Want to upgrade to fibre, but master socket inacessible.

[#1]

I'm currently on Unlimited Broadband and getting download speeds of around 12Mb/s which is fine for everyday surfing but a little jerky when watching NOW TV / Sky Sports through my Apple TV box.
Uploads run at about 0.3Mb/s-0.5Mb/s, which is a problem when I upload a dozen or so pictures of an item for sale to eBay's server.
So, I'm thinking of upgrading to Unlimited Fibre Broadband.
Remember the closing scene of "Raiders of the Lost Ark"? The part where the guy carries the box containing the Holy Grail to the end of a giant warehouse - only visible in the far distance at the perspective's vanishing point? That's where my master socket is, in a padlocked filing cabinet labelled, "Beware of the leopard"
If I were to upgrade and plug the new router in to the non-master socket that's currently accessing my broadband service would I wasting my time and money?

[#2]

That depends on what master socket you actually have.  If it's a Type 3 then you won't need an engineer to come round.  Not sure about the others.  And a lot depends on how everything (including your slave sockets) are wired up

[#3]

It's hard to say if the extension socket will be enough as the fibre will then be dependant on the rest of your internal wiring. The speeds could be fine, however depending on the internal wiring, it could make the speeds terrible.
It would also make troubleshooting pretty much impossible as we'd need you to connect to the master socket to troubleshoot.

Quote from: shure

If it's a Type 3 then you won't need an engineer to come round.

We don't actually book engineers for FTTC installs any more they're all self install. There are still rare occasions where our suppliers will later advise an engineer is required, however this is usually only if a fault occurs/is found during the PCP-only install.

[#4]

Does that also mean that the 'Data Extension Kit' option is no longer available?

[#5]

@w23
Yes that's correct.

[#6]

Dating from 1983 (!!) this is what I have...
The GPO terminal box is in the loft
The socket labelled #[4]  LJ2 /6A is ( I'm pretty sure ) the Master Socket. It doesn't have a split faceplate. It's fastened to a skirting board underneath and behind a CD cabinet that's fastened to the wall in a study bedroom on the top floor of the house. ( OK, so I lied about the leopard, but it's no place for a router to be... )
My current ADSL plugs in to the socket labelled #[1]  LJ1/1A/2 where it seems to work OK and where I'd ideally like my fibre router to connect.
Best guesses welcome... will it work?
[Moderator's note by Mike (Mav) OP's address removed from a public forum.

[#7]

It may work, but probably badly, or at least worse that it would if the wiring arrangement was sorted out. The wiring probably isn't ideal for ADSL either.
Do you need 4 phone sockets? Disconnecting the wiring for any you don't need would be a start.
It's not really the type of master socket that matters, but the modern NTE5a allows you to fit a centralised filter and then connect the telephone-only extension sockets through that. If you only had one socket, that wouldn't matter.

[#8]

you can remove the bell wire from all 4 sockets, thats the one that connects to terminal 3 in each socket. . It was originally needed to make old fashioned extention dial type phones ring but isn't needed for modern handsets.
The bell wire acts as an Aerial and introduces intereference in the circuit for the ADSL signal .
Also ( as suggested ) it looks from the helpful  wiring diagram you could remove any extention sockets you don't need apart from the one you are using to connect your modem/router. But personally I feel it would be worth paying a little hard cash to have your wiring brought up to scratch and a proper NTE5 master scoket installed. It won't be a kings ransom!

[#9]

Quote from: gpsmout

But personally I feel it would be worth paying a little hard cash to have your wiring brought up to scratch and a proper NTE5 master scoket installed. It won't be a kings ransom!

Especially if you do it yourself (even if you might not be strictly supposed to). The best part is that it seems like almost everybody else got a new master socket at some point for free as part of a fault being fixed, whereas I get Openreach fiddling about in a box on an outside wall, then they can blame "my" wiring and not fit a modern master socket.