Running phone cable outside

Someone I know wants me to run an extension to the phone line down to the TV. The BT line comes in at 1st floor level via a black cable to what he tells me sounds like a master socket (tho i am yet to see the job). He wants the spur run back out thru the same hole and down the outside wall, around the bay and into the lounge.

Is there special exterior grade phone extension kits available?

Ideally you should use the same BT spec drop cable for any external runs on the consumer side. You can buy the stuff on ebay by the metre just search BT external cable.

i'm making the assumption this is an NTE5 master socket (google for pictures) which will make it easy. If you remove the half faceplate on the front of this there are four punchdown terminals which can be used for adding extensions on the consumer side. You should never add additional cable on the provider side. You can use cat5e networking cable internally in place of phone line in the past so I suppose you could also use external graded cat5e instead of the BT drop cable as it is cheaper but in such a short run it I would just go for the BT spec stuff.

If the socket is not an NTE5 I would advise getting hold of a modern openreach version of one of these too and replacing the existing older socket (again ebay is your friend here). The NTE5 is a better socket, easier to wire in extensions and the openreach versions also have the bell wire isolator built in which improves ADSL performance in some situations where interference on the bell wire can cause issues.

Hope this helps

You don't really need CW1378 drop wire with its steel strengthening members, but you do want a good external-grade cable, such as this CW1128:

http://www.comtecdirect.co.uk/default.asp?ProductID=1149PL541-PL54-26

thanks v much