What if you have no master socket?

[Draig]

On the other hand if you feel up to it you can get a BT master socket off ebay and do it yourself

Isn't that illegal? If it isn't (but I think it is) I am more than happy to do it myself.

[Draig]

Have you looked inside the white brick and the first socket for any components? The brick could be just a junction box?

I think your right, the (very old) white brick is some sort of junction box.

The first socket it connects to, however, is not a BT master socket (no logo on the front of it, no test socket etc).

Ah well. I tried phoning BT again and got the same sort of run around as last time, and eventually hung up in frustration.

I am going to do the rewire from that first socket onwards, replace the other sockets that come after it, and see what the results are. If it doesn't improve significantly, I may have to resort to fitting my own mastersocket, which I don't want to do, as I am sure it is illegal, but they leave me no choice.

[stephens]

Yes it could be classed as illegal, but the way I see it they are never going to know you have done it yourself if it is an official BT master socket which is only meant to be available to BT engineers. It is not like they keep a record of equipment they have in ever single house. As long as you know what you are doing and you dont mess it up then they will never know.

You say you do not have a socket with a BT logo on the front or a test socket. A master socket does not necesserily have either of these. It can just be plain just like a normal socket. The only way to see if it is a master is to open it up and look if it contains certain components. The white box is just a junction box to connect the cables.

[Koala5]

As stated b4 that dosen't mean its not a master, old master sockets didn't have the test socket and non Bt ones were available you need to check in the back of it, extension has just a plain pcb with terminals on it. master has terminals + 3 or 4 components with legs soldered onto pcb.

[Gaztops]

An extension type master socket should have a yellow ring capacitor soldered to the board inside.

[burnhamlad]

Did you try disconnecting the ring wire from each socket?