Identifying a BT circuit

[enjay]

While tracing a cable run earlier, I found a BT termination point which is almost certainly obsolete, but before I turn it off and disconnect it, is there a way to find out what it is / what's on it? I have the circuit numbers, etc. Before anyone suggests it, I am aware of the option of turning it off and see who complains, and haven't ruled that out!

[Chris_Cook]

Is it IDSN, or just a normal phone point?

 

If its a traditional analogue line, you can plug a phone into it, and dial 17070 to find out the number.

 

You could also use a toner + probe to physically trace it if that's what your after.

 

If you like pain and disappointment, you could talk to BT/Openreach and get them to help.

 

Things to check in a school would be lifts, alarms and fax machines.

[enjay]

Is it IDSN, or just a normal phone point?

 

Neither. It looks a lot like where our leased line terminates, except it isn't our (current) leased line.

 

If you like pain and disappointment, you could talk to BT/Openreach and get them to help.

 

Would that just be disappointment, or would they actually be up for telling me something? Active yes or no is all I need initially.

 

Things to check in a school would be lifts, alarms and fax machines.

 

I've ruled all of those out already, which is partly why I think it is obsolete. There are some old phone points and an ISDN2 box in the same cupboard, so I wonder if it used to be a comms room. It's by an IT Suite, so maybe way back in the mists of time, it was an Internet connection for the IT Suites before computers were a thing elsewhere in the school. Another option I wondered about is from the dark days of separate curriculum and admin LANs when the school ran one and LA ran the other.

[psydii]

A fun exercise is getting the finance office to give you all of the bills for all of the telecom/alarm/service lines and cross checking those against what you can find around the building.

 

Is anything actually plugged in/punched down to this BT termination point? If so, what is it?

[enjay]

A fun exercise is getting the finance office to give you all of the bills for all of the telecom/alarm/service lines and cross checking those against what you can find around the building.

And therein lies another reason I'm reasonably confident this isn't active, as our Finance Manager has been going through all the accounts trying to find recurring charges and getting people to confirm they still need the service. If there were a telco bill out there, I think she'd have found it. We have got a failover FTTC line. The router for that plugs into a "phone" socket in our server room which is directly below this cupboard. Could this be part of that?

 

 

Is anything actually plugged in/punched down to this BT termination point? If so, what is it?

 

It looks like this, I'll be honest, I'm not totally sure what it should look like! Our leased line termination point is boxed in the back of a cupboard in someone's office, so I can't easily go and compare them. The black box has power and link LEDs lit, and they appear to be flashing in time with each other.

 

[thebatman]

From the Photo, that is a very old 21CN (21st Centry Network) modual. Looks to have ISDN moduals installed.

Nothing is pluged into it. I would emagen it would of been for internet from way back when.

[psydii]

I concur, there is nothing customer-side connected to that infrastructure. You can turn it off.

[enjay]

That's what I thought, but it is always nice to have these thing confirmed. Thanks @psydii and @thebatman Edited June 14, 2024 by enjay

[TheRobins]

Looks like a very early Fibre ONT at the bottom. The top right box will be your CTU from Openreach. I suspect its part of the old LEA networks, as thet ONT has 75 ohm coax outputs, suggesting a max of 10mbps. The black box looks like an old ISDN modem, but you have fibre going to it.

 

As suggested, Just power off the black box out of hours and see if anything breaks. If not leave it off. However, I would leave the incoming Fibre CTU, if you ever have an issue with your leased line, they could use this to very quickly get you back online. You never know, if you need another line in the future you would escape any install costs.

 

Saying that, found an old post on here from 2012, It will be an ISDN over fibre connections, ISDN 30E, probably not active for 15 or so years. Looks like BT used it on there business phone offering called BT versatility.

 

https://www.edugeek.net/forums/wired-networks/101526-what-earth.html

 

ISDN (Integrated Services over a Digital Network) allows you to integrate many types of communication services (for example, text, voice, data and video files), into a single network. We offer two variants of ISDN.

– ISDN30e - One copper or fibre circuit consisting of up to thirty channels of ISDN, each operating at up to 64 Kbps speed.

[enjay]

However, I would leave the incoming Fibre CTU, if you ever have an issue with your leased line, they could use this to very quickly get you back online.

 

Good thinking.

 

Saying that, found an old post on here from 2012, It will be an ISDN over fibre connections, ISDN 30E, probably not active for 15 or so years. Looks like BT used it on there business phone offering called BT versatility.

 

Does that negate the above, or could we still use if we ever needed in an emergency?

[TheRobins]

Hard to say, Although our 1gb leased line is using fibre installed all the way back in 2006, and works like new. I am sure that in the telecoms world fibre is fibre

[enjay]

Even if it didn't get to 1gb, it would give something. We've got an FTTC as a reserve line, but old fibre could well be faster anyway.

[TheRobins]

Just looking at our new Openreach ONT now as well, Plenty of backup if the leased line ever went down.

[enjay]

Just looking at our new Openreach ONT now as well, Plenty of backup if the leased line ever went down.

 

Thanks. In that case, I'll make a proper note of the circuit number.

[TheRobins]

If you know your curcuit number, most ISP's would be able to query either Openreach or the suppliers database and tell you exactly what that curcuit is, is it still live and what its potential is. I did that for a business a couple of years back who couldnt get ADSL as they were that rural, turns out the old office next door to them had a leased line install years ago before they went bust. Openreach installed the fibre into the shared corridor between the two building and they were able to get that to get their own leased line without any construction fee's.

[enjay]

Thanks. I've tried contacting Openreach directly before, and it was a frustrating experience. I'll see if our ISP has more success.