Tangent 21 - Telephone Help Needed

Posted by
White Hart

Posted on
13:58
Sep 24 2002

Telephone Help Needed

I know there are a few telecommy people round here so this is worth a go....

We've just moved into our new house. It's cabled for both BT and NTL. We've decided not to go for NTL because we've had problems with them in the past, and we'd like to keep our existing Sky Digital subscription anyway.

My problem is, the convenient phone extension in the room we want for our study turns out to be a cable phone extension. Now, I could just install a BT extension next to it, but at the moment I have a socket and a cable fixed all the way up the stairs, it just starts from the wrong place. Is there some way I can use the cable socket as an extension of the BT line given that we aren't going to be using cable? Or do I just have to get my DIY hat on?

And until we get it sorted we can't plug the modem in - and I don't know how long I'll survive with internet use restricted to lunchbreaks at work!!

(Edited by White Hart 24/09/2002 13:59)

(Edited by White Hart 24/09/2002 13:59)

8 Replies and 981 Views in Total.

Jola

I had that when I moved to my mums again - we're living upstairs and the room that is our living room has a BT phone point in.

I spoke to NTL and BT and neither apparently are compatable with each other so to run an extension off one to use as the other I *don't* think is possible

Posted: 14:30 Sep 24 2002

Stoo There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.

If it's just a telephone point, it doesn't matter if it's NTL, BT, Telewest or anything, they're all the same.

Use which ever point is in the right place, then follow it back and wire it to the BT line

I've done it at least 3 times in the past and never had a problem

{Edit: This is assuming you know how to wire up a telephone point..}

(Edited by Stoo 24/09/2002 15:02)

Posted: 15:01 Sep 24 2002

White Hart So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Stoo, that's what I was getting at. The only problem I foresee is that the main BT socket is about 3 inches further away from the extension than the NTL one. Is there surplus cable inside the sockets or will it just be too short? I don't want to go wrecking the house for no reason, but it seemed like a long way to go pinning cable to the walls when there's perfectly good cable already there...

Posted: 15:30 Sep 24 2002

Stoo There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.

Hmm, sometimes there's a little spare wire, not sure about 3 inches worth though.. You could open the face-plate and have a peek, there might be enough..

Posted: 16:51 Sep 24 2002

Cat "Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." ~Anon

you can get an adaptor (much like a plug adaptor) that allows you to run up to 4 lines from one socket. that should enable you to extend the wire to the other socket. Or you can just run a long extention from the original BT plug to where ever you need it.

You might have problems getting a double ended phone wire, i had to jimmy one. it's fiddily bit not too hard.

my house had only 1 phone line in the hall so i had to run extentions upstairs and 2 into the living room, it isnt too hard and the wires are virtually invisable.

Posted: 21:18 Sep 24 2002

Jayjay "I may be scattered / A little shattered / What does it matter / No one has a fit like I do / I'm the only one that fits you"

For what it's worth, I'd stick to putting my own extension in. Using the NTL socket means tracing the cable from that socket to the point it is closest to the BT socket, and then jimmying it to tje BT point. Aside from what a nightmare this sounds, your also tampering with what is technically NTL's property and would be liable for the damage.

Get a point splitter and extension cable and tacking it to the wall seems like a much easier option to me. Although I'd be too lazy to actually tack the cable...

Posted: 18:22 Sep 28 2002

White Hart So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Oh well, I've just done it (hence my online-iness). There proved to be plenty of spare wire where the extension was wired to the NTL socket, in fact there was so much I can't help wondering if it was originally an extension to the BT line and got swapped by whoever put cable in. So, ignoring the protests of the other half I unwired it from the NTL socket and wired it to the BT one - which is not much different from what I'd have had to do to put a new extension in anyway, plus no cable-tacking needed...

Jayjay - I'm not sure it is NTL's property, I thought the telcos own the incoming line but any extensions in the house are your responsibility? I haven't fiddled with the base socket, just swapped an extension over.

Anyway, it seems to be working...now we just need to sign up for Broadband!!

Posted: 10:54 Sep 29 2002

Jayjay "I may be scattered / A little shattered / What does it matter / No one has a fit like I do / I'm the only one that fits you"

Well, glad your back with regular connection, anyway!

As for the issue of ownership, it depends what we are talking about. As I understood it from your post, there was an NTL NTP (Network Termination Point) in the room which you wanted to connect to the BT network. Now, while the NTP might be on an extension from another NTL NTP in the property, it is still an NTP. If you had an account with NTL and there was a fault affecting that NTP only (say a broken cable), you would expect NTL to fix it. And you'd be right to. OfTel defines the end of responsibility for a TelCo to lie at the NTP. As such, everything up to and including the NTP is technically NTL's property.

However, you don't have an account with NTL, and it is unlikely that anyone from NTL will enter the property while you are there. And BT aren't likely to give a gnat's chuff about it. So I doubt there's any chance of it coming back to haunt you, but yes, it is NTL's property...

Posted: 12:07 Sep 29 2002

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