Burgled - cables cut

El Nick

Around six months ago our house was burgled while we were out at work. Last night our neighbour caught someone attempting to burgle us again, again while we were out at work. In both cases our phone line and UPC lines were pulled - I can only suspect because we have an Eircom Phonewatch alarm and the burglars figured they'd be able to stop it raising the alarm that way.

Both cables are the sort that are hidden behind a little plastic door built into our porch area - easily able to be prised open with a knife and thirty seconds' effort.

My question is - what do people do to prevent this? Drill a hole and padlock the door shut? Is there some better door available? What's stopping someone from cutting your cables at home?

Moonbeam

That is terrible:(
Is there not a fail safe on the alarm that if it is tampered with it goes off?

the_syco

El Nick wrote: »

I can only suspect because we have an Eircom Phonewatch alarm and the burglars figured they'd be able to stop it raising the alarm that way.

Use an alarm with a phone sim card inside it, that doesn't depend on wires to ring home?

El Nick

Moonbeam wrote: »

That is terrible:(
Is there not a fail safe on the alarm that if it is tampered with it goes off?

Yes, and we've been lucky - second time the burglars were scared off. First time we had hardly anything go missing. But that's not the point - surely there must be some "best practice" way of preventing this (rather than just pouring "no more nails" into the box and sealing it shut.)

SpaceTime

I quite honestly do not understand what the purpose of those external boxes is. There's nothing in them.

I mean, I can understand why the ESB or Bord Gais needs them i.e. to house a meter, but what exactly do eircom or UPC need little cabinets for?

It seems like overkill to me.

You could affix some kind of metal bar across the box I suppose and just paint it as there's no particular reason that eircom would ever need access to this empty box.

Older houses do not have these at all. The line just enters the house somewhere.

You'd swear they were trying to design a new burgler-friendly system!

KERSPLAT!

I always thought that if an alarm panel lost its phone connection it'd go off. I'd first ring Eircom and see what they say, they I'd go with the padlock, though if it's the door I'm thinking off, all they'd need is a hammer since it's plastic.

Also I think there's an alarms/home security forum, maybe try there, they'd know best

Tokyo

Moonbeam wrote: »

That is terrible:(
Is there not a fail safe on the alarm that if it is tampered with it goes off?

Alarm would go nuts every time the phone line went dead for repairs, during a storm, etc.

OP, I used to be an alarm tech in Australia, and really there's not much that you can do. Lock the box, and they'll just cut the cable somewhere else, or throw a cable over the phone line from the pole and bring it down. Standard practice for us when people were concerned about this was to fit a GSM interface to the alarm panel - effectively a mobile phone chip so that the alarm could contact the monitoring centre via the mobile network if the land lines were down...

KERSPLAT!

http://touch.boards.ie/forum/1366
Home security forum

Some of the lads in that forum might know best, hope you get it sorted

Tokyo

SpaceTime wrote: »

I quite honestly do not understand what the purpose of those external boxes is. There's nothing in them.

I mean, I can understand why the ESB or Bord Gais needs them i.e. to house a meter, but what exactly do eircom or UPC need little cabinets for?

It seems like overkill to me.

In Australia, and I assume it the same here, it's an endpoint to run cables to, particularly in the day of phone plus broadband, plus possibly fibre-to-the-home in the future etc. Also makes it easier to run cables in advance on new builds - phone company run their lines to this box, rest of house gets built, and the family moving in can install whatever they want afterwards.

While I agree that they could be more secure, I'd argue that it's probably easier to disable the phone line in an older house, where the cable was probably run down the wall and in through a window frame. One snip with a set of cutters while walking by, and the homeowner would be a long time figuring out what was wrong....

KERSPLAT!

mike_ie wrote: »

In Australia, and I assume it the same here, it's an endpoint to run cables to, particularly in the day of phone plus broadband, plus possibly fibre-to-the-home in the future etc. Also makes it easier to run cables in advance on new builds - phone company run their lines to this box, rest of house gets built, and the family moving in can install whatever they want afterwards.

Exactly, Eircom/UPC runs cables to the box and when the house is being built the sparks runs all the internal phone/catV cables to the same point. When the build is finished and the tenants/owners pick a service provider they do the connection.

Tokyo

OP, considering that you've had two attempts on your home in a short period of time, I'd recommend a mobile phone module for the alarm system - call eircom and plenty of signage in the form of stickers in the window to show that it's wirelessly monitored. You're never going to stop a determined thief, the goal is to make the house next door look like an easier target than yours, sad but true.

the_syco

the_syco wrote: »

Use an alarm with a phone sim card inside it, that doesn't depend on wires to ring home?

Page 15; http://www.phonewatch.ie/system/files/3/original/sales-brochure.pdf

GSM unit
If you don't have a landline or have changed to a digital phone line e.g. cable or
fibre - you can get a GSM unit installed so that we can still monitor your alarm
system over the mobile phone network.

This way, there are no wires to cut to disable the alarm, and if broken into you'll be notified without the thieves knowing.

tricky D

Trouble with the GSM solutions is that some savvy thieves now use some sort of jamming devices. My sister was done last year by this method.

SpaceTime

mike_ie wrote: »

In Australia, and I assume it the same here, it's an endpoint to run cables to, particularly in the day of phone plus broadband, plus possibly fibre-to-the-home in the future etc. Also makes it easier to run cables in advance on new builds - phone company run their lines to this box, rest of house gets built, and the family moving in can install whatever they want afterwards.

While I agree that they could be more secure, I'd argue that it's probably easier to disable the phone line in an older house, where the cable was probably run down the wall and in through a window frame. One snip with a set of cutters while walking by, and the homeowner would be a long time figuring out what was wrong....

That's all very well, but the actual line usually runs right through that box and terminates on the NTU (Master socket) in most installations. There's no termination unit or anything like that inside that white box in any installation that I've ever seen.

I appreciate the need for ease of wiring, but they could also look at the need for proper security. A metal box with a key and somewhere for a customer to install a padlock would make more sense as the box might be opened once in 20 or 30 years.

Tokyo

SpaceTime wrote: »

That's all very well, but the actual line usually runs right through that box and terminates on the NTU (Master socket) in most installations. There's no termination unit or anything like that inside that white box in any installation that I've ever seen.

On a basic system there wouldn't need to be any joiners - it'd be straight through. But on installations I've worked on in the past, all phone extensions in the house would run to this box, and we'd run the phone line from the alarm panel down to here on CAT-5 cable, to ensure a good signal, and to make sure that the alarm was first in the loop and couldn't be accidentally disabled by leaving a phone off the hook for example. There'd be no termination block in the box either - all of our connections were made with splice connectors.

I appreciate the need for ease of wiring, but they could also look at the need for proper security. A metal box with a key and somewhere for a customer to install a padlock would make more sense as the box might be opened once in 20 or 30 years.

I'm not arguing the rights or wrongs or disagreeing with you, I'm just trying to explain the reasoning. And honestly, any lock I've seen on these types of boxes could be opened in a few seconds with a good flat head screwdriver.

Alarm will dissuade most opportunistic thieves.
Monitored alarm will dissuade the more determined.
GSM monitored alarm will dissuade all but a few with the right equipment.
Nothing will dissuade someone who just wants to get into that house, and no other.

Of course, there's nothing to stop the OP getting an alarm tech to install a reed switch on the inside of the little plastic door and connecting it back to the alarm panel. Door opens, alarm goes off....

SpaceTime

mike_ie wrote: »

On a basic system there wouldn't need to be any joiners - it'd be straight through. But on installations I've worked on in the past, all phone extensions in the house would run to this box, and we'd run the phone line from the alarm panel down to here on CAT-5 cable, to ensure a good signal, and to make sure that the alarm was first in the loop and couldn't be accidentally disabled by leaving a phone off the hook for example. There'd be no termination block in the box either - all of our connections were made with splice connectors.

That's actually specifically forbidden in Eircom's spec!!

*ALL* customer wiring is supposed to be coming from the back of the faceplate of the NTU and nowhere else.

The NTU is the demarkation point between the eircom network and the customer wiring and there are removable resistors on the back of the faceplate that allow it to be wired for monitored alarms to allow pass through or, if there's DSL / efibre central, alarm-compatible DSL filtering/splitting.

If an e-fibre installation is done for example, all that stuff direct-connceted to the line would be removed and rewired!

The whole idea of the NTU setup is that in the event of a problem, eircom can remove the faceplate thus isolating all customer wiring from their network and test the line from the test socket behind it.
It's supposed to be the demarkation point.

The only purpose of the ETU box is to pull cables through.

Tokyo

SpaceTime wrote: »

That's actually specifically forbidden in Eircom's spec!!

*ALL* customer wiring is supposed to be coming from the back of the faceplate of the NTU and nowhere else.

Good to know - as I mentioned, my experience has been mostly overseas. However, I'd expect that to change in the next few years, seeing as these junction boxes are becoming more and more prevalent on new builds...

SpaceTime

mike_ie wrote: »

Good to know - as I mentioned, my experience has been mostly overseas. However, I'd expect that to change in the next few years, seeing as these junction boxes are becoming more and more prevalent on new builds...

Basically the NTU faceplate comes in a DSL filter version with two sockets on the front or a single socket without a DSL filter.

You can loop it through the NTU if you know how to configure them properly.

Basically the faceplate has two snippable links. Once they're removed, you connect the alarm to the IN and OUT ports which allows the alarm to seize the line and cut off all other sockets (including the phone port on the NTU itself) and any extension wiring connected to the NTU's L1/L2 extension ports.

If there's a DSL filter plate (efibre filter plate) installed, the NTU also provides alarm-friendly filtering.

So, it's all very structured and logical once you know what needs to be snipped and why.

...

Alarm installers should really 'harden' the installation though with a lock outside and difficult to remove metal trunking over any external wiring.

Tokyo

Yep, I get the idea. Usually we'd offer to install an external DSL filter outside if the homeowners had a computer (which they usually had), and make one phone point near the computer dedicated DSL, leaving the others as dedicated phone. Kept everything tidy and eliminated the need for inline filters. Also allowed for easily configuring other sockets for DSL in the future, as well as the easy addition of new phone points. Of course, timber framed houses and easy access to roof spaces (no felt, just kick back a tile) made it easier too.

I still think that eircom will start rolling this out too for new builds. It makes a lot more sense in the internet driven, phone-and-laptop-in-every-room day and age, and seems logical considering the concerted effort to install said junction boxes. Everything's in one box, the guy installing the phone hookup for the sky box isn't wondering what's been daisychained around the house, if he's going to kill the internet or the alarm system in the process, so on and so forth. Just my opinion though.

SpaceTime

I think they should really just assume that all lines will have ADSL or VDSL (Efibre) at some stage so just put in the filter faceplate by default everywhere.

Evolution1

Best way would be to add a gsm unit and put a sensor on the phone box and place a false flush back In the phone box .
Then when the thief opens the box the sensor is tripped and they have to fiddle around a bit to get the wire cut . The alarm would dial out before they get the wire cut .
Being with phonewatch wouldn't make you more prone to burglary

Victor

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Lock and alarm the porch!

tricky D wrote: »

Trouble with the GSM solutions is that some savvy thieves now use some sort of jamming devices. My sister was done last year by this method.

Not every thief will have access to that level of technology.

altor

Security plates can be installed to cover the outside box. A contact can be installed to activate if the box is tampered with. Cables can be put in the back of the box and use dummy cables so the intruder thinks he has cut the phone or UPC line. UPC would be the most vulnerable from experience as most houses have the cable going straight down the front of there house if they don't have the box. For cases like this the cable can be put in steal pipes and brought down the front of the house. Just to make it harder for a would be intruder to cut it.
Radio is the most secure form of monitoring as it takes military style equipment to block the signal.

the_syco

tricky D wrote: »

Trouble with the GSM solutions is that some savvy thieves now use some sort of jamming devices. My sister was done last year by this method.

Have cables that they can cut, and still have the GSM alarm? Wouldn't advertise that you have a GSM alarm, though, as that's just telling the thieves what tech they need to break in...

SpaceTime

mike_ie wrote: »

I still think that eircom will start rolling this out too for new builds. It makes a lot more sense in the internet driven, phone-and-laptop-in-every-room day and age, and seems logical considering the concerted effort to install said junction boxes. Everything's in one box, the guy installing the phone hookup for the sky box isn't wondering what's been daisychained around the house, if he's going to kill the internet or the alarm system in the process, so on and so forth. Just my opinion though.

AFAIK, they have required it since about 2001. That's basically what the NTU socket is.

RECI explain all on their website :

http://www.reci.ie/Portals/0/Documents/eircominterface.pdf

If ADSL or E-Fibre's installed, you swap that faceplate for a filter one. It's entirely modular.

Images of NTU with central filter here : http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66898963&postcount=1

Tokyo

SpaceTime wrote: »

AFAIK, they have required it since about 2001. That's basically what the NTU socket is.

RECI explain all on their website :

http://www.reci.ie/Portals/0/Documents/eircominterface.pdf

If ADSL or E-Fibre's installed, you swap that faceplate for a filter one. It's entirely modular.

Appreciate the link - reading it as we speak.

Question? Who has "ownership" of the box? Eircom or the homeowner? Reason I ask is that could Eircom take action if the OP bolted a metal plate over it, or put a hasp and padlock on it for example??

SpaceTime

mike_ie wrote: »

Appreciate the link - reading it as we speak.

Question? Who has "ownership" of the box? Eircom or the homeowner? Reason I ask is that could Eircom take action if the OP bolted a metal plate over it, or put a hasp and padlock on it for example??

AFAIK, the home owner owns it, but eircom are supposed to be able to access it.

Eircom technically own the NTU, but you can purchase them from wholesalers.

http://www.kedingtondirect.ie/index.php/structured-cabling/pressac-dsl-filters/pressac-adsl-centralised-filter.html

In the previous system with the beige sockets, there was no demarkation point at all. Sometimes there was a junction box but not always and wiring was either daisy chained or in a star configuration. It wasn't really designed to be intended to be worked on by anyone other than the phone company engineers.

The current system's designed for homeowners, electricians, alarm technicians and eircom really doesn't want to have to call out to anyone ever if they can avoid it.

Unlike a lot of countries, Telecom and Eircom have never been too precious about internal wiring.
The irish setup's very straight forward 2-wire phone service. Even the polarity doesn't particularly matter and there are no ringer-circuits or any of that stuff that you find in UK wiring that requires 'master' and 'slave' sockets. It's very much the same as North America.

All the new NTU does is make things a bit more structured and make life easier for alarm installations and e-fibre VDSL2 services.