I've never 'got'

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Greenbank in reply to @Oliver Schick

For a while, before I looked it up, I thought the lineman had a device that enabled him to listen in on conversations by attaching it to the wire, but it seems that's not possible. (I don't understand any of the technology.)

UK phones are just using 50V DC across the pair (80V AC to activate the ringer). You can easily patch in to copper pair at any point between phone and termination in the exchange to listen in or speak onto the line. (I used to have to do this when I did some work at BT.)

FTTC (Fibre to the cabinet) means the broadband connection is only on the copper between the cabinet and the property, voice is still carried by the original copper pair all the way back to the exchange but the data portion is dealt with my a DSLAM in the cabinet and then data flows via fibre back to the exchange.

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Alf0nse in reply to @Greenbank

You have reminded me of what holes and poles engineers are actually like.

Based on the BT group intranet news page, the Wichita Lineman was either a hero that gave CPR to a granny or was involved in a organised gang of copper thieves

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