Old phone wires coming into house

[alwest197]

Hi, I've got what I think are very old telephone wires supplying the service to my house. The is a thick cable with numerous wires in it but only two are used (they do not seem to be twisted pairs). One is solid white and the other is solid orange. Other not connected wires are 3 yellow, 1 black and 1 green. At a small box just inside the house there are little plastic blobs in which orange is connected to orange and white is connected to blue. At another box some 6 feet further on is another box within which are the same type of plastic blobs where orange to orange and blue to blue connections are made. The boxes seem to be there simply to protect the little plastic blob connectors. The wires then go through the wall and run to a small box which has the markings d08-3768, issue 1 and bt08-rf3 inside it. From there it goes into a face plate into which the phone is plugged in. I've recently had some issues with my broadband service and wanted to replace the wire which has the various connectors in them but do not understand the relationships of the wires I have to those which appear in the usual wiring diagrams eg blue/white, orange/white etc...
I bought a little phone jack box to put on the inside wall so that I could replace the connected wire but the colours are white/green, green white, blue/white, white/blue, orange/white, white /orange. so where do I connect my solid orange and solid blue wires to in the box?

Thanks in advance Al

 

[kbdiy]

Before you get too carried away trying to sort this out yourself, who is your broadband provider and who is your telephone provider? First port of call for bad broadband should be your service provider. It's their responsibility to ensure the service is good at the point of entry.

The plastic blob connectors you refer to are crimp connectors, usually jelly-filled and designed for jointing in external cable. From your description the colours confirm you have some external cable, but regardless of that, get the service checked first before you start tampering with the internals.

The jack you have bought may not be the correct type if you are replacing the main incoming connection so don't change anything until it has been properly checked.

 

[OwainDIYer]

It is not yours to replace.

The BT08-RF3 is a radio interference suppressor.
http://www.run-it-direct.co.uk/BT80BRF3.html

 

[alwest197]

Thanks for these replies. The issues I had with the BB have been sorted so I have no problems with that. It's the myriad of connections which I would like to sort out. Ideally I suppose it would be better to bring the wires into the living room rather than through the porch then the hall then the living room.
So can anyone tell me which wires go where as requested or I suppose it will have to be trial and error. Thanks again.

 

[kbdiy]

Ok - from your incoming cable white & orange is your incoming pair from the exchange. Run a new internal cable to your chosen location and join the blue/white & white/blue pair in the new cable to the white & orange of the incoming. It doesn't matter which way round. The blue/white & white/blue terminate on 2 & 5 in the line jack.

Make sure, as I said earlier that this is the correct jack - i.e. a master, which incorporates various components including, most importantly, a capacitor. I would advise that you re-use the existing one to be sure. Otherwise your phone will not ring on incoming calls.

You do not say if you have any other extension sockets?

 

[alwest197]

Thanks.. I do not have any wired extensions as such. The phones are panasonic cordless ones of which I have three including the base station.
We were getting a lot of noise on the line so I disconnected the Sky box and the burglar alarm from the socket. whereupon the noise seemed to disappear. I have reconnected the sky box and all ok.. next test is reconnecting the alarm.

Thanks again.

Just another thought, why are there so many wires if all thats needed are two?

 

[bernardgreen]

The three yellow are steel support strands and not used for telephone circuits. There are four wires making two pairs allowing for two phone lines in one cable.

You really should not be interfering with the BT ( OpenReach ) cable.

 

[kbdiy]

Just another thought, why are there so many wires if all thats needed are two?

Standard cable sizes - gives a degree of flexibility if additional services are required or faults occur, without having to run more cables.

Sky box does not need to be plugged in all the time - only used for pay per view etc services. Burglar alarm would probably be better hardwired to the incoming pair as it only needs to dial out when triggered but if that's the cause of the noise then forget it. Check for damaged/pinched/trapped cable and renew if that's the cause.

From your first post, I would suggest running a new internal cable from the point of entry (the external cable) right to the phone socket to eliminate any possible fault potential from the various joints along the way.

 

[alwest197]

Thanks again, I'll give it a try

 

[kbdiy]

Forgot to mention that you may still need to include the radio suppressor mentioned previously. Worth experimenting with and without to see which gives best performance and least noise. The version you have should be fully compatible with broadband (but you never know!).