Hello all... am hoping someone can help with this!

I haven't been a BT customer for years... when I bought this house I had Telewest installed and have been with them ever since.
I've still got the original BT box though (in fact there are 2... a REALLY old GPO type, connected to a more modern one) which come in via a cable drilled through the living room window frame.
They're then just screwed to the wall immediately inside and sit there doing pretty much nothing.

Here's the problem...
I'm having new wooden sash windows installed in a few weeks (not cheap, its a listed building), and I don't want these grubby useless old boxes sitting there anymore.
In fact I REALLY dont want to have to drill through the new window frame to acommodate them.

I know I've got to keep some kind of BT box in the house though... so what are my options?
Any advice will be gratefully received!

Im not aware of any 'law' that says you have to keep a BT Box in the house. Take them out. Sounds like the boxes are well out of date anyway and anyone reconnecting to BT at the address would have to pay the full connection charge in the future anyway.

Hmmm... cheers for that. I might just rip them out then.

It was nearly 10 years ago when I had cable installed, and I remember the engineer saying they weren't allowed to remove BT boxes... I guess there's nothing to stop ME doing it though?

You aren't allowed to touch BT's side of the wiring. You could find yourself hit with a bill for sorting it out.

But that's the problem... it's gonna HAVE to be touched in order to get the new window installed.
Any idea how much BT would charge to come and sort it out?

Thats only if you want to reuse the wiring and become a BT customer in the future. If Ian was with BT, no he shouldnt touch the master socket cos he could end up causing a fault and BT would charge to come and sort it out.

Yes, but the wire coming into the GPO box from outside are pressumably still connected to the BT infrastructure.

Cheers
Alun

Why dont you ring em & ask em?

No, as previous poster the wiring could well be still connected all the way back, and could cause faults, BT customer or not, you aren't allowed to mess with the wiring. You could probably get away with it, just make sure not to short anything out.

Right, well I've just spent half an hour being passed around BT to sort this one out!

Apparantly they have no record of my property ever being connected, so have said I'm free to remove any boxes and cabling myself.

<--- Childish smug grin.

There we are then!

I'm pretty happy about it too!
At least I'm not having to pay £166 just for them to MOVE the junction box... which is what they first quoted before realising they've got no record of me.

Anyway, cheers for the advice guys!

Great news. Sounds like you have been completely disconnected from the BT Network, so should be no problems.

Always best to be sure first.

Which was sort of obvious from his first post I thought.

Anyway it's cool.

It depends, some areas BT disconnect from the network after 6 months, others 12 months, others 2 years, others could still be connected 5,6,7,8+ years later.

Anyhow problem sorted.