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[door_bell]

Ladies and Gents,

At what point does an inactive line get disconnected from service? After a while or when the pair might be taken for someone else possibly?

The line is a couple of years old and the NTE5 was hanging from the ceiling in a cupboard, which was very odd and needed moving.

I wish I'd taken some pictures of the drop joint to post up - they were grey scotch connectors just out in the rain, everything was green and black inside, with the copper badly corroded up the cables about 6" from the elements.

Anyhow, I never checked if it was active before I moved it (the house is/was empty and I had no phone). Put it in the new location and stuck a couple of probes on A-B and there is no voltage (AC).

Climbed back into the loft and went straight to the drop cable and there is no voltage to be found on any of the combinations of cables. It was white and blue that was connected. Even checking resistance and it's showing open circuit on all combinations.

Has it simply been taken?

(The rot and the cable that was taken out will explain why the broadband was so horrific for the people living there. I'll get the bits when I go up next if anyone is interested).

[roseway]

stuck a couple of probes on A-B and there is no voltage (AC)

Just a small pedantic point - you wouldn't expect to see AC, unless there was an incoming call. The normal supply is DC.

[Black Sheep]

Impossible to answer, I'm afraid. When a line is 'ceased' the occupant may be taking the telephone number with them to a different location within the same telephone exchange area, so the voltage will be instantly removed.

If the line was to be 'ceased' and the occupant wasn't taking the telephone number with them, then the voltage (dial tone) remains applied but in a 'Stopped' or Temporarily Out of Service (TOS) state. This stops the circuit from being misused and won't allow incoming or outgoing calls to be made.

But you are quite right, the 'pair' may have been used to re-provision another EU at some point ?.

PS ........ Eric is quite right and far from pedantic .......... your multi-meter needs to be set to DCv as nominal working voltage is -50Vdc (or thereabouts).

[door_bell]

Thanks Gents,

I did try DC too, but same result - nothing was there, even at the drop wire.

It was a rental and I'm quite sure they just cancelled it and left - there was nowhere for them to transfer the line too, as they ended up moving quite some distance into a bedroom of a relative.

It's all wired up again and everything checks out internally at least, so I guess whoever buys it would need some work doing to reinstate the line 

Thanks for the answers 

[aesmith]

If the line was to be 'ceased' and the occupant wasn't taking the telephone number with them, then the voltage (dial tone) remains applied but in a 'Stopped' or Temporarily Out of Service (TOS) state. This stops the circuit from being misused and won't allow incoming or outgoing calls to be made.

Out of interest can a stopped line call 17070?

[Black Sheep]

Yes.