What's best to do here?

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

Just moved into a new house and I have one socket - an old, yellowly, non-branded NTE5 with the incoming cable VERY loosely connected and stripped too far back. I wanted to get BT out to replace it when they activate the line but £128 to fit a new socket mean they can jog on and I'll do it myself.

Now, am I good to buy one from Run-IT-Direct or is it best to try and source an Openreach one in case BT need to come out in the future? I've already got an NTE-2000 faceplate to go on and new DSL cable so just need to know if it's worth me doing it as although I know what I'm doing in practise I've never had to replace a socket before!!

The incoming cable seems to be 4 or 6 core - is this correct? I thought it was meant to be one black, one red or is that just the pair used traditionally on an incoming line?

EDIT: See their NTE5 sockets are the same minus the branding so I'm gonna get one, just need clarification on the cabling...

[Isitme]

Older drop cables were 4 core untwisted, now it is more common to use 4 or 6 core twisted pair, so nothing to worry about there. Just make sure you connect the same incoming pair to the A-B terminals of the new NTE5 and connect any extensions to the faceplate.

I would not worry about BT saying anything about the non-branded box in the future, if they do, just tell them it was there when you moved in.

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

No extensions going in, only a small terraced house with master in the lounge...line goes active Thursday so need to get the DSL up ASAP!!

[Isitme]

If you have no extensions, apart from appearance, you don't really need a faceplate. A good quality plug in filter would do just as well, but if you have one, no reason why you shouldn't use it.

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

I got it for my last place but never got round to using it, and I want to use the faceplate to keep things neat (it's messy enough around the phone point as it is!!!)

[RUNITDIRECT]

The official line used to be do not touch the (REAR!) of the NTE5. The reality has always been an Openreach engineer will not care at all so long as you have not caused an issue connecting two wires! BT in India are now advising customers they CAN change the NTE5 for decorative socket-not sure how an Openreach engineer would feel about that one!!

[Undecided Adrian]

well my NTE5 faceplate was fitted by BT when I first had broadband as there wasn't microfilters then, so I would hope that BT would still look at it.

[RUNITDIRECT]

Sorry, the FRONT lower half of the NTE5 is customer replaceable, the REAR part is supposed to be BT's property. The reality is as above.

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

Yeah, realised that

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

Just a quick update...

New socket fitted with faceplate, all neat and tidy and calls working fine. Now just waiting to go live