Old copper cables

Hi,

Is there any way of telling the distance of the old copper run from my house to the local cabinet? I'm interested in knowing roughly how much speed I'm going to loose down the copper before it hits the fibre optic.

Many thanks,
Richard.

As far as I'm aware the actual distance information is withheld by Openreach, however BT's checker has a great estimation tool (the VDSL Range A row) - if it shows fibre speeds for you. Cabinets not in any plans or on long copper lines don't show any estimated speed, I believe. The best way to estimate the copper distance would just be by road from the cabinet as theres no public information on the telephone routing.

This graph gives a reasonable estimate on what speed you could expect from a certain distance of copper with FTTC services.

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Fri 02-Sep-16 15:54:39)

Whilst not disagreeing with Dolphin in principle, you have to be very wary regarding phone line lengths.

In my case, on a green-field site, the PCP (Phone Distribution Cabinet) is about 40 Metres "across the road".

No obstructions etc.

But the 1968 line wanders to the extent that the original line length is about 250 Metres.

Further compounded by the 2013 FTTC being only 10 Metres away from my house, on the near side of the road - but that link first heads 5 Metres away towards the Exchange, reversing in a U/G chamber to then head towards the PCP - thus making my VDSL feed about 300 Metres total.

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And I am very aware of similar "anomalies" with the phone lines of others.

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Basically, there is virtually nothing that you can do about such wanderings, other than making yourself aware of them.

But in the meantime, you should make sure that your line is "clean" (including within your house etc), using the Quiet Line Test.

PCP = Primary Connection Point.