New house, line activated but no signal at sockets at all

Hi all,

I recently moved into a new build property. It has one of these new "External NTE" boxes on the outside and no master socket inside. I called BT around a month ago to arrange my line to be moved to the new address and all was confirmed for activation yesterday.

Not knowing any better, I took the day off work and waited for the BT engineer to arrive. He didn't show up, but when I called BT they advised that it is unlikely that the engineer would need to visit my property to activate the line because it has one of these new External NTE boxes. They told me to check the wiring inside my house.

That's exactly what I have done. I've taken both the main socket (not a master socket remember) and the extension socket off the wall. Tried all combinations of different sockets to different extensions, making sure I'm connecting them up correctly as per the instructions found here (http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/UK_telephone/uk_telephone.html). However, I've still got nothing.

BT assure me that the line is activated and calling the number from my mobile results in the ringing tone as you would expect. However, the phone inside my house doesn't ring and there is no ADSL sync, despite my ISP also saying the line is connected and working as expected.

Does anyone have any ideas for what I could test (bearing in mind I don't have a BT "master socket" and hence no test socket either) to make sure the fault is outside of the house before I call in Openreach?

Thanks!

Has the house wiring actually been connected to the external NTE?

If you have connected a socket from terminals 2 & 5 in the external NTE and have no dial tone you need to get your service provider to arrange an engineer visit.

Thanks guys, just tried a socket connected directly to the NTE using a metre long stretch of cable I just bought from Homebase. Line is completely dead there too, so it looks like the problem is with BT and not the wiring inside my house.

Now to wire these phone sockets back up correctly!

firstly ensure that the same 2 wires connected at the xnte are continuous throughout your home. use the blue pair for continuity.

if you have no dial tone at the xnte then you need to chase your provider, the issue will be that the line may test ok but its not at the right premises.

where abouts are you?

lastly, there should only be extension sockets in the house s the xnte carries the capacitor for which the test systems look for.