Can I remove old unused BT sockets in my house?

[steveb6]

The BT box on the outside wall of our house has 3 wires coming out of it going to sockets in different rooms in our house. We only use the socket in our living room so I want to remove the other two (wires and all) as it’s a mess.

Inside the two sockets i want to remove there are two wires connected (orange and white) and two floating free (black and green).

my question is can I do something about disconnecting the unused wires at the box outside the house (which would allow me to remove all the external rubbish as well as the unused sockets) or should i leave that box and just cutoff the wires at the two sockets and “lose” them in the wall.

sorry if this questions already been asked/answered but I couldn’t find anything.

ta Steve

[Devon_Dave]

You could remove the wiring however you would need to  make the one remaining socket a main/master. 

[iniltous]

If the three sockets were wired from the one point , rather than in series, that is ‘star’ wiring and isn’t very good from a broadband speed and faulting point of view, so removing the unnecessary wiring and sockets and only leaving one ( master ) socket may improve broadband performance as well tidying up the cabling 

[licquorice]

Odd that the 2 sockets you want to remove have external cable rather than internal cable. A few pictures of the various locations and connections would help.

[steveb6]

The external box looks like attached.

and the internal sockets like this

does that help in diagnosing? Thanks in advance.

[licquorice · Accepted solution]

It should never have been wired like that. Just remove the cables from the external box to the extension sockets you wish to remove. Make sure the remaining socket is a master socket.

[steveb6]

Thanks!

[Devon_Dave]

@licquorice Historically that is how wiring was done before NTE's came on the scene.

Even after they introduced NTE's  I remember converting a star wired instalation by putting an NTE 5B in the loft with all secondary sockets radiating out from there. 

[licquorice]

In my day it was 40lb cc wires terminated in an insulator 16 with a lead sheathed lead-in cable to a block terminal 20/4 😄