how deep should telephone,broadband cables be

barnaclebill

Just digging a hole in the front lawn to plant a bush and found a twin core cable about 6 inches down, looking at it it appears to go towards to front garden wall, on the other side of the wall there are signs that the path has a disturbed surface along it and a 'T' that heads to my garden wall. On the side of my house is a junction box that has a wire going into the path but not as thick as the twin core in the lawn, on the side of the path I picked up the twin core only about 2 inches down.
The telephone cable comes from a pole in the street nearby, loops under my gutter then one line goes to the same junction box the other carries on along under the gutter.
I understand the previous owner used Virgin but looking on the Virgin site it say's cables are about a spades depth down and covered with green conduit which this twin core is not.
I have moved the hole slightly so the cable is to the side of it now just curious if it is a Virgin cable

Owain_Moneysaver

A lot of cable was installed by Virgin's predecessor networks and was to a very poor standard.

keith969

NTL (which was bought by Virgin) cabled the houses in the street I used to live in. The cable from the street to our house was next to the fence, above the soil in some places, and nowhere deeper than 10cm.

Nick_C

I've just come across the same thing.

My Virgin cable goes from the junction box on the outside of the house into the ground covered in green conduit. I've just been digging over a flower bed to prepare for turf and I found the unshielded virgin cable.

barnaclebill

Does it look like ordinary twin core electric cable?

AylesburyDuck

Sounds like a virgin cable, ours runs down the side of a hedge and cant be any deeper in places than 6 inches, less in some places.

phil24_7

My Virgin cable ran across the driveway (where there was a difference in hight in a concrete slab and a failing tarmac section) covered in less than an inch of weak concrete. Needless to say that failed and I had to dig a trench and sink the cable substantially!