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What does my main phoneline box into the house look like?

DGS99 — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 16:25:51 GMT

When we purchased our 1980's Bovis home a couple of years ago, it came with telephone extension cables running everywhere into all of the rooms. I think it was before wi-fi. We obvs don't need any of these and I would like to remove the cabling.

The one box the I can see outside of the front door has all sorts of cables coming from in. How do I know which is the main feed from BT and not one of the others? ie I don't wish to cut us off from the internet.

Re: What does my main phoneline box into the house look like?

Keith_Beddoe — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 16:38:41 GMT

@DGS99

Your master socket should look like one of these.

Re: What does my main phoneline box into the house look like?

DGS99 — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 17:27:23 GMT

Thanks but that's the one inside the house. I'm referring to the one on the outside.

I probably should have said it's the line in that I am querying rather than the box itself.

Re: What does my main phoneline box into the house look like?

Keith_Beddoe — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 17:28:23 GMT

That is very old box in a bad mess.

Its difficult to see where the wires go.

Re: What does my main phoneline box into the house look like?

Les-Gibson — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 17:54:04 GMT

Take the front plate of each of the phone sockets, one of them will (or should) be different from the others (it has a capacitor inside), this is the one not to disconnect

Re: What does my main phoneline box into the house look like?

iniltous — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 17:56:37 GMT

The grey box is a BT66, the cable that comes out of the ground will be the external line from the DP , there will be a wire from the master socket inside the property back to this BT66 and connected thru to the wires from underground ( 2 wires marked as A and B ) ....you would have to trace the wiring back from the socket internally to the BT66 and ( obviously ) leave that connected and remove all the others.

Re: What does my main phoneline box into the house look like?

DGS99 — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 18:08:53 GMT

Am I able to attend to this myself? ie Take the front off the grey box and disconnect the wires that I don't need (the black ones). The white cable to the right of the picture is the one that goes to the master socket within the house. It's not live or anything is it?

Re: What does my main phoneline box into the house look like?

imjolly — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 18:37:56 GMT

The wiring is safe and can be handled. Just leave master wiring and remove wires connected to your extension sockets