Locating eir line

Nuphor

Slightly weird one; we've moved into a new house recently, which had an existing phone line. The line is wired (somewhere!) into the CAT5e loops that are throughout the house, but we've not had any look in finding where the main line is or what it is coming from.

There's a telephone pole on a small lane near us, but none by the house (it's in a rural location). From what I can gather, the copper line is coming from ducting beneath the road up to to the driveway and into the house (I can see the ducting at the base of the telephone pole that's about 50m away, and it's likely winding its way to our house some way.

Any ideas as to where you'd normally expect a line via ducting to enter a new(ish) build house? I've looked, and there are no obvious man-holes or ETUs or similar outside.

The reason I ask is, I'd like to disconnect the eir line and use the existing CAT5 loops for internal LAN. We're using LTE for connectivity at the moment, and it's nice and fast and uncongested because of our area.

1hnr79jr65

1 meter inside the front door would be normal for phone socket entering home.

ED E

Under the hall door somewhere would be most common. Individual occupants can send things other ways depending.

Assuming you've checked the entire attic space?

9726_9726

Be aware too, that most builders/sparks have wired the Cat6 in a useless way over the past 10-15 years. Usually, it is looped from one socket to the other in a string.

Sometimes even just the blue pair is twist-jointed in the walls.

So you probably won't be able to use it as LAN cabling, bringing back a point from different rooms to a central switch, if that's what you want to do.

EdgeCase

Nobody should be twist-jointing phone wiring behind walls. It actually can cause fire hazards.

Those lines carry 48V DC and up to 75V ringing current. It can create significant sparks, particularly when the line's ringing. You should always use proper junctions.

Just because something's relatively low voltage and relatively low current, does not mean it can just be wired without any care. You can still get arcs and sparks.

Nuphor

Thanks all for the replies. I would be similarly worried that the CAT5/6 may be wired in a ring or similar, but hopefully not. Haven't found it yet, but I've also not explored the whole of the attic either. There is a main eir box in the hall inside the front door, but behind it is just another Cat5e drop, so the line from the driveway must be elsewhere.

EdgeCase

The issue is Eir's wiring diagrams for phone lines have always recommended a daisy chain.

That's how PSTN extensions were designed to be wired and also how ISDN busses worked.

So you'll usually have socket wired to next socket, rather than a star topology.

Reuse for Ethernet may not be possible.

ED E

Nuphor wrote: »

Thanks all for the replies. I would be similarly worried that the CAT5/6 may be wired in a ring or similar, but hopefully not. Haven't found it yet, but I've also not explored the whole of the attic either. There is a main eir box in the hall inside the front door, but behind it is just another Cat5e drop, so the line from the driveway must be elsewhere.

Not really, the FSTs that install in new builds can use cabling left for them by the builders. While its not UV rated black cabling it can well be the same single metallic path from the EXCH. If joined with jellies properly your performance will be 99%+ of what it is at the end of the drop.

EdgeCase

DSL tends to be fairly robust. The main thing to avoid is bad joints, dodgy junction boxes e.g. stuff that was designed for mains electrical connections used as phone junctions (not unusual) and preferably use shielded cable as long runs of straight, untwisted pair can end up acting as an antennae picking up all sorts of noise that doesn't impact voice but can be heard your DSL modem.

Older houses can be full of all sorts of weird old wiring form the 60s, 70s and 80s that was never, ever assumed to be carrying anything other than voice.

The ideal situation is to have the DSL modem and splitter plate on the incoming line.

Typically whatever's coming in from outside should be pretty decent.

If you've a line fault, report it as an annoying intermittent voice crackle. Still gets more attention than a DSL speed slip.

Poor ADSL / VDSL signals on Irish lines tends to be more a factor of the lines being extremely long due to the location of some houses, rather than the quality of the wiring, which is usually actually rather good. There's very little you can do if the line's 3km long or something though.

HoggyRS

If you have no etu and its not behind the socket in the hall then 99% of the time I find them in the attic.

Nuphor

Found it https://imgur.com/a/7CidjAP

I noticed a vent that looked like a crude ETU. Peeled away the silicon and fitted a proper ETU box. Line was in there, complete with a draw-string also which is good for a future fibre install, if it's ever available here. Also a plus - all the cat5e came to the box, so I can put a switch here.