Is CAT 6 cable okay as a telephone line?

Even Hull is getting Fibre Broadband 

https://www.hull-fibre.co.uk/

 Chris Pearson 

The copper telephone network is scheduled to be turned off by December 2025, just over three years from now.

• We’ve already stopped selling copper products in Salisbury, Wiltshire and  have announced over 2,900 locations, where we’ll stop selling copper products between now and August 2022. From September 2023 we'll only provide digital phones across the UK. 

www.openreach.com/.../retiring-the-copper-network

Therefore the phone line I am intending install tomorrow will need to be reinstalled within three years , so I might as well use a cable that can be reused.

Fibre optic.

And how does the 'Net get into the house?

Voice Over Internet (VOIP).

Sparkingchip said:

in another couple of years there won’t be a copper phone network to connect them to

So what will be there instead?

Back in the 80’s I was working on new housing sites as a carpenter, firms like Beazer used to sell the house purchasers “Telephone extension wiring” and if the customers paid the phone extension cables would be installed, but no sockets were fitted and the cables were not terminated, they were just left hanging out of the wall, then it was up to the customers to get them finished off.

Beazer had had arguments with both the customers and electricians when the extensions had been fully installed, because if there was a fault the customers would phone BTwho would turn up and say the fault was in the extension, so nothing to do with them, then slap sixty quid onto the customers next bill as a call out fee.

There we’re then arguments about who should pay the sixty quid, so Beazer decided the cables should just be left hanging out of the wall.

Then they did the same again with burglar alarm wiring.

Many firms still do similar things, such as installing the wiring and bell push for a door bell, but not the actual bell itself as that is an optional extra.

Fitting immersion heaters, but not connecting them is another example of modern day silliness that new home purchasers experience.

It don`t seem two minutes ago we were barred from doing any work that involved BT phone lines or part thereof. I remember I was fitting one of the old autodiallers for a burglar alarm system and a BT engineer turned up to work on the phone line. Phones were connected to the line by a junction box back then and he was fitting a "new fangled" master socket to allow phones to be "plugged in" . WOW. 

I thought I`d advise him that leaving the junction box thereabouts make make life easier because within a few days I would be connecting said dialler. Well he right uppity about that "YOU WILL NOT TOUCH THIS WIRING OR ADD ANYTHING ON THIS LINE ONLY US CAN DO THAT< OTHERWISE IT IS ILEGAL!" he quoted sternly.

I explained the dialler was type approved and I had sent the card in requesting permission to connect and requesting the appropriate JB but he were having none of it.

A few days later I was on site again waiting to connect the dialler as arranged and guess who turned up to do the BT bit? Yes , same chap, strange he never mentioned our previous conversation Ha Ha Ha. Priceless.

A few years later I arranged for a new telephone line in a small factory for a communicator. Engineer turned up on site insisting it could only be within a few yards of the existing "Or they will charge you for it". I said "Yes it has been paid for and they have agreed to put it here!" He were not at all pleased it was a fair long run. As he was packing up he left a brand new phone handset. 

I informed him the handset was not required just the line for our equipment "YOU MUST HAVE A PHONE ON RENTAL WITH A NEW LINE!" so I rang Telecom Sales " Is it a requirement to have the phone too?" . NO. I handed him the phone and said "Telecom Sales would like to speak to you!" . After talking to them and protesting what was always rules he left with that phone. 

How times have changed

I said above the last time I installed a dedicated phone line was around seven years ago, it was actually 2016 just after Sky Q was introduced.

Some builders I was working for managed, without much effort, to destroy the existing phone line to the customers study, so I replaced it and thinking about it I did use Cat 6, but after I finished a BT guy came and rejigged the phone line to try and bump up the internet speed for the customers new Sky Q set up from around 3 Mbps and had a fiddle with what I had done along with the alarm phone line.

A lot of the customers don’t have a landline phone anymore and I certainly thought running phone lines was a thing the past.

BT used to do that years ago, under the name BT Broadband Talk.  They killed the service when they realised it wasn't making them any money - the service was cheaper for calls than a normal land line.