40 year old 'BT' Points

Theguy · 2 Nov 2009 at 15:05

Hi, some background infomation for you to read:

My parents house is around 60ish years old and so the telephone points in and outside of the house are of a similar age I would guess give or take.

On the outside of the house there are ye olde Post Office points dotted around (also on some of the internal points too). they have been having a lot of trouble with the internet recently and can only get a speed of 2mb when technically it should ish be around 4mb.. another point of interest is that some of the outside cables are looking rather dodgy now, hanging and stuff, abit of a safety issue?

My question is, is it BTs responsibility to 'upgrade' these olde cabling and whatnots on the outside of the house, and would it be free?

my googling hasn't really come up with anything particular..

Thanks - any info would be greatly appreciated - i could take some photos of the points of interest if needs be...

Caged · 2 Nov 2009 at 15:07

If your voice service works then BT aren't interested.

Theguy · 2 Nov 2009 at 15:16

hmm, you see, their line is rather 'noisey' too, static and whatnots - sometimes it does not ring correctly either, i take it it then, unless the line goes compeltly dead, BT would say bugger off?

Azuse05 · 2 Nov 2009 at 15:29

Strictly speaking if it's not capable of performing it's job i.e. voice faults etc then bt are obliged to fix it. If it really is 40-60 years old it should have been replaced long ago but again, no fault no care.

Tbh, if my line wouldn't ring and had suspect cabling I'd be asking bt how exactly my line was fit for it's job, but if exchange tinkering fixed that then they still wouldn't replace it.

Treat it exclusively as a voice fault and see how you get on. Then go the health & safety route etc. It may not be the line causing the problems, rather the cabinet/exchange.

Balb0wa · 2 Nov 2009 at 16:37

thats it , just ring them , say its crackly , intermittent , they will probably send someone the next day to check it out, dont mention broadband at all.

bigredshark · 2 Nov 2009 at 16:41

bobbyboy uk said:
thats it , just ring them , say its crackly , intermittent , they will probably send someone the next day to check it out, dont mention broadband at all.

I've done this before, works fairly well. They'll usually replace the cable into the property while they're there...

Theguy · 2 Nov 2009 at 16:55

cheers guys- thanks for the advice! - gives me a few things to think about.