No TV or phone sockets in house - what to do.

[Witchlight]

Hi, my DM has just moved into a new house near the Crystal Palace transmitter. We have just found out there are no TV or phone plugs in any of the room. The house is immaculate and she dreads people coming in to drill holes and trail cables.

I’ve emailed the previous owners who said they used a mobile and because they are so near the transmitter, they have never needed an aerial, but didn’t watch terrestrial TV anyway.

DM will need a land line and internet in sitting room (at the front of house) in the kitchen and in her bedroom.

If we get BT to install a master socket, directly from the outside to the sitting room and use slave telephones in the rest of the house, will that work for the phone?

How do we get internet everywhere?

Does anyone else live near there or has heard of somewhere you don’t need a roof aerial?

As you can probably tell I’m a bit clueless and out of date with this. I’ve only every lived in houses where it’s already set up.

You just need a master socket for the line to come in , then WiFi will cover the rest of the house.

So if I get BT to install a new landline with a master socket and a router for the internet, from the front garden, directly into the corner of the sitting room, that will sort it?

Anyone know about TV signals inSE London?

Yes, our master is in the loft and the WiFi router is next to it . That covers the whole house, not sure about your tv we have freesat so all the channels just come off a satellite dish ( same as a sky dish ) and then stream off the WiFi. We don’t have a home phone just use mobiles.

She won't need an external aerial if she's close to the CP transmitter. We just have indoor ones plugged straight in the TVs.

Internet: use wifi?

Choose a phone/boradband provider (Do a comparison, BT can be pricey) and select 'no landline'. They will charge you £120 or so to install the line and master socket , getting Openreach to do it. You need a double power socket near where the master socket is, to power the cordless phone base station and the broadband router which need to be close to the master socket.

Buy 2, 3 or more cordless phones to scatter round the house. They only need a power socket. Also buy a cheap corded phone in case of power cut. The router will then send WiFi round the house unless it is enormous.

Something needs to be plugged into the TV aerial socket - you could always buy one of those small loop aerials and see what happens!

Thanks, my DM doesn’t like using mobiles and I want her to have a landline for safety reasons.

I might go for a cable company that does telephone, TV and WiFi.

I’m just trying to work out how to put it in without the usual sockets in all the rooms

Thanks Plexie, I’m glad that the sellers were correct about CP.

We have plenty of sockets, so I will look at open reach.

@Plexie

She won't need an external aerial if she's close to the CP transmitter. We just have indoor ones plugged straight in the TVs.

Internet: use wifi?

This! We lived in Sydenham and never needed an external aerial.

You can't contact Openreach, they only work for suppliers.

Brilliant thanks all- not as bad as I suspected.

Tv aerial not a problem, unless DM wants cable TV all over the house - she won’t.

Main phone and WiFi into the front of the house and slave phones elsewhere.

We moved into a rented house that didn't have a landline, it was no problem getting BT to install a line in the house.

When we had a new aerial fitted all the cabling was done on the outside.