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Returning a Virgin Media used Openreach socket back to Openreach
Bob_Forward
Posts: 15 Forum Member
Virgin Media have used the Openreach socket to provide telephone services.
There is an access panel in the ceiling for pipes and cables. It appears the Openreach cable was cut, the blue and orange are reconnected but green and brown are connected to blue/white and blue of the Virgin Media cable.
Could I restore the Openreach connection by reconnecting the green and brown wires?
assuming that what I looking at is actually the proper wires
There is an access panel in the ceiling for pipes and cables. It appears the Openreach cable was cut, the blue and orange are reconnected but green and brown are connected to blue/white and blue of the Virgin Media cable.
Could I restore the Openreach connection by reconnecting the green and brown wires?
assuming that what I looking at is actually the proper wires
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If however it is Openreach's cable then technically they have to repair it. You would need to get your phone service provider to call them out and it is likely to be a chargeable repair unfortunately.
There is a possibility that the blue and orange are the line pair and the Virgin bod has bodged the Virgin connection onto the spare pair. The way you could test that is with a multimeter and see which pair has 50V DC on it. That will be the line pair. Of course that assumes the line is still connected at the exchange and the pair from the exchange to your local cabinet hasn't been nicked to provide someone else's phone line.
If the blue and orange are the line pair then connect them up to the A and B terminals on the inside of the master socket and if anybody asks about the cut cable deny all knowledge ;-)
Thank you for responding.
I believe, read I don't really have much of a clue, you are correct about termination point, in the building there is a room in the basement where all the phone lines are installed, then distrusted from there.
This is a photo of what was done
http://1drv.ms/1I2fbP1
The black cable is the old phone cable, white Virgin Media
Do you live in a flat? If so, is there (was there) a BT Master socket? If there is does the phone line still work?
You can read up on British phone cabling at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_telephone_sockets
Brian
If there is a termination point in the basement then chances are the black cable was laid in by the builders. So it's probably not Openreach responsibility. Which means that you can likely re-connect all the wires yourself.
If you want to do a "proper" job use something like this
www.amazon.co.uk/Terminal-Inline-Coupler-Junction-Extension/dp/B00CMC0MNE/
to join the cables. You'll also need a punch down tool to terminate the wires correctly.
But as I said earlier test the wires to see if there is 50V DC between the pairs (with the Virgin cable disconnected) to identify which is the line if it's still connected.
Virgin installers nicking the wiring and socket does happen a lot though. It saves them having to run their own wiring all the way through the house. Some of them try to hide it a bit by changing the socket for a Virgin Media branded one, but the really lazy ones don't even bother doing that.
Its easily self repaired here. Just a couple of those jelly crimps, and then wrap it in tape to cover the join.
Though I do wonder why he felt it necessary to chop through the cable when all he really needed to do was remove a couple of inches of outer insulation and just cut the exposed green and brown leaving blue and orange intact.
Does smack of that well known firm Bodgit and Legit
This means they don't need to drill any holes or run any cables to give phone service! But it makes it a pain when the customer returns to the Openreach network.
In this sort of scenario it is not inconceivable that a service provider could go directly to Virgin Media to recover their costs. Virgin Media should know better than anyone that you don't muck about with Openreach kit. They would not take kindly to someone chopping their cables to nick them for some other purpose after all.
Though in this instance it looks like the OP's cable could be a builder installed one rather than Openreach so chances are Openreach won't care it's been cut.
An Openreach engineer came out and said something about the wiring in the building being wrong. That may explain the difference in colours. Oh and there are 3 extension sockets, none of which work, although in two years I've never checked/used them.
The guy did mention something about Openreach being able to use "a spare pair",. He did have a device in the master test socket but didn't remove the whole socket, which I think he would have to do change the wires.
there is a blue/white white/blue cable behind the faceplate socket, but I think that is for the extension sockets.
Thank you for the terminal block link and the multimeter advice, I think I would only have to reconnect the cut wires wires. I think he did what was quickest and easiest for him.
Why are some wires still connected to the old wire, do they do anything?
I would like to thank everyone in this thread for their help and advice.
Still not clear on your exact set up. Do you have a Master socket (NT5) and 3 extensions.
From memory BT cable can have 4 or 6 wires (6 being old style) which is used in "pairs" - the key is to always keep the same colour coded wires together. Only one pair is required for a phone line.
The Wiki article I linked to in an earlier post will explain how the wires work up to and from a master socket.
If all that's required is the re-connect the cables shown in the picture then perhaps the connectors shown can be re-used. If a "Krone" tool is required you can pick up cheap ones from the likes of Maplins or on-line (where the postage will probably cost more).
Brian
I know my posts are confusing, as I just don't know anything about phone wiring, I'm trying to figure out what was done. Sorry.
I have what the wiki article calls 4 wire old style.
I've removed the master socket and had a look at the wires, only the brown and green are connected, the same wires connected to the virgin media cable.
So I do only have to reconnect the wires back to the old telephone cable in the access panel in the hall to restore Openreach connectivity.
What the Virgin guy probably did was plug a line finder device into the socket. This puts a distinctive tone on the line that is picked up by a probe. Used, as the name suggests, to identify the line pair. If he didn't take the socket completely apart then that would be how he worked out which wires were wired to the back of the socket.
Only two wires are needed for a phone line so the two that are still connected together on the two halves of the black cable probably do nothing and are probably lying loose in the back of the socket.
If you have an NTE5 type master socket with the two part faceplate then the removable section only reveals the extension termination. The phone line is terminated behind the section still attached to the wall.
So any wires on the back of the removable section will be extension cables. If they don't work then either they have been attached to the wrong terminals or not punched down into the terminal correctly.
Yes. Join green to green and brown to brown, and it should work (or at least get you a connection through to the distribution point).
do you have a BT socket AND a vm socket
do you know where the black wire goes to in your house
I know that its just laziness of the engineer to be honest to save them installing a socket.