Old BT line

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 Ciro 24 Mar 2023

I have fibre to the premises, comes in from the telegraph pole.

I also have a BT line which I no longer use, coming off the same pole.

Both are attached to the boards around a bay window. As spring is springing, and the woodwork badly needs repair and painting, I'm going to do something about it this weekend, which would be easier without the big old attachment point for the landline.

I take it the line is BT's property, so I am not allowed to just remove it while I'm up there?

 Hooo 24 Mar 2023
In reply to Ciro:

BT are responsible for it, so I assume it's theirs and you're not allowed to remove it. That might not bother you, but if you did remove it from your roof yourself, what would you do about the other end?

Removed User 24 Mar 2023
In reply to Ciro:

Your not allowed to touch anything up to and including the master socket as I understand it. I have replaced/upgraded/moved master sockets before but I don't think your going to get away with chopping the wire!

I'm pretty sure they used the original wire as a support for the fibre when they installed at my place.

Post edited at 20:40
1
OP Ciro 24 Mar 2023
In reply to Hooo:

Dunno, coil it up and staple it to the telegraph pole?

1
 arch 25 Mar 2023
In reply to Ciro:

Just do it. 

In the highly unlikely event anyone from *BT turns up* and askes you what happened, just tell them it fell off and you've made it safe by fixing it to the pole. 

* They won't.

 Wimlands 25 Mar 2023
In reply to Ciro:

Whole of our road are moving to fibre from the pole…all of us have old copper phone lines still attached blowing in the wind. Starting to look a right mess…

 CantClimbTom 25 Mar 2023
In reply to Ciro:

Reading with interest as I'm waiting for fibre from the pole also.

Strange though that where I am BT (openreach) never had and never will provide more that 80Mb (which comes through at about 40Mb even close to the green box and exchange) so a third party (Community Fibre) is going to take on the service instead. I live in a very densely populated area, not remote.

Your fibre, is that Openreach/BT or Community Fibre? 

 GrahamD 25 Mar 2023
In reply to arch:

> Just do it. 

> In the highly unlikely event anyone from *BT turns up* 

It'll be Open Reach and they are so snowed under they haven't a clue what has and hasn't been done.  If the copper is a nuisance, just lose it.

OP Ciro 25 Mar 2023
In reply to CantClimbTom:

> Reading with interest as I'm waiting for fibre from the pole also.

> Strange though that where I am BT (openreach) never had and never will provide more that 80Mb (which comes through at about 40Mb even close to the green box and exchange) so a third party (Community Fibre) is going to take on the service instead. I live in a very densely populated area, not remote.

> Your fibre, is that Openreach/BT or Community Fibre? 

It's CityFibre here, up to 900Mb. I'm on 500Mb and it's been super reliable for a year and very cheap, so unlikely to ever want to go back unless the prices went through the roof.

OP Ciro 25 Mar 2023
In reply to Wimlands:

> Whole of our road are moving to fibre from the pole…all of us have old copper phone lines still attached blowing in the wind. Starting to look a right mess…

Yeah, that's the other thing -  between the extra cable across the garden, the old rusty wheel attachment point, and extra cable running along the wall through an external junction box (because the last engineer brought the cable in through a ridiculous point on the window reveal without asking and I made him move it) the front of the house would look cleaner without it.

 LukeyG 25 Mar 2023
In reply to Ciro:

When openreach started providing fttp they were using a hybrid copper/fibre cable meaning the old cable could be removed and replaced with a single new cable(often this did not happen as it took more work to take the old wire down so they were left up).
 

The new generation of fibre cables don’t have any copper in them, same issue though engineers don’t bother taking them down, plus some people still keep their copper line for the voice service. This will cease to be the case I’m almost all instances soon as most cps are moving all customers to ip voice via the router.

Another reason for the old wires being left up is the newer engineers are not trained in the dark arts of copper so they won’t touch it regardless wether it’s required or not. 
 

 LukeyG 25 Mar 2023
In reply to Ciro:

this is definitely not (it’s exactly) the thing to do.  

OP Ciro 25 Mar 2023
In reply to LukeyG:

> The new generation of fibre cables don’t have any copper in them, same issue though engineers don’t bother taking them down.

In my case, as it was a CityFibre line going in I assume the engineers wouldn't be authorised to take the BT cable out.

But yes, I definitely won't (will) take it down.

 Andy Johnson 28 Mar 2023
In reply to thread:

Regarding "fibre from the pole": I live about 100 metres from a large BT exchange/switching building in a relatively affluent area of South Manchester. Openreach are currently indicating that they will offer 1Gb fibre broadband on my street some time before December 2026. They were promising that it was two or three years away back when I moved here twelve years ago. I can however get 24Mb up / 1Mb down from them, which is a joke in 2023, and is why almost everyone around here uses Virgin.

Post edited at 11:26
 Baz P 28 Mar 2023
In reply to Andy Johnson:

Wow, makes my "up to 14Mb/s" but actually 7Mb/s look archaic. 

Thinking of investing in two cans and some string.

 mark20 28 Mar 2023

When I repointed my house a couple of years ago, I removed the knackered-looking BT line that was flapping around on the side of my house. The line from the pole to a small junction box on my house remains, so I do have the option to re-instate it.

Now that Virgin broadband prices are going up I am beginning to think I have shot myself in the foot by cutting the BT line. So a couple of stupid questions - I'm pretty sure that the Virgin line is only for Virgin and no other company can squirt their internet down it? All other providers on comparisons sites are going to be using the BT line?

So is this new CityFibre that they've been putting in around my way, a direct competitor with Virgin, so if I sign up with them, they can run a cable from the closest point of their network into my house - or does it simply speed up the main network to the final BT line run into houses?

Thanks

 Andy Johnson 28 Mar 2023
In reply to Baz P:

I think what OR is offering is 24Mb down 1Mb up, rather than the other way around as I originally said. But its still pretty basic.

> Wow, makes my "up to 14Mb/s" but actually 7Mb/s look archaic. 

I don't know about you but I wfh 100% and have teenage kids, so that wouldn't work for me in multiple ways.

> Thinking of investing in two cans and some string.

Don't forget to register with ofcom as a telecommunication provider first...

 Andy Johnson 28 Mar 2023
In reply to mark20:

> Now that Virgin broadband prices are going up I am beginning to think I have shot myself in the foot by cutting the BT line. So a couple of stupid questions - I'm pretty sure that the Virgin line is only for Virgin and no other company can squirt their internet down it? All other providers on comparisons sites are going to be using the BT line?

Virgin built their own network, so they get exclusive use of it. Its mostly fibre to the street cabinet, then fibre or coax to customer.

The telephone lines on poles are almost entirely* owned and run by OpenReach, which is owned by BT. OpenReach was created to supposedly allow equal-ish access to the domestic market by other telecomms providers by transferring to OpenReach the ownership of what was part of BT's network.

> So is this new CityFibre that they've been putting in around my way, a direct competitor with Virgin, so if I sign up with them, they can run a cable from the closest point of their network into my house - or does it simply speed up the main network to the final BT line run into houses?

CityFibre does "fibre to the premises" so it's more like Virgin in that they have built their own network and don't use the existing phone lines at all. In some places they run their lines underground in their own ducts, or in other locations they run them down Openreach's existing ducts or string them from OpenReach's poles.

* Except in Hull

Post edited at 14:57
 JamesO!? 29 Mar 2023
In reply to Ciro:

We had fibre installed a couple of weeks ago and asked the openreach engineer nicely if he could take down the redundant wire, which he was happy to do. The redundant wire is not coiled at the telegraph pole, though I don't know at what point it has been chopped.

I can't imagine anyone, including BT would ever notice of you did this yourself


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