decorating a spare bedroom upstairs I found the old telephone extension socket behind the bed and cheerfully pulled it off the wall snipping the cable where it came through the window frame saying 'no need for that anymore!'. since then several people have said they have had difficulty ringing us up (although there is a dialling tone and broadband still).
Is this coincidence? Is there a proper way to terminate an unwanted telephone cable, and what is it?
TW
If you have caused an intermittent short that could cause callers to receive the engaged tone, or if you have shorted the bell circuit your phones won't ring on incoming calls.
best would be to disconnect the unwanted cable at the 'supply' end.
Or use a small terminal box.
Owain
make sure none of the wires is touchng another one.
Which side of the window frame was the wire cut? Is the cut end of the cable now getting wet when it rains?
I doubt it... What do callers get? Ringing tone but no answer, brief ringing tone that cuts to silence, immediate engaged tone?
In the short term ensure that none of the wires are shorted to any other. Longer term fully remove the now redundant extension wiring right back to where it splits from other wiring. The unterminated stub of cable may knock a Mbps off your broadband speed. Wether that is a problem depends on what speed you get, 50+ Mbps probably not an issue, down at 5 Mbps every kbps counts...
You could just follow the cable and discconect from the main wiring but that isn't "neat and tidy" in my book. B-)
It was cut on the indoors side, but given a dollop of emulsion after that. TW
I don't suppose you've cut off the socket with the ring capacitor?
They're supposed to be in the master socket, but maybe your install is peculiar? Do you have an NTE5 master socket, or something older?
Theo
Could you be prosecuted and/or face a claim for compensation for damage to the public telephone network?
Unlikely to actually damage the network, but Openreach would charge a chargeable repair to your phone/ISP who would then bill you.
Owain
Okay, even if it doesn't cause damage could a short circuit disrupt other lines or necessitate diagnostic work at the exchange?
charge a
No on the assumption that it is only a line shorted to itself. Multiple lines shorted to each other might up set things but unlikely to cause damage. Both would be flagged, eventually, by the automatic line testing that goes on. Multiple line faults in the same cable might prod Openreach into fixing it before any faults have been reported.
It won't disrupt other lines, since POTS is circuit switched - you have a dedicated line to the cabinet line card. There are typically current limiting resistors in the -48 to 0V battery circuit to protect the supply from shorted lines (which will be a common line fault).
It won't damage the public network. Also depending on how the OP's wiring is done the extension socket would usually count as the subscriber owned part of the installation - i.e. its after the master socket rather than before.
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