT socket but I suspect that is illegal.
Broadband speed still around 112Kb/s download .
I am getting to the point where I would pay a knowlegeable engineer to come and sort this mess out for once and for all. Who knows withit sorted I might even get more than 1.2 Mb/s.   

[#10]

Hi WILT,
Have you thought of joining us for your phone, that way we could deal with any issues you have in one go, and it's free to call us 24/7
Jojo

[#11]

worth baring in mind: The line rental is certainly cheaper than with Sky (26p /month), but thats only comparing the basic package, if your on the £5 package you'll probably find Sky Talks call costs are cheaper, so it would depend how much you use the phone

Personally, i wouldnt touch any of the "incoming" lines, i believe BT can penalise you if they feel you've been tampering, best thing to do is get an engineer out who will probably replace the master socket based on that photo.

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I am fearful of getting stung with a penalty payment from BT Outreach though

With the state of the socket, i really dont think they will argue

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If there isn't the BT engineer bodged it and BT should correct it at no charge.

Regards

[#12]

An update for those following the thread.
   Sky eventually contacted me from somewhere in the UK ---( English lady ) and asked if the problem had been solved .I told her it was a no show on the part of the engineer .She said they would phone me at a specific time on the following day .I naively thought the " they "  would be outreach or whatever they call themselves this week!.  Instead another level of  Sky's convoluted checking procedure phoned ,did another line check , and eventually agreed to get a line engineer to me.
    He actually arrived the following Monday, changed both the sockets, damaged by lightning most probably, he said. It turns out that the original primary socket had just been used as a junction box and the second socket was the primary terminal, but from what I could see this hadn't been  wired as  a primary either .  I insisted that he wire the first socket as a true primary so that I can avoid being charged for internal fault repairs due to the inability to Isolate the incoming line.  
    He said he would have to report the repair to Sky who may or may not  try and pass the charges on to me !!!
 All in all a serious indictment of  the whole marketization of essential services.The inability of the consumer to  contact a service provider directly to create this  " market "  is in my opinion an infringement of my consumer rights !!  SKy and indeed your good selves DO NOT provide me with a line to my house and in this regard I am not your customer.
 A plague on politicians for allowing this farce to be perpetrated on us !
P.S. Broadband speed now a " staggering " 954 KB/s