BT phone line and extension (with alarm)

[cyberdyne]

We have an elderly friend of the family who has been having some issue with lacklustre service from BT.
She has a laptop upstairs which was connected via cable to her BT extension, which in turn runs from a junction box situated in the living room downstairs. However, the extension stopped working for no apparent reason and when BT came out they renewed the telephone socket on the wall in the living room but left the extension cable and junction box to the bedroom in a non-working state and when the engineer was requested (pushed) to fix it he apparently avoided the conversation and after saying he was fetching a part from the van, drove off and never returned. A follow-up telephone conversation to BT CS resulted in a minor apology and the suggestion that she fix the extension herself as 'they are very easy to do' !!

I'm guessing the problem lies with the old-style junction box in the living room, currently situated above the new socket OR the small (one-wire-in, one-wire-out) junction box in the bedroom (where the cable enters the building). Or possibly, there is just a loose connection somewhere along the line.

So, complaints and further discussions with BT aside, I'd like to know what I can do to try and get this working for her. I am happy to take the two boxes off the wall and disconnect/reconnect cables as necessary. I am however a little reluctant as the house has a BT alarm system.

So my questions are:
What difference if any will the alarm system make to the tampering with/of the telephone/Internet cables?
Can I go ahead and disconnect the telephone cables from the very old, painted-in junction boxes to try and fault-find, or is there anything I should be aware of regarding the alarm system?

Thanks in advance.

 

[cajar]

Make sure you know how to reset the alarm, because if it's connected it'll likely detect the absence of the phone line and go into an error state.

I would suggest that if it was a matter of a loose connection in a junction box the bt engineer would have probably found and fixed it while he was there. Sounds like you're going to have to put a new cable in from the main socket to where your elderly friend wants their extension.

 

[Bodgeitandleggit]

We have an elderly friend of the family who has been having some issue with lacklustre service from BT.
She has a laptop upstairs which was connected via cable to her BT extension, which in turn runs from a junction box situated in the living room downstairs. However, the extension stopped working for no apparent reason and when BT came out they renewed the telephone socket on the wall in the living room but left the extension cable and junction box to the bedroom in a non-working state and when the engineer was requested (pushed) to fix it he apparently avoided the conversation and after saying he was fetching a part from the van, drove off and never returned. A follow-up telephone conversation to BT CS resulted in a minor apology and the suggestion that she fix the extension herself as 'they are very easy to do' !!

I'm guessing the problem lies with the old-style junction box in the living room, currently situated above the new socket OR the small (one-wire-in, one-wire-out) junction box in the bedroom (where the cable enters the building). Or possibly, there is just a loose connection somewhere along the line.

So, complaints and further discussions with BT aside, I'd like to know what I can do to try and get this working for her. I am happy to take the two boxes off the wall and disconnect/reconnect cables as necessary. I am however a little reluctant as the house has a BT alarm system.

So my questions are:
What difference if any will the alarm system make to the tampering with/of the telephone/Internet cables?
Can I go ahead and disconnect the telephone cables from the very old, painted-in junction boxes to try and fault-find, or is there anything I should be aware of regarding the alarm system?

Thanks in advance.

Not sure on the alarm set up and other peeps on here will advise but when the bt engineer came out it was probably a openreach engineer and they will only cover everything up to the master socket and any extensions after that belong to you so he may have left it disconnected as to take off the fault but it was ignorant just to drive away like that

 

[SimonH2]

So now you'll have the new style "split" master socket - complete with penny pinching, cheapskate self tapping screws instead of proper 3.5mm screws Did you have one of those before ?

Now you have a split master socket, you are legally allowed to remove the lower section of it and wire extensions into it. See the wiki page on telephone wiring (you only need terminals 2 & 5 these days for most installations).

 

[cyberdyne]

So now you'll have the new style "split" master socket - complete with penny pinching, cheapskate self tapping screws instead of proper 3.5mm screws Did you have one of those before ?

No, there was an old style socket there.

Now you have a split master socket, you are legally allowed to remove the lower section of it and wire extensions into it. See the wiki page on telephone wiring (you only need terminals 2 & 5 these days for most installations).

Well this is good news at least, thank you.

And thank you everyone for your replies.

 

[SimonH2]

No, there was an old style socket there.

In which case the technician was wrong to leave without making the extension work.

Under the old systems, BT (and before them, the GPO) had the sole legal right to do anything with this wiring. Thus, at the start of the job, the BT Openreach technician was responsible for the extension wiring - only BT was legally allowed to work on it.
You would be entitled to complain to BT that they (or rather their contractor) failed to maintain something they were responsible for.

On the other hand, you can fix it yourself now and save a lot of hassle !