Correct Wiring Setup with 2 Master Sockets?

[NickSB]

Afternoon all. I am stuck at a crossroads with how to further proceed with a non existent broadband connection setup by talktalk. We had an engineer come to the house to setup all the wiring etc to get everything working for us and was told within a few hours we would have an Internet connection.

Having waited a few days and after numerous telephone calls we have finally arranged for an openreach engineer to come to our house the end of this week. Having looked at the t&cs of potential charges I have seen that faulty wiring within the property will make us liable for any charges that may occur.

I have already troubleshooted the following: used 2 different microfilters, used 2 different dsl cables, removed faceplate to use the test socket on both (I will get to that in a minute) master sockets.

The issue I assume is something to do with the wiring setup because it seems we have a strange amount of sockets in this rented house.

I can provide pictures of it makes anything easier but our setup is as follows:

External wire enters house directly and splits in half into 2 small plastic connectors. One of which has a blue wire with white stripes and the other a white wire with blue stripes coming out of the plastic connector directly into the main cable that goes through the wall into the living room. Also present is 4 additional wires (white/orange, orange/white, green/white, white/green) these are tied in a knot together and all of this is housed behind a small matchbox size socket.

Moving into the living room we have 2 sockets directly next to each other. One of them is labelled BT and the other NTL. At this point I want to confirm that the BT socket phone line works and the NTL socket doesn't.

The BT socket (with working phone line) has no wires at all connected to the 1-6 pins on the removable plate, however removing the "main cover" shows me the White/blue & blue/white connected to the back of this next in "A" and "B" to a small drum like fuse? Also present here are the additional orange/white, white/orange, green/white & white/green wires tied in a knot.

The NTL socket (with no phone line) has just 2-5 connections with the following:
2 - blue with white stripes
3 - green with white, white with green & white with orange
4 - empty
5 - white with blue stripes

This is where it gets more complicated. Behind the main panel here I have 2 main wires entering the wall each with the 6 different coloured wires present. The blue/white & white/blue from the second cable is connected to "A" & "B" also.

I think it's probably important to point out we have 2 additional phone lines upstairs (not master sockets) and I believe these to be connected to the NTL socket.

One thing I have noticed is the engineer has cut off a blue/yellow and a yellow/blue wiring and left it on the floor for whatever reason.

I apologise for such a long post, I figured the more details the better however I have a very good feeling that this wiring setup is what is causing no internet connectivity and if it is something that can be fixed by myself without incurring the charges of faulty wiring I would give it a try within reasonable grounds.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Many Thanks.

 

[NickSB]

I apologise for the double post, I wanted to add some photos for reference here. Thanks again for any help.

Outside the house, black wire going out of shot to the left is as follows in the next picture.

This is the entry point into the back of the NTL socket, the wire going out to the left enters near the front door to the next picture.

Wire enters house into this box, wire goes through wall and into the "BT" box.

The wire that enters the wall goes into the bottom of this BT box and is connected as follows. The telephone line works perfectly from the test socket and main connection here.

The following to pictures are from the NTL box and the wiring setup within, the phone line doesn't work at all in this socket or the test socket here.

 

[sparkymarka]

Long and short of it ... You shouldn't have two master sockets on ONE service , looks like you have had BT and NTL ( cable ) at some point , more than likely that old twin core BT cable ( grey ) is the issue

 

[NickSB]

Thanks for the reply! From my understanding having read further into this, it would be illegal for me to attempt to rewire these accordingly?

It seems we would be liable for the faulty wiring charge by our ISP because it's our side of the property, even though we had an openreach engineer come to the house to wire it up "properly" in the first place

 

[jg321]

You've got a mixture of NTL and BT sockets by the look of it, and potentially (hopefully not) the result of someone bodging the two together!

Best bet is to get a cheapo corded phone, plug it into each socket one by one, and whenever you get a dial tone, dial 17070. The TalkTalk line will read your number to you. Not sure what the NTL line will do - maybe nothing.

Once you've worked out which sockets are TalkTalk, you need to find the master, of which there should only be one. It'll be one of the ones with the split faceplate, and when you unplug the faceplate (with the wiring attached to the back), all other TalkTalk sockets in the house should stop working (edit - check that this is the case).

If you try your phone and router from the socket that's exposed behind the faceplate (known as the test socket, see http://www.exbtengineers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/BT-Master-Socket-Test-300x275.jpg), and you still don't get internet, but do get the TalkTalk dial tone (dial 17070 to confirm), then you won't be subject to any charges as you've proved the fault to be at the demarcation point.

Hope this helps,

Jon