Non-standard BTwiring?

My BT master socket has three wires going into it from the pole in the street. I gather this isn't normal - anyone know what they are?

No idea, there should just be two (usually the blue/white and white/blue), is the third an orange coloured one?

They are all grey - but when BT came to put the new master socket in (I can't remember why they did this now) the technician extended two of them - one with blue plus white, the other with white plus blue - and left the third unconnected.

Just sort of wondering whether it might ultimately affect my noise level and hence speed.

The third may be an earth, but only 2 wires are required.

It's an old dropwire (steel conductors).

It was used in the days of party lines to feed the normal A & B wires + an earth wire from the pole. The idea was to save the need to find a local earth at the customers property.

In reply to:

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The idea was to save the need to find a local earth at the customers property.

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It spoilt all the fun of bashing an earth spike into the ground and trying to miss the underground water, gas or electricity supplies!!!!!

LOL


It was ok until the local kids cut the earth wire on the pole, then it was back to earth spikes. It was a silly idea in the first place.

In your area did you ever use the electrical mains earth?
I was quite horrified when I was converted to a party line back around 1980 to find that the required earth connection was made to the earthing block adjacent to th electricity meter. (We had a concrete path all around the house, so no easy place for a spike.)
Used to get a bit of hum on the phone as a result.
When we were eventually back on a conventional line, only the push switches were removed from the phones, the earth connection remained.

In the days of party lines, we weren't allowed to use the mains earth, but in the late '80s we were allowed to use the main earth for switchboard equipment, tec, & I used them a few times for lightning protection.