Accidentally grinded through external phone cable

[hvendlor]

I accidentally grinded through the phone cable on the outside of the house. It's cut an inch or 2 before it enters the house.

The cable is 7 core, (orange, black, white, green, red x 3)...

I've done a temporary repair, by reconnecting all the wires except for red and the phones and working again.

Can I just solder on some new cable and heat shrink it? or do I need to get BT involved?

What are the 3 red wires for also?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

That doesn't sound like any external BT phone cable I've ever heard of, but who knows.

I'll get this moved to the phone forum.

But yes - you should contact BT, I'm afraid.

 

[Paul_C]

It sounds like standard drop wire - Orange/white is the first pair, green/black the second. The three reds are just steel strengtheners; some makes use red for these, others use yellow.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Ah - I was assuming they were conductors...

 

[roderz]

Had similar happen when dog ate the VM box in back garden - all wires severed, contacted VM and they wanted £30 minimum charge to come and repair (as it was obviously my fault)
Sod that I'll fix it, and did, but,,,,
one 'funny' thing though, as soon as I had finished soldering the last wire, the phone rang - it was the emergency services saying they had received 3 or 4 calls to them from my number in the last 5 mins and was everything ok

Obviously soldering it back together had some effects (iron tip??)

Still working now, but dog proof

 

[OwainDIYer]

one 'funny' thing though, as soon as I had finished soldering the last wire, the phone rang - it was the emergency services saying they had received 3 or 4 calls to them from my number in the last 5 mins and was everything ok

Obviously soldering it back together had some effects (iron tip??)

Still working now, but dog proof

intermittent disconnections on the line would have pulse dialled 112

 

[bernardgreen]

intermittent disconnections on the line would have pulse dialled 112

One reason why 999 was adopted as the emergency number in the UK even though it took about 3 seconds longer to dial than 112.

When over head phone lines were installed as two bare wires shorts between them were common occurances and low numbers were often "dialled" by the wind moving the shorted wires. People with numbers made up from low numbers like 222 were worse affected by "wind dialled calls".

The other reason 999 was chosen was because the dials in phone boxes could be easily adapted such that when the finger moved the dial to 9 or 0 then a cam operated a switch which allowed the 9 ( or an 0 for operator ) to be pulsed out even though no coins had been inserted.

 

[Paul_C]

Other reasons which almost certainly contributed to the choice of 999, remembering that this was in the 1930's:

A 3-digit code was needed due to the way that the directors in London (and a handful of other major urban areas) worked. There were no directors on the 1 level at that time, so any code starting with a 1 would have involved much more work than simply setting up the translation in one of the existing eight director banks (on first digits 2 through 9). The directors translated on the first three digits dialed, so a 3-digit code was needed. 999 was vacant in all the places using the director system, since making up exchange names from the letters WXY was rather difficult!

Elsewhere, few places had subscriber numbers starting with 9 at all, and level 9 on the first selectors in many outlying, smaller exchanges already connected to the parent exchange to which emergency calls would need to be routed. There were similar trunking considerations which would have simplified things in some cases by having a second digit of 9 as well.

As for the 112 issue, BT now implements a short timeout on calls to the number in an attempt to reduce the number of false calls due to faulty lines. Once 112 has been received, if any other digit is received during the short timeout period the call is dropped as being false.

 

[Europlex]

one 'funny' thing though, as soon as I had finished soldering the last wire, the phone rang - it was the emergency services saying they had received 3 or 4 calls to them from my number in the last 5 mins and was everything ok

Pathetic.

This frightens me. The way the 'Emergency Services' have now gone. Think about it.

Someone dials 999/112, who cares which, you need help for what ever reason. An interrupted call always used to get a police response, not now it seems.

I know of two cases where Panic Buttons have been operated, in error and by damage, ok you say police not needed in those situations, but, one of the two is a jewellers shop, 23mins AFTER being accidentally operated (silent) a phone call from the Police asking if everything was ok !

Surely a PA from a jewellers should be treated 'as for real' and have officers attend. The ARC, the police, would have had no idea that the signal was not 'for real'

Another, similar situation, different police area, a traffic warden was sent into a premises to see if everything was ok - explain that one.

Ok, so valuable police time was not wasted in attending these calls, BUT, they did not know that would be the case when the call was received.

Perhaps they should pass out all these calls to the new '4th Emergency Service', the AA, at least they'll be there in an hour.

Rant over ... but I do have so many examples, one day something is going to go seriously wrong.