Locating Cut Phone Line in House

paddylonglegs

Hi Folks,

i'm not sure if this suited to here or the Electrics section. I have gone as far as I can with this so hopefully somebody with some experience might be able to give me some advice.

We have just moved into a house with a phone line to it and want to get broadband in. However the last owners had the land line disconnected a number of years ago as they never used it. While this was being done, the person doing the work literally snipped the phone cable coming into the house and removed it. While the POS technician was looking for the phone line in the attic, all he could find was 12ft of a snipped cable that had lead to the eve of the house, nothing else. He couldn't find where the cable came into the house.

I spent the evening crawling down the eves of the house looking to see if I could find some evidence of existing line coming into the house with no joy.

I know that every house is different and every builder has different ways of doing things but I was hoping that somebody with some experience might have some advice on how else I could find the connection into the house, somewhere I could search or something that would give me a clue. The houses each side of us have a small box on the wall leading into the house however ours doesn't. One technician wanted to put a new line into the house but a second technician has come back saying it will be too expensive for the service provider.

Its just unfortunate that someone decided to remove the cable not thinking that it could be reactivated in the future, it doesn't make sense. Fibre has just been installed in the area and we were looking forward to getting a decent connection (first world problem, I know).

Thanks all

ED E

Do the cables come in aerially from a pole yeah? Or are the boxes (ETUs) down at ground level?

Probably best to run Cat5 up to an external termination yourself then get eircom back out to connect that to their drop. They cant refuse that under the USO.

swoofer

when eircom do an install they have to use an NTU ie a networking terminating unit, and as you have found out its a box, eircom use a heavy duty cable, usually blAck to bring the line from the cabinet to each house. The NTU can be placed in a cavity and then cable into run up the cavity to loft but they can also drill a hole from NTU through the wall and have the internal box situated in hallway. You don't say how old the houses are and why anyone would cut a cable to disconnect a telephone is beyond me!! Are there any existing telephone points in the house? Also if you know the other people well have a look at the boxes and see how the cables run, its quite possible the cable leads to a manhole location and that can be checked.

An eircom guy should be able to trace a cable in minutes. And if there is no cable its a new install ie about 150 euro but they may want you to take out a 12 month contract. And if there is fibre then a cabinet should be nearby for your house. Ask the neighbours. The box may be painted over as well. Or if you have phone sockets the live cable may be in one of them!!

paddylonglegs

Thanks for the replies, I have a bit more of an understanding of it now and hopefully something to come back with when they contact me again

ED E wrote: »

Do the cables come in aerially from a pole yeah? Or are the boxes (ETUs) down at ground level?

Probably best to run Cat5 up to an external termination yourself then get eircom back out to connect that to their drop. They cant refuse that under the USO.

There wasn't any mention of it coming down from a pole, I believe its at ground level.

swoofer wrote: »

when eircom do an install they have to use an NTU ie a networking terminating unit, and as you have found out its a box, eircom use a heavy duty cable, usually blAck to bring the line from the cabinet to each house. The NTU can be placed in a cavity and then cable into run up the cavity to loft but they can also drill a hole from NTU through the wall and have the internal box situated in hallway. You don't say how old the houses are and why anyone would cut a cable to disconnect a telephone is beyond me!! Are there any existing telephone points in the house? Also if you know the other people well have a look at the boxes and see how the cables run, its quite possible the cable leads to a manhole location and that can be checked.

An eircom guy should be able to trace a cable in minutes. And if there is no cable its a new install ie about 150 euro but they may want you to take out a 12 month contract. And if there is fibre then a cabinet should be nearby for your house. Ask the neighbours. The box may be painted over as well. Or if you have phone sockets the live cable may be in one of them!!

Thanks for the reply. Yes I also agree cutting a cable is madness, thats as much as I know though.

I have already signed up for a 12 month contract, but the install is causing the hassle.

The house is 15 years old, there are phone sockets in three of the rooms. There isn't a box for phone line on the side of the house, but both neightbours have them, i will check with neighbour to see where lines are going. If there is a man hole location, I'm hoping it hasnt been paved over.

So what I'm gathering is, there needs to be an NTU box/manhole outside for technicians to service anyway. if they can't find the cable going into the house they can take a new line from the NTU and feed it through the wall?

ED E

My guess is your line comes up a duct directly to the hallway inside the front door, but its been built/plastered over and is now hidden. They could try and snake it from the manhole at the path outside, but if its obstructed and disconnected it means digging up the drive, at that point they could claim its over the financial limit of where they mark it as unfeasible.

Bog Standard User

paddylonglegs wrote: »

Hi Folks,

i'm not sure if this suited to here or the Electrics section. I have gone as far as I can with this so hopefully somebody with some experience might be able to give me some advice.

We have just moved into a house with a phone line to it and want to get broadband in. However the last owners had the land line disconnected a number of years ago as they never used it. While this was being done, the person doing the work literally snipped the phone cable coming into the house and removed it. While the POS technician was looking for the phone line in the attic, all he could find was 12ft of a snipped cable that had lead to the eve of the house, nothing else. He couldn't find where the cable came into the house.

I spent the evening crawling down the eves of the house looking to see if I could find some evidence of existing line coming into the house with no joy.

I know that every house is different and every builder has different ways of doing things but I was hoping that somebody with some experience might have some advice on how else I could find the connection into the house, somewhere I could search or something that would give me a clue. The houses each side of us have a small box on the wall leading into the house however ours doesn't. One technician wanted to put a new line into the house but a second technician has come back saying it will be too expensive for the service provider.

Its just unfortunate that someone decided to remove the cable not thinking that it could be reactivated in the future, it doesn't make sense. Fibre has just been installed in the area and we were looking forward to getting a decent connection (first world problem, I know).

Thanks all

the tech should have run a new drop wire from the drop point outside your house into your house bypassing the snipped line

if the wire goes underground you may have to dig a trench from the house through the garden to the foot path outside your house where the eircom manhole is. if the trench is dug eircom will run a new line in then you just fill in the trench when the new line is installed. a 2 inch pipe running along the trench will give you plenty of room to feed the new line through. dig the trench at least a foot deep

sparky63

They have the Universal Service Obligation, they are required to provide you with a line. The link below will explain it.
https://www.comreg.ie/consumer_initiatives/universal_service_obligation.590.html

As for digging up your drive. They use a contractor KNN who can mole under your drive with very little disturbance to your property, no drive to be dug up.

The financial limit as referred to earlier, is 7000 euro, you'd want to be one hell of a distance to the nearest Eircom pole or underground box to exceed that.

Eircom have to provide the line and incur the cost up to 7000 euro. The maximum you pay is the installation fee.

However they have discretion on how the line is to be brought in, can be overhead or underground in a pipe.

I wouldn't bother trying to find the old line, its probably buried under the floor.
The contractor wont be interested in finding any existing pipe under your drive, easier to just mole in a new one.

If your line was originally fed by overhead dropwire to the eve of your house, the tech would've just ran a new one and drilled in through the wall then fitted an NTU. So i'm guessing from the limited info that its underground.

Having said all that, there is some instances where its just not possible to get a line into your property, small percentage but it does happen.

In relation to running cat5 cable to an external position. Three things to bear in mind.
Do you need to do this.
If so, will they be able to get to the point where you leave it.
Make sure its external cable outside, ie weatherproof.

Bog Standard User

sparky63 wrote: »

They have the Universal Service Obligation, they are required to provide you with a line. The link below will explain it.
https://www.comreg.ie/consumer_initiatives/universal_service_obligation.590.html

As for digging up your drive. They use a contractor KNN who can mole under your drive with very little disturbance to your property, no drive to be dug up.

The financial limit as referred to earlier, is 7000 euro, you'd want to be one hell of a distance to the nearest Eircom pole or underground box to exceed that.

Eircom have to provide the line and incur the cost up to 7000 euro. The maximum you pay is the installation fee.

However they have discretion on how the line is to be brought in, can be overhead or underground in a pipe.

I wouldn't bother trying to find the old line, its probably buried under the floor.
The contractor wont be interested in finding any existing pipe under your drive, easier to just mole in a new one.

If your line was originally fed by overhead dropwire to the eve of your house, the tech would've just ran a new one and drilled in through the wall then fitted an NTU. So i'm guessing from the limited info that its underground.

Having said all that, there is some instances where its just not possible to get a line into your property, small percentage but it does happen.

In relation to running cat5 cable to an external position. Three things to bear in mind.
Do you need to do this.
If so, will they be able to get to the point where you leave it.
Make sure its external cable outside, ie weatherproof.

from experience,

dig the trench through your lawn and kn will run a line in much quicker.

leave a 2 inch pipe for the line to be fed through (this gives redundancy for a fibre line when FTTH is available) once you have the pipe laid just fill in your trench and phone to get the line installed (leave both ends of the pipe trench open so they can feed in the line)

1 foot deep is enough. it keeps the line below the surface just enough for frost not the be an issue

mass_debater

It's 38mm flexible duct pipe, pipes are always measured on the inside

paddylonglegs

So after much argument I got a new cable installed. POS was done yesterday so fingers crossed it will go well for the rest of the install.

I used the information I had from here to back up my argument so thanks a million folks.

In the end, he was able to find where the cable originally came in by running a rod from the manhole in the path to a very small opening by the door. He could detect by listening to rod knocking off the the side of the pipe