Discuss Wiring old & new BT lines in the UK Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

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I have old & new BT wires that I am in need of help with please. The old wiring coming directly into the house hidden inside a grey plastic box are 4 whites followed by 1 of each of these colours brown, green, orange, blue & grey

The new wires are brown, blue, green & orange into one extension.
The other extension is white/blue, blue/white, brown/white & white/orange

So what marries with what please, which are primarily for the telephone and which are for the broadband please.

Thank-you in advance.....
Phil
 
I have old & new BT wires that I am in need of help with please. The old wiring coming directly into the house hidden inside a grey plastic box are 4 whites followed by 1 of each of these colours brown, green, orange, blue & grey

The new wires are brown, blue, green & orange into one extension.
The other extension is white/blue, blue/white, brown/white & white/orange

So what marries with what please, which are primarily for the telephone and which are for the broadband please.

Thank-you in advance.....
Phil
The BT connection is fundamentally just two wires, and they carry both phone and broadband signals.
These days they normally connect to a "Master socket" close to where the cable enters the building, routed to a convenient place where the broadband hub can be positioned. The master socket 'splits off' the broadband and provides a socket for the hub, and internally provides connections for the phone extensions around the house (where your phone wires need to go)
I have been told putting the master socket further into the house can reduce broadband speed due to the longer cable length, but I don't know how true this is.
You might find this link useful: Wiring for UK Telephone Sockets | TLC Electrical - https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Technical/Telecoms/Telephone%20Wiring.htm

I'm not totally clear on your description of the incoming wires. Are you saying the incoming BT cable has 8 conductors, 4 of which are white? Or are you saying the incoming cable has 4 white wires, which in turn connect to the coloured wires?
Do the white wires not have any faint tracer colours on them? You might need to do a bit of detective work to establish which is the BT incoming pair, one of which is probably orange (or connects to an orange wire), and the other white!

If you have a multimeter, it will prove useful for this task!
 
The BT connection is fundamentally just two wires, and they carry both phone and broadband signals.
These days they normally connect to a "Master socket" close to where the cable enters the building, routed to a convenient place where the broadband hub can be positioned. The master socket 'splits off' the broadband and provides a socket for the hub, and internally provides connections for the phone extensions around the house (where your phone wires need to go)
I have been told putting the master socket further into the house can reduce broadband speed due to the longer cable length, but I don't know how true this is.
You might find this link useful: Wiring for UK Telephone Sockets | TLC Electrical - https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Technical/Telecoms/Telephone%20Wiring.htm

I'm not totally clear on your description of the incoming wires. Are you saying the incoming BT cable has 8 conductors, 4 of which are white? Or are you saying the incoming cable has 4 white wires, which in turn connect to the coloured wires?
Do the white wires not have any faint tracer colours on them? You might need to do a bit of detective work to establish which is the BT incoming pair, one of which is probably orange (or connects to an orange wire), and the other white!

If you have a multimeter, it will prove useful for this task!
Yes, the incoming wires from the outside that have 8 conductors, 4 COMPLETELY white then one of each of brown, green, orange and blue. I know how to wire a master socket that isn't a problem at all it's just that I don't know which of the above connects to the extension line as detailed in my initial description
 
4 whites followed by 1 of each of these colours brown, green, orange, blue & grey
There should be 5 white wires and they should be twisted in pairs with their corresponding colour. The blue pair is the first pair, so this is likely the pair you want.

White/Blue goes to A on the master socket.
Blue/white goes to B

Some BT engineers will use the orange pair though, copying the dropwire colour code instead. Your cable is likely a CW1128 cable, not dropwire, so the blue pair ought to be the one is use. A multimeter can be used to check first, as has been said

The new wires are brown, blue, green & orange into one extension.
This is a different colour scheme not often seen, but blue and orange should be in a twisted pair and be the ones you want. On the removable lower part of the master socket...
Blue to 2
Orange to 5

The other extension is white/blue, blue/white, brown/white & white/orange
Blue to 2
White blue to 5
 
The main phone line coming in should be just a 2 core, in a kind of armoured or shielded cable that’s designed to come from outside… (thick, hard wearing outer sheath)

I’ve found old GPO joint boxes in attics and under floors before the line gets to the master socket. Or it could be on a skirting board or windowsill.
 
The main phone line coming in should be just a 2 core, in a kind of armoured or shielded cable that’s designed to come from outside… (thick, hard wearing outer sheath)

I’ve found old GPO joint boxes in attics and under floors before the line gets to the master socket. Or it could be on a skirting board or windowsill.
Thanks for responding though it is exactly as I have written "4 whites followed by 1 of each of these colours brown, green, orange, blue & grey", in as you say a black hard sheath cable that comes into my porchway into a plastic grey box followed by the two extensions that I wrote about initially. I added the second extension hence the problem now, I foolishly forgot to photograph/make note of the initial wiring setup from the hard black sheath to the phone extension which is the modern white/blue, blue/white, brown/white & white/orange, the extension that I put in consisted of the brown, blue, green & orange wires.
The house was built in the early 1970s so I assume the extension split was a later edition.

I don't have a multimeter but I can always go out to buy one provided of cause I knew what voltage I should be looking to connect the relevant wires to each other which sadly I don't 😥
I fear now that it's going to cost me a small fortune to get an Openreach BT engineer out if I don't get any joy on here. Wiring the master socket is a doddle it's just daunting with so many wires to initially wire up at the porchway with the jelly crimps I bought. The crimps are 3-way so ideally I need to know which 3 of each cable wires I need to crimp up please.
 
I added the second extension

The wiring should go from the grey junction box, direct to the master and only the master.

Then, any extensions should be wired from the lower removable part of the master, either by continuing in a daisy chain style, or both extensions from the removable part. You can put two wires into an IDC slot, as long as they are the same AWG, which should be 24..
 

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