Old external cable

[robmarmon]

Hi everyone, first ever posting on any forum so please forgive any errors.

I have had installed BT infinity and had problems with speed and freezing. I have to re-boot the modem and the Vision box every few days. A friend fo mine in the know pointed out that I have a very old black cable going into an old round black box. He told me that the Openreach engineer should have checked that this was up to date. All the other houses in my road have a newer style flat grey box with white cable.Could this be responsible for my problems?

Many thanks

[lines_man]

Difficult to tell by your description as most cables are black as standard....

Can you take some pics and upload them?

[robmarmon]

Having trouble uploading pictures.Any help?

[imjolly]

if you click on your name then on right side my images then your should be able to upload the images.  then when you post select the 'view' in toolbar and then you slect your images and then that should appear in your post

[robmarmon]

I,ve tried that but all I get is image too large. This is at the edge of my computer know-how! I can't reduce the size. Again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

[robmarmon]

Hope these are ok. One with cover on and one with it off. Could this be a problem?

[lines_man]

I can't see anything in that picture, do you have a more powerful camera?

[Havnalaff]

@robmarmon, does your 'old black cable' have just two wires in it? If it does, then those two cables will very probably be single solid copper wires, with a paper insulation between them. If this is the case, then that cable may well be causing problems with your supply of phone and broadband.

[lines_man]

They don't and have never used paper insulated cabling in D-Side cables because the ducting is not pressurised....

Only E-Side cabling is....

[lines_man]

From what I can see in that picture is the Block Terminal is an old BT18, or as Engineers/Techs call it, The Pork Pie. It used screw terminals originally but I can see in that pic the cables are now crimped together with petroleum jelly filled crimps.

Depending when the underground feed cable was put in its more than likely 0.5 copper or aluminium.

It's difficult to say what the lead in cable is because the picture looks like it was taken on an old Polaroid in the dark and under water....