Recycling copper wire from the telegraph pole to the home after FFTTP installation

[Woolwell]

We have been moved over to full fibre to the premises. The Openreach engineer told us to get the "BT recycling team" to take away the now redundant copper wire from the telegraph pole to the house. The only recycling option offered on the number he gave us was for recycling old routers and in-home equipment.

I assume the wire (and the copper it contains) belongs to BT, and if not the pole must be BT property. So I don't imagine I have the right to send someone up the pole to detach the wire and remove it for me, nor would I want to bear the risk of disconnecting someone else's service.

The closest I have got is an online form https://openreach.my.salesforcesites.com/form/?NRV. However, this requires a job number beginning IS... and  even BT couldn't find that for me.

Has anyone had success getting old wires removed?

[pippincp]

BT wouldn't be able to touch the wire either, it blongs to Openreach.

[Kimberlin]

What you’ve been told by an Openreach engineer sounds utterly absurd. They shouldn’t even be getting a domestic customer involved in the logistics of removing redundant copper wire from a pole owned either by them or BT. It’s down to them to sort out. To be honest, if the wire that is still there isn’t affecting your everyday life and wellbeing, I’d just forget about it. Life’s too short.

[iniltous]

Who is your ISP ? , unless it’s  BT this has nothing to do with BT , and to a great extent even if BT are your ISP it was Openreach or an Openreach contractor that installed your FTTP service and for whatever reason didn’t also remove the copper dropwire.

Usually if the FTTP service is from the same telegraph pole and connects to your property using the existing bracket on your house  , the old copper dropwire is removed as part of the FTTP installation, …if it’s not , presumably there was a reason for that , as far as I know there is no ‘follow up’ recycling team removing them…..anecdotally some seem to get the copper wire removed ( if it were not removed as part of the installation) by complaining, that is normally via your ISP , so as originally asked , who is your ISP ?

[grahamm1]

I have two old copper telecom cables from a nearby pole to my house (one is a redundant telephone line the other an old fax line). When I had full fibre fitted I asked if they would take away the old redundant copper and they said "No".
I later asked Openreach if they could come and remove the redundant cables as they were unsightly and they again refused. They say that they will remove them only if they are damaged or become a nuisance.

I read somewhere that Openreach are due to implement a project whereby redundant copper cables are removed for recycling but it is a low priority project. The article suggested that Openreach did not have the resources and were likely to farm the job out to subcontractors.

[Woolwell]

@iniltous Thanks. BT is our ISP.

[iniltous]

The ‘old copper cables’ that can be recovered once no longer in use ( and recycled as the copper content is of value )  , are the large capacity copper cables running between exchange buildings and to some extent cables to cabinets from exchanges , that’s why when cable thefts take place hundreds if not thousands of customers can be affected, these cables are valuable to thieves because of the ‘price’ of copper ….there is no value (relatively speaking) in the very small cable that connects a house to a pole …..cables like this are  not what the copper cable recovery program is about , it would cost more to recover a small cable than the value of the copper within it .

[Woolwell]

@Kimberlin Thanks. The underlying issue is we would like to remove the wiring affixed to the front of the house. I feel we should be entitled to do that but we we cut the wrong bit the wire is going to be dangling from the telegraph post.

[Woolwell]

@grahamm1 Snap - we also have an old fax line as well as the now redundant landline! Disappointing news - isn't copper supposed to be valuable?

[Woolwell]

@iniltous Ah - so not as valuable as I had hoped.