quick question about BT master sockets

[dholi]

Was wondering if anybody able enough to, can shed some light. I have a fully operational setup but was a little curious as the following may potentially be affecting my internet performance.
I have a main BT master socket downstairs (with capacitor).
There has been an extension run from this to an upstairs socket. The upstairs socket I was persuming is a slave, but when opening it, I see a capacitor at the top of it. In fact it is this exact one:

Is it ok to connect 2 x masters in series?? Also I have noticed that in both the BT Master and Upstairs Master, connections have only been made to the terminals 2 and 5, terminal 3 is empty. Is this right?

 

[breezer]

yes it ok on all counts

3 is to connect the slave sockets to the master socket in order for the phone to ring.

an old bt trick is to install a 2nd master if the cable has only 2 working cores

 

[dholi]

yes it ok on all counts

3 is to connect the slave sockets to the master socket in order for the phone to ring.

an old bt trick is to install a 2nd master if the cable has only 2 working cores

thanks for the speedy breezer
much appreciated

 

[Space cat]

If you've got broadband AND if it's plugged into the downstairs socket, the extension wire itself can affect your internet performance. Broadband uses high frequencies superimposed on the low frequency analogue phone signals. When they reach your master socket (the real one) they come out through the socket to your modem. This is what you want but they also go up the extension cable, bounce off the open end and return out of phase. Putting a filter on the extension outlet doesn't help. The best solution is to split the broadband off at the master socket and have all your phone extensions on the analogue side of the filter.

If you are using your extension outlet for broadband this won't happen.

 

[dholi]

If you've got broadband AND if it's plugged into the downstairs socket, the extension wire itself can affect your internet performance. Broadband uses high frequencies superimposed on the low frequency analogue phone signals. When they reach your master socket (the real one) they come out through the socket to your modem. This is what you want but they also go up the extension cable, bounce off the open end and return out of phase. Putting a filter on the extension outlet doesn't help. The best solution is to split the broadband off at the master socket and have all your phone extensions on the analogue side of the filter.

If you are using your extension outlet for broadband this won't happen.

thanks for the advice
I do have broadband, at times it works at high speed and at others, i.e off peak hours it lags. I have reported the problem to BT who blame the area in which I live in and also boil it down to the increased number of users at the time that can affect the performance. However for some reason, I have always had the gut feeling that my setup could be affecting performance.
Like I said, I have the BT master socket, this extends upstairs (not hard wired) to another master socket. And from this upstairs master socket there is another extension (not hard wired) to my room which has a slave socket near the PC which connects to the Hub. At times there is severe crackling in the signal when making calls, but very intermittent.

Anything I can do to improve the performance of my broadband here??

 

[Space cat]

I do have broadband, at times it works at high speed and at others, i.e off peak hours it lags.

Your wiring doesn't suddenly get worse during off peak hours. The lag is not caused by your less than ideal wiring and it's not really BT's fault either except in as much as they, along with other ISPs, have failed to keep up with the rapid increase in data flow. By 'off peak' I assume you mean the old telephone off peak periods, namely evenings and weekends. Evenings are now rush hour time on the internet. This is when everybody goes home and starts downloading huge amounts of data, when dial-up customers have problems getting connected and when my ISP will cut me off if I violate their fair use policy.

That said, there is no harm in improving your own wiring. The best solution is to put a filter right on the front of the master socket (the real one). You connect all your other phone extensions on the analogue side of the filter and you plug a modem router into the ADSL side. This is, in effect, a small computer dedicated to the task of sharing an internet connection over a network. You connect the computer(s) to the router through ethernet adapters and cables.

That's a Rolls Royce solution but it'll be a good investment for the day when you want more than one computer with internet access. If you want to keep it simple for now, you can still improve things with the filter at the master socket but run an unbroken length of broadband modem cable direct from the ADSL outlet up the stairs to the modem.

And finally, perhaps the cheapest improvement of the lot is to hard wire those phone extensions into the backs of the sockets. It's neater and more reliable that way. I'll add an extra tip which I learnt the hard way. I don't push the second lot of wire ends down into the same connectors as the first lot. Instead I remove a bit of insulation from the existing wires and carefully solder the new ones on. In this way, if a connection in the socket ever goes bad, only that socket will be affected and not the ones further down the line.

 

[dholi]

thanks a million space cat
will be sure to use the productive advice provided..