New fibre installation has left existing home wiring disconnected and nonfunctioning

[vidjam2023]

Hi,

my Mum is an extremely keen Internet user with a house full of modern electronica, and recently upgraded to BT fibre-to-the-premises.  She now has a modern Smart Hub 2 with a wifi disc to boost connectivity etc, and all that stuff is working fine. BT sells the upgrade as supporting legacy telephony devices and of course there's a socket on the back of the Hub to plug in existing cordless phones, answerphones etc. My Mum is very BT-loyal, only has BT-branded equipment, and has only ever engaged BT engineers to supply and fit hardware, sockets and wiring around the house. When I went to visit her last week I was really surprised at the fact that the engineer visit last month had left most of her existing BT-supplied existing infrastructure functional. By which I mean:

- New internal wiring for fibre connection was placed in a different room from old Openreach master socket, which weirdly *still has a dialtone* but which cannot be used to make calls (the familiar rising three-tone audio signal is played)

- existing telephone sockets in kitchen (where phone is wallmounted), and bedrooms, are still hardwired to master socket and therefore not connected to new hub.

This seems to me like a ridiculously non-joined-up approach by BT. I'd absolutely have expected them to dismantle/remove the Openreach box and rewire the existing house cabling to a single BS6312 plug that could be plugged into the Smart Hub 2.

So my questions are: does this sound like an obvious omission by BT, or are they at liberty to bin off the existing interior BT wiring when upgrading the connection to the premises? Or does this seem like the installation engineer was trying to get away with the bare minimum on the job? Should we stamp our feet and get BT to send someone out to rectify what seems to me like a clear omission on their part?

Many thanks!

vidjam2023

[Keith_Beddoe]

@vidjam2023 

Welcome to this user forum for BT Retail phone and broadband customers.

It would be Openreach that did the installation. They would not alter or remove any internal wiring, as that is the responsibility of the customer.

The external copper network would eventually stop working.

[imjolly]

the existing cabling in your mother's home after the master socket is responsibility of the home owner hence why the openreach installer only installed the new fibre connection then connected SH2 and ensured it was connecting to internet and working.  it is possible to make some changes to the phone wiring to enable the sockets again which is covered in posts already on the forum but is up to you.  it is not included in the new fibre install

[vidjam2023]

Thank you Keith and Imjolly - speed of replies greatly appreciated. I'll review other posts to see what people in the same boat have done, how much it cost, what the outcome was etc. Fingers crossed I'll find a straightforward and economical solution. (But it stills seem a bit shortsighted that they literally installed the new equipment in a different room from the one containing the existing master socket.)

[iniltous]

In most cases , fitting the ONT near the existing master socket would be ( from the installer point of view ) the easiest thing to do , but there are some considerations, the ONT needs power , and if the router is to be sited roughly in the same location that also needs power ( so two power outlets required ) if there isn’t power outlets near the NTE , the householder can supply a temporary solution, like an extension lead , and provide  a permanent solution later ,  but otherwise the installer and householder will  jointly decide on a different position, so in this  case , presumably your mother agreed to the location of the ONT, possibly based on being near existing  ‘power’ sockets , and this agreed location unfortunately doesn’t afford easy integration with the existing extension socket wiring.

Neither BT or Openreach are responsible for someone’s internal wiring and sockets , even if they were fitted by BT or OR in the past ( no rental is paid on them, and  it/they are only warranted  for 1 year ( and only then  if it’s  ‘official’ and fitted by BT/OR  on the clock , not a personal arrangement with an engineer  )  then it becomes the householder responsibility, hooking them up to the phone port on the router isn’t really the FTTP installers job , but most would incorporate it , if it were reasonably  ‘do-able’ ,  if the ONT and NTE were close by, and the existing extension wiring originated from the NTE consumer panel , not every install would be like this.

If the ONT isn’t located near the NTE , then interconnection with the existing internal wiring , if it’s still required, is the householders  responsibility, but obviously should be part of the rationale when choosing the ONT location.

Soft Dialtone on the now redundant copper pair is temporary, and is an irrelevance really.

Obviously we can only speculate as to the conversation between the installer and your mother , but if the fact the existing sockets wouldn’t work was discussed, and the installation still went ahead with the agreed ONT location , then there is no reason why this would be revisited, especially if the installer said the ONT could be located near the NTE if the householder provided power ( even a temporary supply ) but that was rejected because no power was available and no temporary solution could be provided either 

[rbz5416]

Openreach apparently do offer a "Premium" installation, which includes reconfiguration of existing extensions to the Hub. I guess this costs more than BT are willing to pay, so you get get what your Mum got.

The master socket is no longer relevant & just needs the redundant incoming wiring disconnected. The Hub just then needs connecting to any one of the extensions. Shouldn't be too hard to find someone locally to add any necessary wiring & disconnect the incoming line.

[Starman]

As another potential help - If your mum recently had FTTP installed it assumes she has been transferred onto Digital Voice by utilising the telephone socket on the back.

She should be able to contact support and request for free either a Digital Voice Adapter that will plug into a power socket and the SH then at the other end allow a wired or wireless base station to connect and offer telephone or she can request Essential Digital Home Phone (up to 2 handsets) that use DECT to wirelessly connect to the SB. These were offered for free when I signed up and I believe are for any DV users. This will negate the need to use any of historic internal copper wiring.

The only thing is that during an power outage 999 calls will not work but unless alterative arrangements are made neither will the FTTP ONT or router.

[peterh0001]

According to the Openreach site a Premium install includes VRI (Voice Reintegration) which allows reuse of the existing wiring which is particularly useful in larger properties as BT's.

DECT solution has only limited range and will not work with DECT extenders.

Does anyone know if it is possible to pay for a Premium install via BT (since the consumer cannot order direct from OR)

Peter

[vidjam2023 · Accepted solution]

Thank you all for very informative replies. I'll either get a couple of the voice-adapters sorted out, or we'll get someone in to perform the voice-reintegration step that Mum didn't have offered to her by BT. The kindly and prompt support you've all shown us here is greatly appreciated!

[rbz5416]

@vidjam2023 

All you need to do is pop the front off the master socket & disconnect the incoming wiring from the A/B terminals. Then connect one of the sockets to the SH2 with a male to male BT431 cable: