2 lines from telegraph pole will they ever be needed if I go back to BT/Sky?

[mda99das]

There are two physical cables coming from the telegraph pole to my house, and they have been there since at least 1990.

I had VDSL broadband by sky and also had a separate BT landline.

The voice aspect of the VDSL line was never used. In hindsight I should have got rid of this a long time ago when alarms didn't need to use a phone line.

I wanted faster internet as FTTP is not available and there is a projected date of 2026, so I had to move to Virgin.

I cancelled my sky contract directly with sky, and told BT my intention that I wanted to port my number to Virgin.

My Sky contract was terminated on 5th july, however the broadband still actually worked until the 7th July but the sky TV did cease for the paid channels on the 5th July.

my question is

1) Did sky instruct BT to physically remove my connection from the BT cabinet ? There is no voltage on the line , and a landline does not work on it.

2) As virgin do VOIP, I had to remove the incoming old wire. In this case this is not telephone cable but looks like heavy duty speaker twin cable with copper strands. The VM engineer gave me a roll of telephone cable so that I could remove the "speaker Cable" and wire in the newer cable that connects to the phone socket on my router.

I have not tested this wire as its in the basement, but is it likely to be dead as well?

Do these former lines terminate in the same green cabinet?

I really want FTTP.  Most of VM network  uses hybrid version fibre to the cabinet, and the last bit is done on coax, and the upload speeds are much slower than download. They use DOCSIS, but I am getting conflicting info about them switching to full fibre as their modems use coax as do their STB. Open reach use OTN which have an RJ45 port which you can connect to your router, but those that have Virgin FTTP their OTN has  coax coming out the end to feed their router / STB etc.

I am thinking ahead, and VM have given me a cracking deal, but this will only last for 18 months, so I may have to switch again. I have no complaints with VM at the moment.

Worst case scenario I will have to go back to VDSL. Would I have to pay for a line or need a BT / OR engineer to visit my place?

Also in the cabinet, how do they know which pair is which, as one terminates in the loft and the other in the basement, and I will need the loft line as that what was there before and fed into my sky router.

I would want to keep my current landline number as well, and add the wire from the splitter so that it feeds the rest of the phone sockets in the house.

Many thanks

[Keith_Beddoe]

@mda99das 

Are you actually a BT Retail Broadband Customer, or have you just placed an order with BT Retail?

The porting of your number from Sky to Virgin, would have nothing to do with BT Retail.

Your Sky line would have been disconnected by Openreach, not BT Retail.

[iniltous]

Sky cannot and do not instruct BT to do anything , both Sky and BT are company’s that use Openreach as a supplier  , BT and Openreach are not the same entity .

Your connections in the Openreach cabinet are not touched simply because you have cancelled your service , however they can be used for other ‘OR’ customers should that be needed , the lack of any voltage simply means the circuit is ceased rather than stopped , and should you ever reinstate the service it’s likely that whatever Telecommunication Company ( Telco )  you used would raise a ‘new line’ order rather than a ‘start’  order , this is irrelevant to you , you ask for service , they liaise with OR , but some Telcos charge consumers more than others for a new line, and more for a new line order than a start order.

If it’s only when OR FTTP becomes available you would use an Openreach based provider again , then it’s a moot point as FTTP doesn’t use copper pairs or cabinets , however if you did reinstate FTTC , then its really a 50/50 chance that the ( from your point of view ) correct socket would be made ‘live’ , obviously if the installer visits and the incorrect socket is ‘live’ you can point this out , but its most likely that the old records for your old address would be used and the service made live remotely and you would simply receive a ‘text’ saying your service is now live , without an actual engineer visit , if it turned out the ‘wrong’ line had been made live you would have to raise a fault report, this assumes that your connection in the OR cabinets hasn’t been altered since the last time you were receiving OR service.

As far as VM giving you ‘cable’ , and requiring you to do some ‘work’ , you ( and VM ) should not be touching Openreach equipment, if you have extension wiring and sockets that’s your property , but the cable from outside to each of the OR master sockets ( as well as the master sockets themselves) remain OR property and VM should not be asking you to touch them….it’s unlikely but possible that if you mess around with them it could affect any subsequent attempt to restore service over the OR copper pair network

[mda99das]

@Keith_Beddoe 

No this is me planning ahead. These days loyalty is no longer rewarded, and I cant see VM offering the same deal. Also OR may scale back on operation due to rising inflation, so FTTP may be pushed back. I have 16 months from now until my contract with VM expires.
Apologies I keep getting OR and BT confused.

[mda99das]

@iniltous These days its very hard to find people to do the job the way it ought to be done. These engineers are on a time schedule, they are not going to start laying cables from the loft to a basement just so that I can get my landline.

They will just plug a phone into the router and if it works their job is done.

I have had to take charge and run the cable myself or my phone sockets wouldn't work.

Also my sky router was directly wired to the master socket since 2003 and never had any issues, again I did that wiring myself.

Its very very rare you get people doing things the way it should be done. That is just my experience.