bt dropwire is this a special cable

I had builders in that broke, then cut away a length of my BT cable. My phones or internet obviously did not work. They said they would repair. At first I saw them attaching thin lighting cable (white, looks like two tiny cables joined. I had read somewhere that never should white cable be used outside, (not weather resistant etc, nor should inside telephone cable be used outside). I told them this and said they needed drop wire, which should not be white. They have now fixed, but the cable used is still extremely thin (just a few mls) round white cable, which is very exposed to the weather (full sun etc). They insisted this was the correct cable for outside telephone use (I do have a very bad internet slow connection) and they had purchsed this especially to fix this. I am sure this is wrong, the old wire was larger. Is this ok, or do I need to get this looked at.
Please help. thanks

Builders in trouble.
Dropwire is BT owned, you do not cut it, repair it or touch it.
Call BT you will get a bill, a hefty one deendant on the job.
Make builders aware they are going to get a bill and is their insurance valid

Not entirely clear if the cable is a dropwire or a lead-in. Dropwire is a self-supporting aerial cable containing steel support wires for stringing between a pole and house, but it is common for it to be continued as one piece of cable clipped to a wall, serving as both dropwire and the lead-in. That avoids the problem of making a weatherproof joint.

External cables are usually either brown or black. The pigment offers protection from UV light, which can quickly degrade a white cable sheath. White cable is intended for internal use only.

Black telephone cable is acceptable as a lead-in, where it fixed to a wall, not strung from a pole. Use it as a dropwire, and it will stretch like toffee, and soon fail. As it doesn't have the steel suspension strands, the cable is usually a smaller diameter than dropwire.

I hope your builder hasn't used alarm cable. It may look similar, but it has different electrical characteristics that do nothing for telephony or ADSL signals.

How has your builder joined these disparate cables?

As above, the dropwire, lead-in and NTE are all the property of your service provider, and maintenance / replacement is their responsibility. In the case of 'deliberate damage' they are entitled to charge for it's repair or replacement.

Special attention must be paid to the way telephone cables are joined as poor joints create electrical noise which interferes with conversations.

Using electrical "choc block" connectors will not make a reliable noise free joint in a telephone cable, especially if the joint is outside the house.

Where is the wire broken?
Can you take a few pictures or explain how it is routed on the building?

BT will charge you "Time Related Charges" to fix this, i don't know the current rates but it's around £120 for the call-out then £70 an hour thereafter.

The BT engineer might just joint it, or replace the whole run back to the nearest junction box. It's really up to the engineer's judgement how best to repair it, and that dictates what you'll get charged.

Although legally you shouldn't touch the cabling, any good telephone engineer or computer/data cabling contractor can repair it correctly.

One of these will do the job perfectly, if the damaged cable is run on the surface of the building:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WATERPROOF-EXTERNAL-TELEPHONE-CABLE-REPAIR-KIT-/350403741512
These are used by many telephone companies for jointing surface external cables.

If you do end up calling BT, try and keep an eye on them when doing the work, and take note of what they tell you. It is not uncommon for an engineer to spin a job out and book 4 hours to a 2 hour job. The vast majority of engineers are professional but i've had this happen quite a few times.

If it were me i'd do what Alarm says. It's not your fault it was broken.

marklamond said:

One of these will do the job perfectly, if the damaged cable is run on the surface of the building:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WATERPROOF-EXTERNAL-TELEPHONE-CABLE-REPAIR-KIT-/350403741512
These are used by many telephone companies for jointing surface external cables.

Click to expand...

Caution, the advert says " made in the USA" USA drop wire is a different guage to UK drop wire. So ensure that the crimps supplied are for UK drop wire otherwise the joint may not be reliable.