Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

My girlfriend has just rung me up at work because two of our less savoury neighbours have lifted to cover of the NTL cabinet and have spent 15 minutes messing around inside it.

My girlfriend has tried contacting CS, who though initially helpfull tried to transfer her before she was hung up on. She has tried to contact them twice more after this and the same thing has happened.

How can I report the open cabinet and the illegal tampering, knowing the people that were messing with it, i'm quite worried that someones phone/broadband/tv may have been hijacked.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

Can you take any pictures?

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

Sorry for delay, i'm flying from one corner of our of our office to the other fixing pc's and clearing printer paper jam's.

Anyway, pictures would have been usefull, my girlfriend went to get our digicam but by the time she'd got back to the window our neighbours had left the box.

I'm a bit worried that they may have hijacked someones phone line, in any case this surely needs an urgent visit by NTL to lock the cabinet down again.

Thank for the suggestion though Neil:-)

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

I would not worry about the phone line, they would have to be phone techs to make sense of it.

If they where in the top they where playing with the catv side, I'm surprised they did not electrocute themselves.

I'd contact marge or 'the nice helpful member of the team that russ deals with' they can contact dispatch and get the cabinet closed up. Mind you theres legal implication that you saw them tampering with it and the police might need to get involved.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

The "legal implications" side of things is why I wish I we could have got a picture.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

This is simply not true, it is very easy to tamper with and take over and or use an NTL phone line. Does no matter if it is at a cab or at the termination box on the customers wall!

It is also very easy to do the same with a BT line!

I thought the main cab's were alarmed anyway? Or was it one of those little green sub cabinets that have the wires hanging out all over the pavement?

Shame you never got a pic though! If I had seen anyone doing that and putting my tv, telco & broadband at risk I would have gone over to them with a baseball bat! ;)

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

They still need to figure out which wires on the krone strip relate to which property and which property is theirs to rewire things up.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

Yes I agree, but what I mean is if you just wanted to use a phone line or swap them around for fun this is very easy to do!

I also know where I am all cables have tags on them which display the address of the property!

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

And in that lies a problem, we don't get on at all with my next door neighbour(one of the people messing with the cabinet), I know he doesn't pay for a phone line and I just hope that he's not trying to piggy back on to ours.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

next time dont dither - ring the cops and tell them. it's vandalism.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

If I could have got a photo I would have informed the police, but without some kind of evidence they just aren't interested.

Can anyone suggest how I can get word to NTL to close/inspect this cabinet, my girlfriend has phoned NTL CS again, still got nowhere with them.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

they aren't interested? how do you know - is that an opinion or based on experience.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

Both I would suspect. ;)

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

Who said who was not interested?:confused:

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

He was referring to the Police Neil, not ntl. ;)

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

hahaha ded funy m8 :rolleyes: :p:

I suppose if you wanted to spy on somebody on the same cab as you or destroy their phone bill then maybe.........

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

Neil, I don't really get your point then.

FYI, Nottinghamshire police do not simply "turn out" to minor things like vandalism, they "um and ah" when you report a very recent car theft/joyrider incident.

When I get home I will get something done about this(somehow), but I thought as people on here have tried CS, failed and managed to get details passed on through CF contacts with NTL that I would try the same. Obviously not gonna work for me is it.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

The Alarms are on the MUX cabinet only in orig CableTel areas, the CATV cabinets were planned to have alarms in conjunction with the UPS upgrade that got shelved in the cost savings.

There is no dangerous voltage on any customer taps in the CATV cabinet, the highest voltages on coax are for the amplifiers that run from 60V AC (hardly enough to give much of a tickle)

I dont think the police would be very interested in a roadside cabinet, and anyone who wanted to gain access to one of these could obtain keys quite easily anyway.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

I beg to differ....

Jon-I was emphasising your point about CS not taking an interest. :)

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

It may well do :p:

PM me with as much info as you can- if possible, the Cabinet Number, location and if possible names/ addresses of the people you saw- and i'll pass it on.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

Seems like the perfectly normal sollution to me too mate!:D

---------- Post added at 07:07 ---------- Previous post was at 07:00 ----------

[quote=Escapee]

There is no dangerous voltage on any customer taps in the CATV cabinet, the highest voltages on coax are for the amplifiers that run from 60V AC (hardly enough to give much of a tickle)

Not completely true.If a customer has a doggy appliance(eg tv with a poor earth) it is possible to get increased voltage "back"through the catv.
Dont take this the wrong way mate,i dont mean to be one of those annoying pedantic people,i just though id point it out.In the majority of cases you are correct.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

Ring faults!As they work with the people who'd need to know,they can pass it on to the people needed or ask a tech in the street!

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

[QUOTE=PS1]Seems like the perfectly normal sollution to me too mate!:D

---------- Post added at 07:07 ---------- Previous post was at 07:00 ----------

Yes, but that could only happen if two possiblilities occured. Firstly the TV set has isolation capacitors to stop any voltage coming out of the TV aerial connector, and secondly the ntl isolation box also has capacitors for exactly the same reason.

If for some reason the TV set had short circuit capacitors, and there was no ntl isolator box it would still be unlikely to cause a problem. This is because the customer Tap in the ntl DP cabinet, that connects the customer have earth bonded chassis, so anything down the outside of the coax would be earthed. These customer taps contain directional couplers that are effectively RF transformers, and any dangerous 50Hz voltages (even the 60V AC line power) would simply see the transformer as almost a short circuit to ground. This transformer would short the voltage to ground until the wire in it failed and it goes open circuit.

The network is fairly safe if maintained correctly, but maintenance has of course a contentious issue for the last five years!

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

[quote]
PS1,
Not completely true.If a customer has a doggy appliance(eg tv with a poor earth) it is possible to get increased voltage "back"through the catv...

tell me how the voltage will go down the catv cable please??

eg: no digital stb ntl use are earthed to mains? so how would a faulty tv earth increase the the line voltage?? and even send it back down the catv cable?? the earth that the stb uses is provided by the catv system.. and the tv will be connected by either RF or scart so how can that send more voltage to the ntl network?? answers on a post card please :P

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

[QUOTE=a good help]I know that question was not aimed at me.

The most likely way for mains voltage to be fed down the coax would be from a faulty TV if the TV was connected directly to the network without a set-top (to view bypass channels). As I mentioned in my previous post the isolating capacitors in the TV would have to be short circuit and the ntl isolation box would either be missing or also have short circuit capacitors.

The ntl network is fairly well protected with the isolation box and all the RF equipment earthed at the cabinet to a common point. There would have to be a few of these items incorrect for the network to be put in a dangerous state.

the most dangerous situation I ever came across was a situation caused by ntl themselves. I once moved a mains powered 60VAC power supply prior to replaing it and felt a little tingle. Fortunately I had not removed the dedicated earth bonding cable, as one of the 16th edition qualified backboard builders at ntl had wired the Mains socket incorrectly. I seem to recall earth and neutral were swapped around, I'm not sure if it was a conspiracy to finish me off....:D

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

I work in the criminal justice system and whilst this might not be top of their priority list, they won't ignore it. I would definitely report it as if you do end up reporting it later on cos you have some extra calls, you definitely won't be thanked for not reporting it. You have no reason to lie about these peeople i assume unless you have had previous calls to the Police regards them, so go call them now!

Thats why the chavs get away with it, cos people never deal with it.

Re: Help: Neighbours messing inside NTL cabinet
 

Lets be honest here, the legal system in this country is a joke!

Even if you caught them on cam and handed the video to the police, no doubt all they would have got is a small fine from their local magistrates court!

Which will no doubt be payed off at £5 a week from their giro!

You can even kill somebody in this country and still have a good chance of walking the streets again within five years!