Old Cable And Wireless Socket

edz

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Hi All

I recently moved and have Virgin Fibre access, all working ok. As part of the various jobs I'm doing I want to remove a god-awful looking cable that's tacked to the sophets and drops haphazardly to the kitchen wall and through. In there is an old cable and wireless branded socket which I think is a master socket to whatever service it was connected to (its presently behind a fridge so I haven't had the fascia panel off yet but I'm guessing from the split appearance its going to have a ring capacitor in it), I'm guessing, based on a former life as a BT tech, this comes from a split pipe that emerges around the front and has one co-ax cable (which gets connected into the cable that enters to the virgin cable connector in the front room) and one cat3 looking cable that has a join that vanishes up around next doors access. We don't use BT or Virgin for phone line as we have multiple mobile providers and use business Skype for work.

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So can this just be removed and terminated?

I know the deal with BT master sockets, this isn't that as its separate and not in use but not troublesome, but does this cable have to do with the old pre-voip virgin POTS lines and is it still needed/a problem if I remove the socket and isolate / terminate the cable back into the eaves?

I don't want to interfere with any back end signals that may then impact my cable connection but the dropped cable at the back of the house is a real mess.


Thanks

Edz
 

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Looking at the state of that wiring, I think I would remove it and cap it back as early as possible.

I can't see how it would affect the cable service, as it will be broken out at the cabinet.
 
Many thanks, yes its a shocking job I'm tidying all the external wiring then will re-secure that external box and put a hard cable guard around the ground conduit.

Ta
 
Walking around our estate just now I spotted a Virgin cable "install" that consisted of a drilled out pavement plate, a wire leading out and under a hedge and then along a length of split tubing to a badly drilled hole in the side of the house! If this had been my home, they would have not have had it signed off and would have been having another go at doing the job properly!
 
What's more worrying is the one in my kitchen has got a cable and wireless phone socket on it from God knows when and you saw that today, doesn't seem they are getting better then! When I worked for BT it had to be approved by the customer and they had 7 days to complain about any damage or mess left and boy would you catch hell if they did!
 
And the old socket has been removed, cables removed from the back (I've since taken those clips out as well) and untangled from the sophets and the kitchen socket blanked pending it being removed (and the power socket being changed) when we redecorate.

Had to stop there as the weather wasn't going to let me sort the front box today but its next on the cards and will be de-insected, cleaned and then closed and weatherproofed!
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Holy resurrected thread Batman.

Finally got round to tidying the box out the front after removing the old wiring and cabling. In the meantime BT had been in the area and replaced the telegraph pole outside. In the process they removed the old cable to the house (we don't have a BT landline - just the Virgin cable) so that was also redundant.

So to recap, after I'd removed the old box in the kitchen and the cable to it I was left with this:

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Not only that but it was initially full of spiders and snails as the box was bust at the top, had no mechanism to keep it closed and the coax connector was loose causing sporadic drops from 380+ to 8mb or below. First thing to do was remove those old joins to the cable that ran around the house to the kitchen phone socket:

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Disconnected sealed and then taped over those old cables, ensured the coax had a good tight connection and waterproofed the connection ready to close up the box (after repairing and removing any wildlife)

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Finally ensured the box was true on the wall and closed it with a zip tie through the lock point to keep it in place

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Those with a keen eye will see that (A) there's a cable coming out of the wall now cut back but not going anywhere, that's the old BT socket which I'll remove the cable for and cap back in the summer and (B) there's a bit of old cable going around the house and a few cable clips. The clips I need some mole grips to get out as they're so embedded and the cable is actually running around next doors drive, I'll wait until Coronavirus restrictions are lifted before I bother them to remove that last run.

All the old BT cabling, an old coax aerial cable that - literally - went nowhere and any redundant cable and wireless cables are now removed. That old grey box is also totally redundant belonging to an old cable provider but it goes nowhere and does nothing so when the front garden is landscaped I may remove it but for now its fine.

Likewise the split pipe will be properly anchored to the wall and landscaped to look less like a hose jammed into the front garden.

Cheers all.
 
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