Phone wiring in house, who's responsible? Who can do work on it?

DIYNotIan · 20 May 2019

Hi all

Recently moved house... The phone line in the property does work, but is rather unsightly. It comes into the house at an upstairs window on the landing:

Then it comes into this junction box on the windowsill:

From there, it travels through this conduit down to the living room windowsill below, which is where the Master Socket is (out of view in the photo)

So a few question if anyone can help me please.

1. Is it BT/Open Reach/whoever's responsibility up to the Master Socket?
2. Is anyone other than an Open Reach engineer allowed to do anything to the installation?
3. If that's the case, will Open Reach ever do anything about an installation that it ugly, or do they only carry out work when there's a fault?

I'm just asking now because we've got some electrical work being carried out soon, including chasing in new wiring, and so will be decorating etc after that...

Cheers

pete50 · 20 May 2019

Your BT line should enter the house via your master socket. the master socket and anything to the external side of that belongs to BT. Anything house side of the master socket belongs to you. If you get BT in to sort it they will charge. Last time I enquired I think it was £120 minimum plus, if the fault is considered to be on your side of the master socket. It looks to me as if someone has bodged that so that the line isn't coming in to the master socket so, no doubt BT will want to change that and charge.

DIYNotIan · 20 May 2019

Sorry, perhaps my photos weren't clear...

We have a Master Socket in the house. All three photos show the wiring in the house BEFORE the Master Socket. So the first photo shows the phone line coming in from outdoors and down to the cream coloured oval box (at the bottom of the photo). The second photo is that same oval box, but close up. The cable then comes out of this oval box, runs just under the edge of the window sill, and then down from there through the conduit in the last photo. After that it goes to the Master Socket.

The phone line works fine. It's just ugly having the cable just hanging there (photo one) and going through the conduit (photo 3).

Thanks for the reply

rsgaz · 20 May 2019

DIYNotIan said:
1. Is it BT/Open Reach/whoever's responsibility up to the Master Socket?

Yes, so that includes the "block terminal" (oval junction box on the windowsill). It is perfectly normal to have these in older installations, especially as it looks like you might have "dropwire 12" cable coming into the house, which has thicker wires than normal dropwire cable and cannot be wired directly into any socket with IDC terminals.

DIYNotIan said:
2. Is anyone other than an Open Reach engineer allowed to do anything to the installation?

No. You could take off the plastic trunking if you want, I doubt BT did that in the first place, more likely the previous tenant.

DIYNotIan said:
3. If that's the case, will Open Reach ever do anything about an installation that it ugly

No.

If you pay them, they'll do whatever you want. The question is, what do you want? Keep the cable outside down the house and come through the wall downstairs?

DIYNotIan · 20 May 2019

That's all very helpful rsgaz, thanks

rsgaz said:
The question is, what do you want? Keep the cable outside down the house and come through the wall downstairs?

I hadn't really go that far yet because I didn't want to put the cart ahead of the horse. The option you suggest could work. Other options... Do people ever / can you chase it phone line? More subtle conduit might be another idea (both in size and placement). But it's likely that to achieve most of these things the line would need to be longer, so that would mean an Open Reach engineer I presume....

Cheers

rsgaz · 20 May 2019

DIYNotIan said:
Do people ever / can you chase it phone line?

Yes, but this would normally need to be your own internal wiring, coming out of the master, not the incoming line.

DIYNotIan said:
the line would need to be longer, so that would mean an Open Reach engineer

Yes, you're likely to end up with this sort of thing on the outside of the house if OpenReach have to extend the cable, unless you specifically ask for the cable to the pole to be replaced, i.e. more cost.

Harry Bloomfield · 20 May 2019

Another option to consider is a modern wireless set of phones, with the master upstairs by that cable joint and replace the cable joint by a master socket. If you need to also use internet on that line, you could have the router there too and use its wifi.

You are not supposed to touch the master socket, but providing you make a decent, safe job of it, BT will not complain.

That joint box looks as if BT has made the joint, at least who ever used what appears to be the 'jelly joints' used by BT.

bernardgreen · 20 May 2019

Harry Bloomfield said:
Another option to consider is a modern wireless set of phones,

But keep a corded phone for use when there is a power cut ( unless the phone base unit has battery back up )

OwainDIYer · 21 May 2019

I may be wrong, but I think the grey dropwire is no longer used and the wire is connected to the new black dropwire with the little Sleeve Dropwire 2A.

In which case the Block Terminal (which is a slightly unusual one which someone might like on Ebay) might be replaced with a new NTE5C (whistles nonchalantly).

diynot

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Phone wiring in house, who's responsible? Who can do work on it?

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