Why would a cat5 cable be in my BT wiring?

Hi,
I've just bought a house that I haven't exchanged contracts on. It is a new build and outside is the telephone socket wiring ready to go through the wall into the house once BT install it.

There are the normal copper cables, but also a standard CAT 5 cable, seperate to the copper wire, but in the same bunch. Are they preparing for the future so they don't have to re-dig up the drive or is it something else?

I can't search for FTTC as my exchange doesn't switch until June and I don't appear to be on the BT Openreach FTTC list.

Exchange: HAMPTON

Edit: Photo - http://imgur.com/a/p8jC5

Edited by deleted (Tue 01-May-12 19:33:49)

Openreach is not deploying CAT5. You sure its that, and not a 4 pair telephone cable?
If its a new build, builder may have simply added it thinking it was a good idea.

A photo may help someone ID the cable in question.

Sure, here are two pictures. The cat5 cable is clearly labelled as such and looks like like the ones in our office

http://imgur.com/a/p8jC5

The black cable is the Openreach underground feed cable to your property, it is not cat5.

The grey cable was provided by your building company, it may be cat5.

Thanks for the replies. The builder's reply is below, I'm not sure if it raises more questions than it answers.

Why is there a cat 5 cable protruding at the front of the house?
This wiring is for the future BT connection.

It probably proves the builder doesn't know what a CAT5 cable is!

I suppose the CAT5 terminates in the BT junction box underground somewhere, so when BT find it they can have a laugh .

And of course the big question is, where does the Cat5e cable go to or come from?

I suspect the Cat5 cable feeds the sockets in the house, this would tie in with what the builder has said, CAT5 cable is often used for telephone wiring, and it can also feed the broadband around the house on a different pair to the phone.

I would remove that cover and see if it goes into the house, and if you have access into the house perhaps remove a phone socket and take a look

I would remove that cover and see if it goes into the house

It doesn't, it goes into the ground

The white cable sure is four pair Cat 5E

Who knows what that's for... Magic?

The black cable is stancard CW1308 multi pair cable, used by OR in multi line installations.

Whilst it's not neccessary to have that many pairs for one phone line it adds redundancy in case you want more than one line or needs a pair swap in future. Usually OR would only use this cable for the feed from a DP underground to a DP in a block of flats. Still perfectly fine for use with one line.

So all in, pretty standard fare.

FWIW I have CAT5 running between the DP down in the basement and my NTE5 in my hallway, they just used bog standard solid core UTP cat 5, but hey, it works fine for me, manages a 80 meg sync rate so whatever...

EDIT: Congrats on your house purchase!

EDIT2: Waaaaaaaaaaait. Here's a guess:

The black cable feeds from an underground openreach DP

The white cable feeds from inside the property to the builder installed extension sockets

Chances are Openreach would run those two cables to the inside of the property right there and put an NTE5 in with the black cable connected to the A&B points on the rear and the CAT 5 to the 2, 3, 5 points on the faceplate.

Anyone agree? Or perhaps an XTE outside?

Edited by deleted (Wed 02-May-12 18:38:42)

In reply to a post by izools:

The white cable feeds from inside the property to the builder installed extension sockets

LOL, the builders sockets in the builders house

I suggested earlier that it may feed the extension sockets, even if it goes back underground it could still come up in the house somewhere, so yes I agree.

Judging from the orientation of the trunking it looks to me like it is awaiting an XTE - with black openreach feed in and cat5 running away into the property to service the telephone sockets.

Only problem is I seem to remember reading that Openreach are no longer fitting XTEs. :/

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/network/develop...

Starting around the page 15/16 area.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 02-May-12 18:56:45)

Indeed - the OP's picture shows the same shape ducting as the image on page 16 of that document. But it is not clear what is intended to go on the top of it. Could be an XTE or as per page 20 just a CSP.

Oh well, either way it's for Openreach to sort out when the line gets connected up.

Yep .

Incidentally, on ADSLx and more so on FTTC many of us want a one-box modem/router/switch/WAP for aesthetic and practicality reasons.

Take a look at the two FTTP pictures on page 22 .

Telecom envineer: Its often the case builders provide non standard cable i.e.alarm or cat5 cable after the bt nte either internal or external. Of note openreach do deploy cat 5 on fttc connections after the nte for obvious reasons - personally i now use it for all internal wiring pre nte 5 also as data rates, twist pitch etc is heavily encouraged by openreach now as they try to push rates higher over copper.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Telecom envineer: Its often the case builders provide non standard cable i.e.alarm or cat5 cable after the bt nte either internal or external. Of note openreach do deploy cat 5 on fttc connections after the nte for obvious reasons - personally i now use it for all internal wiring pre nte 5 also as data rates, twist pitch etc is heavily encouraged by openreach now as they try to push rates higher over copper.

Openreach installed data extensions have always been CAT5 UTP as a matter of fact - the FTTC data extension kit provided to Openreach engineers is the same one's they had with them when ADSL was first rolled out in 1999.

I recall when I first ordered ADSL in 2001 there was no self install option - just as with FTTC, I *HAD* to pay for an engineer to install it, and he replaced my ageing master socket with an NTE5 & Filtered Faceplate, and ran a dedicated ADSL RJ11 socket into the study connected to the filtered faceplate with CAT5 UTP.

Useless bit of info there...