New house, slow connection, world of pain

[#1]

Finally made the jump across from the old forums.
Cutting a long story short since moving in a couple of months ago I've been trying to work with you guys to get my line stable and up to speed.
I've now got one of the BT 1800HG routers from yourselves that is doing a sterling job of keeping hold of the signal well beyond where my 2 Solwises gave up.
Unfortunately the day BT visited was a day of extremely good line conditions and both the line, router and extensions checkied out.
Since then my connection has got worse again. I've tried removing the ring wire from the NTE5 plate which stabilised the line considerably.
Sadly there are other problems with the extension I believe as my roofer moved the cable on the outside wall today :'(. Sync speed is back down again but plugging directly into the test point currently has, for this line, amazing speeds.
I can't leave it there as my master socket is actually behind my opening front door - I can't even use it for a phone! Frustratingly the BT guys that visited did consider moving the master upstairs to the office but decided the line wasn't bad enough on the day.
Realistically I think I need the master socket moving to the office and then the extensions wired in from a filtered face plate so they are isolated.
Anyone have any idea how much BT would charge for this, they put a new line in for £125...
Anyone from Plusnet wants to have a look at ticket 23249463? Do you have any leverage for goodwill with BT to get a master socket move done? The alternative is to use the dormant Virgin Media connection and leave Plusnet/BT and I really don't want to do that.
I'm kicking myself for not trying to insist the box was moved when I took over the line 

[#2]

Hi there,
The problem here is that the master socket is BT remit.  Don't get me wrong, I'm totally gutted that you're having such a lousy experience, but if BT deem that you are getting a good service from your master socket, they'll just state that no fault was found and chances are you'll get a nice £144+VAT charge to make you even more content.
You've got a wireless router.  Any chance of wiring that into the master socket and going wireless, or is it really that inaccessible?
We don't really have any leverage with BT to get them to do a master socket move, which they would probably decide to charge ~£125 to have done.  I don't know the exact charge, but that amount would not surprise me.
Let me know if the plugging into master is workable.

[#3]

The frustrating thing is that the BT engineers that visited nearly moved it anyway as a favour, I should have made them another cuppa 
As I say the master socket is unusable even for a phone. It's behind the opening front door, the rest of the wall is the radiator. There is no space for a shelf. The nearest power is across the hall.
All my routers and phone bases will live upstairs in the office. I'm almost considering wiring the A/B pair up the existing extension and putting a new NTE5 up there. Yes I am aware I can't technically do that.
As a thought the extension is a proper BT one with several pairs, would it be worth trying to get a Clarity filtered face plate and pipe the ADSL feed up a seperate pair?
James, I'd really appreciate it if you can find out how much BT would charge to do the move. I've considered ordering a new line and then cancelling the old one, but I expect that you guys would then technically have to do another "house move" to move it 10 metres 

[#4]

I'll try to remember to ask Mand tomorrow.  She knows everything about BT charges.
The faceplate idea *may* work, but I couldn't give you any assurances that it would.

[#5]

You see the thing is that if the master was in the office I could live without the extensions wired back in.
And if that will give me a ~2000 sync for around £125 then that is fine. Better than me taking a day off work and trying to wire half way around the house with spare cat 5 on the chance it might work. (I need decent performance to VPN to the office a day a week so I don't go stark raving mad on trains.)
Would it be something I would order direct with BT, or would it be something I'd arrange through you?
And, as an aside, the fact I get responses like this is *exactly* why I will only leave Plusnet under duress, thanks James.

[#6]

Hiya,
Because BT supply your telephone service (I'm guessing that they do here) you would need to speak to them about doing so.      Make sure you are absolutely clear that there is an existing broadband service on the line so that they don't stop it.
(Would suggest getting this in writing)

[#7]

Wouldn't it be a shame if a freak accident happened to the line outside your property, before it enters the master socket.  Something like it accidentally gets sliced open maybe?
when Bt turned up to fix it, a crafty twenty quid and several cups of tea will often lubricate the wheels of reason.

Or so I heard..
B.

[#8]

This is my annoyance. To be honest it's not really fit for purpose there as there is no way of using a phone with it.

The problem with a freak accident is that it's underground drop cables around here in conduit. That and BT were here 2 weeks ago and remade everything on thier first visit.
I don't mind the cost if it fixes the problem. I just live in fear of them patching a short peice of cable in to move it, the speeds dropping to about 700 and BT pointing out that is within limits.

[#9]

can you  replace the extention wire from your master socket up stairs to your office.  I thought one could if it was within the property.  I have done this using cat 5e cable with no bell wire connected and the speeds are just  the same as at the master socket.  Its not hard, just like connecting  a plug!! and it saves freak accidents happening

[#10]

What's behind the wall - is it an outside wall or is that a more convenient location with power? Could you drill a hole through?

[#11]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Sadly drilling through or wiring another extension are both tricky from this location.
However I did notice this morning that, in fact, all of my extensions are BT branded and cabled. So I took the fronts off all the boxes, rang a friend who used to work for BT for some advice about what he would do and wiring practice, and to cut a long story short shuffled sockets around 
So I am now syncing at 2528 
Let's hope it stays there, as that puts me nicely into the 2 meg bRAS region. Which given when I started I was at 0.5 meg is not too bad.
As my ex-BT mate said, wiring practice guidlines are not just there to make it neat.

[#12]

That's brilliant news.  Well done

[#13]

fantastic news.  i hope it stays at that speed for you and if so its saved u a packet as well.  So much for BT.  "The Forum Knows Best"
Craig P

[#14]

Given the recent changes in BT's bRAS calculations what's the best way of getting the exchange et all to "notice" the higher sync rate?
I think I should leave things connected until I see the profile rise, and then have to force a resync to actually use it, from the info to date.
Sync currently at 2464 and holding 
I had an interesting afternoon testing my stock of filters. Some dropped the speed by up to 400. I had always relied on my ADSLnation XF-1E, but amazingly the BT ones that came with the router squeeze and extra 100 out. That was a surprise.

[#15]

as you are using  a router and if u  are on max dsl, i would be tempted to leave the broadband connetion ON 24/7 for a few days to let the exchange catch up and re set you Max Stable Rate.  this should then settle down to a speed which the exchange and your router can hold without dropping.  As for the filters, some seem to work better than others but the BT ones are normally fairly good.

good luck
Craig P