Testing Telephone Cable

It is never good practice to put data or telephone cables in the same duct or trunk as power cables. Neither should be in a duct with heating pipes.

Peter Crosland

It will either work or it won't, by and large.

And you probably have several wires spare, some of which may work..as well.

Unless there is good reason to relay NOW, leave it..

On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:40:28 -0000 someone who may be "TheScullster" wrote this:-

Test it for continuity using a battery powered DC meter. If such cables are unbroken then they will generally carry a signal. Test all the pairs and if they are all sound and you have problems sending the ADSL signal over one pair try another pair.

The Natural Philosopher typed

True, but it may work partially, like being fine for broadband and outgoing calls, but not ringing properly for incoming calls (BTDT) and possibly not then actuating an answering machine.

Connect up a phone to your suspect cable. Try to make an outgoing call, try it for BB if you can and check it all rings if you phone it from another line (mobile recommended).

I think the BT website has some other line-testing things but I'm not sure if non BT customers can use them.

If there's any slack, cut and rejoin the melted bit with a proper phone junction box.

Owain

Depends what phone you use for the test, so far as checking the ringing is concerned. Many phones now connect to only two wires (2 & 5, which should be Blue pair, conventionally), and split the ringing signal internally. Other phones use three wires (2 & 5, plus 3 - Orange pair), using the ring signal that has been split to the third wire at the Network Termination Equipment (usually referred to as a 'linebox' or master socket).

If wire 3 has been damaged a 'two-wire' phone won't detect the fault.

In message , Helen Deborah Vecht writes