BT Landline Phone Help - Anybody with landline wiring experience?

[sitalchauhan]

I am getting fed up with Virgin Media's traffic management so am looking to switch to O2 broadband. O2 require a BT landline, but I have always had a virgin media landline.

I tracked the BT landline wire from the pylon outside my house, and the cable enters just above my front door, but then inside above my door the wire has been cut.

I need to somehow find if this cable is still connected to my telephone exchange and that I get a dialtone. Otherwise if I dont get a dialtone it will cost me ~£120 to get bt to re-connect it.

What is the easiest way to check if I can get a dialtone from this bt cable?


I could get an engineer out to test it for me, but they charge extortionate amounts so would rather save the cost and have a try myself. Im guessing that either I need to connect these wires to a master socket, or maybe there is a quicker way where I could somehow splice the wires from a cut up end of a RJ11 cable to the wires above my door and plug the other end into a phone.

Searching on the internet, the standard colour coding seems completely different to the colours of my cables. My cable contains 3 red, 1 orange, 1 white, 1 black and 1 green wire. The 3 red wires are all cut very short, the orange and white wires cut to a medium length, and the green and black wires cut at a longer length. Here is a picture:




I am totally confused as to what each of these wires are and how to wire it up

Any help would be grately appreciated!
Thanks
Sital

[xAmritx]

http://www.telephonesuk.co.uk/wiring_info.htm

Looking through it now

[xAmritx]

Pin 2 Orange and Pin 5 White try that

EDIT: If doing directly to RJ11 then do RJ11 Green -> Bt White and RJ11 Red -> BT Orange

[Georgy291]

always cut the blue wire




i know may be inapropriet here

[xAmritx]

always cut the blue wire




i know may be inapropriet here

LOL?!

[gss03]

Surely what you are doing here is very very wrong and if BT found out they'd fine you?!

You are surely going to have to get a BT engineer out anyway to fit a master socket as it has to be a BT branded one that is installed.

[xAmritx]

Surely what you are doing here is very very wrong and if BT found out they'd fine you?!

You are surely going to have to get a BT engineer out anyway to fit a master socket as it has to be a BT branded one that is installed.

Well how can they find out? They never had a master socket installed and theres no other simple/short way of finding if the line has a dial tone other than getting BT to charge you a stupid fee for getting someone to put on a little white box that says BT!

[sitalchauhan]

Surely what you are doing here is very very wrong and if BT found out they'd fine you?!
You are surely going to have to get a BT engineer out anyway to fit a master socket as it has to be a BT branded one that is installed.

I believe BT maintain the telephone line up to the point it enters your house and the master socket. After this point, bt can send out an engineer and do it for you or you can book a private engineer to rewire your home's internal telephone wiring. So I see no reason why I cant do it myself as the wiring within my house and there is no master socket fitted yet.

To find if I can get o2 broadband I need to check if I can get a dialtone on the line. If I asked BT to send an engineer they would charge me loads, and im fairly confident about electronics and wiring in general so as long as I know what to do I can do it without a problem.

EDIT: If doing directly to RJ11 then do RJ11 Green -> Bt White and RJ11 Red -> BT Orange

I tried this and there is no dialtone, this was what I thought it would be aswell. So at the moment I think most likely I may be disconnected at my exchange. Unless the capacitor in the master socket is required to get a dialtone

[duc]

I believe BT maintain the telephone line up to the point it enters your house.

Actually BT is responsibly for all wiring that enters your home upto and including the Master Socket, they are not liably or take any responsibility for anything beyond the master socket.

There may be a cable running into your home, there won't be dialtone as BT would have disconnected the signal either at the junction box or local exchange.

[sitalchauhan]

Actually BT is responsibly for all wiring that enters your home upto and including the Master Socket, they are not liably or take any responsibility for anything beyond the master socket.

There may be a cable running into your home, there won't be dialtone as BT would have disconnected the signal either at the junction box or local exchange.

You posted just after I amended my post about the master socket, as I said there isnt a master socket fitted yet so I dont believe I am doing anything wrong.

Im going to give BT a ring tomorrow and ask if they can check if I have been disconnected by them somewhere. Ive got a strong feeling im going to have to dish out the ~£120 to get the line refitted and connected, just got to work out wether it is worth the cost in the long run over staying with virgin

[Funkstar]

You posted just after I amended my post about the master socket, as I said there isnt a master socket fitted yet so I dont believe I am doing anything wrong.

Im going to give BT a ring tomorrow and ask if they can check if I have been disconnected by them somewhere. Ive got a strong feeling im going to have to dish out the ~£120 to get the line refitted and connected, just got to work out wether it is worth the cost in the long run over staying with virgin

Just because there is no master socket, doesn't mean you get away with fitting one yourself.

You are going to be charged £120 whatever you do, so you are best leaving the whole thing up to a BT engineer to install. Even if you do it right and there are no issues, there is no point in doing half the guys work for him, when you will still pay them £120. On the other hand, there is every chance they could fine you for tampering with their telephone cable. you might never have had their service, but that line was installed when the property was built, it runs back to ther equipment, and they are responsible for the maintenance of it.

In short, don't touch it, get them to do it, thats what you will be paying them for

[Gerrard]

I thought the £125 charge was for running a new line to your house. If there's already a line, then you would only have to pay for reconnection I would have thought. Of course, that would not include fitting a new master socket as they would presume that there would already be one.

[Funkstar]

I thought the £125 charge was for running a new line to your house. If there's already a line, then you would only have to pay for reconnection I would have thought. Of course, that would not include fitting a new master socket as they would presume that there would already be one.

I was told I would need to pay for a new line to my place even though the previous owners had "a phone line" and broadband. The problem stems from undundling lines I think, if they had a full package from TalkTalk for example, this is classed as a new connection as a new number is also being issued.

The engineer didn't turn up yesterday, but the line seems to be activated, I presume Iæll still need to pay the £120 (over 6 months) as discussed on the phone to them.

[beanbandit]

Im going to give BT a ring tomorrow and ask if they can check if I have been disconnected by them somewhere. Ive got a strong feeling im going to have to dish out the ~£120 to get the line refitted and connected, just got to work out wether it is worth the cost in the long run over staying with virgin

As a new customer to BT your going to have to pay £125 no matter what you have there already. Just leave the wiring as is, and let BT deal with it. Once you have a line connected (and a phone number) then you can give O2 a ring and get your BB sorted out. Until this happens O2 won't be able to help you.

[Barakka]

I was told I would need to pay for a new line to my place even though the previous owners had "a phone line" and broadband. The problem stems from undundling lines I think, if they had a full package from TalkTalk for example, this is classed as a new connection as a new number is also being issued.

The engineer didn't turn up yesterday, but the line seems to be activated, I presume Iæll still need to pay the £120 (over 6 months) as discussed on the phone to them.

Yep, AFAIK it makes no odds what you already have, or don't, it's £120 installation to get it connected. The line from the box to your house is still there, and the box (not in your case) may still be on your lounge wall, but it doesn't mean all the other stages of the connection back to the exchange are in place. They would probably have been used up the next time someone needed a new line or a problem fixing, they would just patch into the unused connection. The £120 is charged as an average cost to cover everything from flicking a switch to running new overhead cables and installing the wall-box.

[xAmritx]

Yeah, since he has to get them to reconnect him then he has no choice but to pay the extortionate fee of ~£120.
I’m thinking of moving our Master Socket and apparently just MOVING it from one room to the next would cost me £166 pounds according to the call centre!
No way am I paying that amount for the simplest DIY job of moving 2 low voltage wires from one location to another!!! If there was a huge risk such as getting electrocuted or the wiring requires the IQ of a Mensa’s then I could understand the reasoning for the costs!
New found hate for BT lol
I say we all form a rebellion and move our Master Sockets by 10CM!!!!!
Ill forgive them when they finish the FTTC upgrade!! I will be praying to god every day that they dont end up messing that up too. Dont see how they can but VM have somehow lol so anythings possible!