Discuss Phone line/Bt cable Help! in the Electrical Wiring, Theories and Regulations area at ElectriciansForums.net

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So i had a call out from a customer saying her phone point incoming into her property (straight off the telephone pole) had come off the wall so i went and had a look. When i got there all the cores were disconnected completely and the actual point was on the floor. Does anyone know how to rewire one of these? Is there any way i can test what is doing what and what colours go to what numbers? I’ll include a picture....

Phone line/Bt cable Help! D6E6C185-55B4-4FDD-8599-FDF86152CE8E - EletriciansForums.net
 
That's dropwire 15 cable. Standard first pair is orange and white. You can see they have been used, as they are shorter and you can see the slight knick from the IDC connection. Not sure why some of the others look at bit shorter also, though.

Orange in 2, white in 5 ought to do it. You should get about 48v DC between them if you wanted to check first.

Keep fingers(and cutters) away from the yellow ones, they are not conductors. They are stabby/pain/ow steel pointy bits, known as 'strength members' or 'support strands'.
 
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If that cable is the incoming cable it is the property of Openreach and should not be interfered with.
Open Reach can be right funny about people touching the master sockets, sure there are times we need to move or change accessories but if you mix the wires up it plays havoc on the exchange and they come callign with a bill to put it right
 
That's dropwire 15 cable. Standard first pair is orange and white. You can see they have been used, as they are shorter and you can see the slight knick from the IDC connection. Not sure why some of the others look at bit shorter also, though.

Orange in 2, white in 5 ought to do it. You should get about 48v DC between them if you wanted to check first.

Keep fingers(and cutters) away from the yellow ones, they are not conductors. They are stabby/pain/ow steel pointy bits, known as 'strength members' or 'support strands'.


Cheers mate seems to have done the trick, if it wasnt the standard colours how would you work out what was going where?? Is there only 48v between the two “used” conductors?
 
if it wasnt the standard colours how would you work out what was going where??

This...

Phone line/Bt cable Help! {filename} | ElectriciansForums.net
 
Is there only 48v between the two “used” conductors?

Yes, the other spare pairs will not be connected to anything either up the pole, nor in an underground DP, nor at the green cabinet/box at the end of the street, depending on where that cable heads off to.

UNLESS, in the past, they had a second line. Then you could still get a reading from the other line, even though they stopped paying/using it 20 years ago for example.

So you could be testing across two wires from different pairs and think you have it right, when you don't. They should always keep the pairs together, in this code...
Phone line/Bt cable Help! BT dropwire colour code - EletriciansForums.net
...but one day it could bite you in the bum if the BT guy used orange and green for example.

In your particular case, if only two of the 8 wires had a visible nick from the IDC connection, then it's a dead cert isn't it? Totally safe to re-connect. Even the polarity doesn't matter these days. Might catch out an old fax machine from the 60s, but it's a bit of a lottery as to what polarity you get on any new line nowadays, thanks to the mass use of jelly crimps instead of Krone strips in the cab(green box). IMHO.
 

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