Telephone - External Extension

[John Cartmell]

Thirty years ago you had to get BT to fit an external telephone extension. You rang their sales department dealing with your number and they would give you a price immediately on receiving your enquiry (after no more than three rings) as long as you knew the distance from your main socket to the new extension point. They would take your order and an engineer would come to do the job - usually in a week or two.

So yesterday I tried to place an order for an external extension. After 40 minutes - including a short conversation with an employee who insisted that external extensions don't exist - I was told that it would cost 130+GBP as long as it took less than an hour and and extra 70GBP if it took an hour and a minute. We never got to the question of 2 hours ;-(

I wondered if they could give me an estimate for the total cost as, although it would have taken a 1970s engineer well less than an hour to do the job it would also have taken a 1970s sales clerk less than 5 minutes to give me a fixed price and take my order. Apparently they can get a survey done for the job - and it will cost me 105GBP for the survey.

So. Can anyone advise me if I can use standard internal extension wire for an external non-BT connection? It will need to go underground (or overhead) for a couple of metres and the rest will be pinned to an external wall.

Any general suggestions for completing the job?

[Howdy]

Yes get yourself a DECT phone and save the hassle.

[Frank Erskine]

If you use PVC internal cable, it won't last very long, as it absorbs a certain amount of moisture - probably negligible for mains, but can be quite serious for telephony. It would be better if you use either PVC in a duct of some sort, or polyethylene cable.

What sort of overall distance are we talking for your extension? Would it be possible to use a DECT phone?

[Rob Convery]

For external cabling you want some of this

[Peter Parry]

It will degrade in the sun (particularly) and rain so expect it to fail in a few years. If you run it in conduit or a pipe it will last decades. External cable is a better bet but it is quite stiff - it doesn't go around sharp corners very well and it is usually more convenient to terminate it with a junction box as soon as you get inside and use internal cable after that.

[Alex]

How do you know it's for a phone?

alex

[Ian Stirling]

You can also get DECT modems.

[John Cartmell]

Got one. It doesn't help with the bits I need.

[John Cartmell]

10-12 metres down the side of the house, a couple of metres across a gap, and a couple of metres along the side of the (brick-built) outhouse. The only problems are the facts that the trip has to be external and the gap (under flags or overhead at about 2.5 metres up.

[John Cartmell]