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any BT engineers ? (Cabling outside)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 54091
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Deleted member 54091

Deleted member 54091

questions for tech heads.

Moved into the old victorian flat on 2nd floor. The outside BT cabling is really shabby and looks like it needs replacing. its got paint and gloss. grime that has settled over the years.

I've spoken to BT and they said they wont replace the cabling outside the property unless there is a fault.

I have a junction box at my window. The rest of the cable runs down the outside wall to the bottom of the property to where I assume the BT feed is. This cable is what I am trying to get replaced.

What are your guys suggestions please.
 
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lixxus said:
I've spoken to BT and they said they wont replace the cabling outside the property unless there is a fault.
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Yes - if there is no fault it will not be replaced. It's a very hard line. If the cabling is older then 20-30 years than it will be thinly shielded, untwisted pair at a marginally reduced speed on ADSL. That type of cable is not really designed for ADSL never mind ADSL2+. :D

Greebo said:
If there is a box at the bottom you could have course replace it yourself. ;)
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I wouldn't touch the equipment at all if I were you. Unless you really know what your doing and please bear in mind BT could potentionally sue you if you do the work yourself. It has happened before as it is BT property your messing with. Any impact on any one else's line or any other affect would be very damaging.

If your going to replace it yourself - be extremely careful with the wires.


Openreach can replace the cable if there is no sync or loss of broadband connectivity at seemingly random instances. I have had instances where the broadband seemingly loses sync randomly by someone removing the microfilter every so often for a few hours. They were smart enough not to unplug their router, just the microfilter the router was connected to ;)
 
I still have the old figure of eight 2 core telephone wire dropline to the pole.
It's bloody awful stuff. Noise on my adsl line goes up whenever it has rained or is windy.

Been 'advised' to complain about a noisy voice line and elicit an engineer visit, who'll take one look at the 25 year old cable and condemn it.
Bit risky with the absurd cost you can get billed for adsl faults if they find nothing - the assumption being that it's your kit and not their that's at fault.
 
sounds very risky, and a lot of hassle. I don't want to get billed if they turn up and decide its not worth their time changing an old cable.

They already done a test on a line and said the line was healthy and no problem.

I guess the only thing to do is looking for a qualified telecoms engineer on a gumtree etc to do it for me.

The other alternative is to replace the cable from the junction box at the window to the master socket.


BT cable ----- Junction Box----------master socket.

Where do I get this cable from ?
 
loads of places sell telephone wire - it's the 4 or 6 (8?)core twisted stuff iirc.
What's your junction box and master socket like? The junction box on mine is about the same age as the dropline, but the master socket is an NTE5.
You could always just try cleaning and tightening any existing wiring connections, tidying up loose/surplus wire and connecting everything back as it was originally.
Have you plugged your filter into the test socket underneath the master-socket face plate? (also do you have more than one telephone handset wired into your place?)

EDIT:
some links to see what you're getting into
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htm
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/btsockets.htm
http://www.rob-r.co.uk/other/UKphonecatwiring.htm
 
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here are some pictures of what I am dealing with : I followed the cable and from what I can see it terminates at the small grey box. I assume this is where I need to branch the new cable to my property from





 
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The main trouble here is that you can't legally touch any of the BT hardware.

dropline from pole ---> junction box ---> master socket. All of that belongs to BT.

The most you are allowed to do is to add a telephone extension from your master socket (the one with the BT Piper logo in top left corner).
I'd be concerned with how the line from the small junction box (second image) goes to the boxes in the last image and how it's wired in - I'd guess it's a multiple junction box giving each flat a separate incoming line? :confused:

I guess the mysterious grey box could be an external NTE... you could always ask your landlord or whoever? In which case the hardware might not belong to bt after all.
 
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Ok so what you probably have, is one multicore cable coming in and a pair off to each flat to provide the line. Is that ideal, no.

But seriously, I wouldn't touch BT cables. Even if you really know what you're doing...it's not worth it. You can't even begin to image how much BT will charge to put it right.
 
jumpy said:
The main trouble here is that you can't legally touch any of the BT hardware.
Click to expand...

AFAIK the only legal issue is that of liability, BT might charge you (or try to) if they in the future need to do work to correct changes you might have made, but afaik the actual legal reason (its not criminally illegal as such) you shouldn't touch it is due to liability issues i.e. if changes you made behind the faceplate resulted in mains electricity flowing into the system and electrocuted a BT engineer working downstream then you'd be liable and prosecuted, their end of the system is supposed to have protection against things like that (or atleast the liablity is on them if it doesn't) mess around with it and you open yourself to all sorts of liability issues that could potentially result in manslaughter charges, etc.
 
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