ADSL Nation NTE-2005 Master face plate

[RUNITDIRECT]

Originally Posted by Stumpy

A while ago (couple of months now, I think), I replaced my old BT faceplate with an ADSLNation one. No problems, dead easy and looks much nicer than the old set-up.

I had a BT engineer out to my house today to try and solve an intermittent connection problem -- he took one look at it and he went off on one! Took me 5 minutes or so to calm him down enough to actually take a look at it properly (at which point he realised that it was only a faceplace and not a complete replacement!). Then took him another 10-15 minutes of talking him down off his high horse to explain what it actually does (mine has an extension wires into the blue section, and then the router off that, via a filter). He still didn't believe me until he had actually tested at both the socket and the extension.

Now he wants one! Suddenly he was extolling the virtues, saying that he really didn't like the BT ones they provided (they have a filter built in, but no way of wiring in an unfiltered extension) and was well impressed.

Only sad bit about the whole incident was that, if I hadn't stuck to my guns, he would have whipped that off faster than you could have said "its better than yours, mate" and given me a right telling off.

Would be nice if BT engineers knew more about these things that a lay-person!

Sounds like some training is in order for this BT chap! You are entittled to swap the front lower half on the NTE5 for the filtered faceplate. We sell both the 3 way version (which is what BT get?) and the 6 way version which adds the unfiltered IDC's at the back-both made by the same people who supply BT and both supplied with BT Openreach branded instructions which makes me wonder if BT now get the latest version?! We also sell the BT Openreach branded extensions that Brian mentioned with the RJ45 plug at one end-you can of course snip this off and wire direct to the IDC on the back-still keeping the added benefit of CAT5e grade cable(much tighter twists than CW1308 but the cable is only 3 pairs so not strictly CAT5e!) with a white outer sheaf. Of courde people do wire to the A & B connections for unfiltered ADSL extensions but you are not supposed to and that defeats the whole object of the NTE5-the disconnect feature.

[Stumpy]

Hmm ... didn't see exactly what he did outside (there was a giant spider doing the rounds, and I AM female ), but what I did see, after the initial slagging off the faceplate thing, was him neatening up the wires inside and outside (didn't see him use any diagnostic equipment), inside he definitely only used laptop, small router connected to laptop, and small telephone to check dial tone (when he couldn't get a signal from the extension ... something to do with him not plugging it back into the main socket ).

[Brian69]

"not supposed to connect to A and B"

Well I did say it was naughty!!:

[Stumpy]

If you're not supposed to connect to A & B ... what are they there for?

[Brian69]

@ stumpy.
That says all that needs to be said, I hope that the pair swap fixes your problem, but if not you need to keep on at them. I can understand you thinking that all BT/Openreach engs must have come down with the last shower of rain but there are a lot of good ones out there.

[Stumpy]

@Brian - I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Even if they don't know what is causing the problem, hopefully simply by shifting the line one little segment at a time, we'll eventually get rid of it!

@RunitDirect: Quote from the XTE-2005 Filtered Master Faceplace leaflet from ADSLNation:

If you would like to extend the unfilterd (sic) ADSL signal use the blue terminals labelled B & A

[Brian69]

" if your not supposed to connect to A and B what are they there for?"

They are for the incomming line and are the network side of the master, they are not for subscriber use.
As I say, I only used them whe n people used to complain about the rather unsightly plug in extension, and I only had a filter faceplate that did not allow for unfiltered extensions

Ru-direct was refering to A and B on the master, not the faceplate

[Stumpy]

Ahhh .... not trying to confuse us at all then - having two completely different A's and B's ... Why couldn't we have A, B, C & D ... its not like they were running out of alphabet!

[Brian69]

C and D mean something differant again!! You have had a taste of how easy it is to confuse some BT/Openreach people (I wont say eng).

A and B is always the incoming line, unfiltered.

Thats why it is A and B on the faceplate filter.

After it is filtered or becomes part of your wiring they become 2 and 5.

See it's easy!!

[Stumpy]

Ahhhhhh .... so what Runitdirect meant, when he was referring to A & B, was the A&B that most of us lay"people" don't see ... the ones behind the master socket BT thingy? As opposed to the A&B I thought he meant, which were the A&B in the actual faceplate (the one this thread is about).

Oh what a tangled web ...