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[PhilipD]

Hi

Moved to a new house which previously had Virgin.  The house has around 5 telephone extensions in various rooms wired somehow from the BT master socket.  Next to the BT master socket is another master socket with Virgin on it, and a black wire runs from the bottom of the Virgin box into the BT master socket.  There is no BT line activated yet.

It looks to me as though the Virgin telephone has been wired into the BT master socket in order to wire in all the extensions running from behind it to the outside wall that then run around the house in various directions.

I plan to remove all these extensions (and just have a DECT phone) and then FTTC. 

Is this a common practice?  Seems a bit odd, and potentially the Virgin telephone connection travels back towards the BT exchange, which I can't imagine BT would be happy about.  When BT activate the line, that will then run back towards Virgin media, unless they disconnect it first.

Openreach are booked to install a new phone line and activate FTTC at the same time, so presumably they will sort this out and not cause much fuss over it given it was how we found it?

Regards

Phil

[burakkucat]

I would not be too concerned about the current wiring configuration. You might find, if you investigate a little further, that the Openreach line is disconnected and coiled up at the back of the backing box. The black cable you have observed linking both physical master sockets may have just been installed to link the extension sockets to the Virgin master socket.

Just go ahead and remove all the extension sockets, as per your plan. As for the Virgin master socket, you might as well also remove that . . . coil up the wires at the back of the backing box and fit a blanking plate to the front.

From your description, there does not appear to be anything to which Openreach would object.

[Black Sheep]

^^^^ is absolutely correct. It is an unwritten rule that we and VM will either use the same back-box and just change the front-plate for the branded one in use ........... or if there are two separate back-boxes, a simple link-wire is put in to 'pick up' the existing extension wires.

There are cruel sods out there on both sides, that will cut the others 'feed wire' right back so it has to be totally re-run in order to reconnect it. 

[PhilipD]

Hi

Thanks for the replies and reassurance it isn't anything too unusual, I will await the appointment with BT Openreach to reconnect the telephone line.

Regards

Phil

[PhilipD]

Hi

The appointment is next week to enable the phoneline and VDSL so today I took the bottom half of the BT master socket off to remove the extension wiring, only to find everything is wired in behind the master socket and not in the customer isolating part, so left it as it was!

I'm paying for a new line so I guess any undoing of dodgy wiring is covered.

Regards

Phil

[burakkucat]

I'm paying for a new line so I guess any undoing of dodgy wiring is covered.

Yes, indeed.   

Even after reading your latest update, I suspect that there is nothing "wrong" about the current wiring.