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Hi all, I’m trying to run a Ethernet cable to my home office in a house built in the 60s. This connection is unlabeled and I’m not sure what it is. Can I somehow replace it with an Ethernet cable? I’m new to all of this and did some poking around in the sub but I’m not really sure what I’m looking at or what I’m in for. I don’t have any coaxial cables that I can utilize (unless they are hidden behind a wall? Any easy way to find those?). Thank you.
25 pair Cat3 wire typically used on business RJ66 blocks for distributing phones. This case it looks like the possible main feed into the room for several lines. I would recommend replacement to a Cat 6 ethernet wire if at all possible. This will not work for internet purposes are any decent speeds.
4 hours, is what it is. Possibly more.
It is a "RAT'S NEST" of cat 3 wiring old "pots" wires and wall jack. If the wires in the wall are cat5 you can still use them for Ethernet. But I doubt it.
Typical telephone wiring done by someone who doesn't take pride in their work.
Well if this was an apartment id say it's a pretty standard 6 pair riser and DO NOT cut into it cause it's possibly feeding apartments above.
But it you're in a house so someone used 6 pair riser instead of quad or cat5 to run their phone lines. It's basically only good for POTS and XDSL. You might be able to use it as a cable pull to pull some new cat5, but it's unlikely.
This is unjacketed 6 pair telephone wire. We call this particular type of wire “E Wire”. It’s a type of inside wire used for telephone service in houses and apartments in the 1960s and 70s. It’s probably original to the house. It probably runs through your attic, and dips down to your phone jacks in the walls. Not useful for much except telephone service. Anything more than that will need to be a “home run” from device to device.
I never knew that it had its own name, cool! I just know that I cursed every time I encountered it.
You'll probably discover only 1 or 2 pairs were ever used too. Telcos were notorious for putting in ludicrously complicated wiring for what was in reality a simple two wire analog circuit or two.
Future proofed for stuff that never happened or was just about making it look more complicated to justify the line rental fees.
Future proofing for when a pair goes bad they can cut over to a good pair.
Well, there was an element of that involved, but they also tended to just throw tons of spare pairs in with an idea that some future tech might use them. At the time PCM based circuit switched data was being developed and envisioned to launch as some point. It would ultimately launch as ISDN in the 1980s.
Local ISDN S-Bus wiring usually ran with two pairs and an additional two pairs for power. It was rarely deployed in homes, other than in a few European countries, but it (or proprietary versions of it) were commonly used for office telephone systems.
Rapid advances in multiplexing in the 90s saw DSL emerge as the most common way of getting fast data into homes and small offices. That only required a single pair and then telcos shifted to fibre to home. So it’s all redundant.
You’ll see plenty of home phone installations that used CAT3 or even CAT5 in the later days of PSTN with tons of spare pairs.
That is a telecommunications artifact. You should put a picture frame around it .
If you do not have a land line phone or a security system you can get rid of it . Just tie a pull string on it when doing the demo work
This is sin, many many sins covered with a faceplate.
Cluster Foxtrot
Looped cat 3. I would just run outdoor rated ethernet on the outside or if you want to get fancy in EMT or liquid tight.
A hot mess.
If you have an old black rotary phone, you may be able to call back to the 1960s.
Looks like phone lines.
Pots?
Cable hell
I believe the color is “Sea salt” from Sherwin Williams.
Just... put it back.
GL OP
You’re really not going to be able to do anything with this that will help with running new wiring. Very slim chance that is not stapled down somewhere inside the wall. Where are you trying to run the Ethernet to in relation to this jack??
A damn shame, that's what you have.
DSL/telephone wiring. It’s “daisy chained”. Blue white are the only ones actually doing anything.
Old landline copper garbage not worth keeping unless you live way out in a rural area. It honestly would be easier just to tear it out and run cat5 or 6.
Cat 3
We always called it spaghetti.
Years of neglect.
A fire hazard
A fine mess!
350 max length of single run, CAT6 non-plenum Use attic space and basement. Buy fish rods/sticks and stud finder
A fucking disaster.
To the untrained eye this is actually the equivalent of Jesus on toast.
Noodles
A mess
We used to call it a cluster fuck
clusterfuck
I thought having to deal with BIX blocks in this decade still was bad...I shouldn't complain I guess.
Some Darrell that ran out of scotch locks. No offense to Darrell 🍻
This would be where every phone wire for your house and 3 neighbors home-runs to one jack.
It looks like a 25-pair phone cable. You could use it to carry Ethernet if the other end is in a useful location.
That looks like your soon shore to re-wire.
A rip it all out and start again from scratch job.
Old Bell System/AT&T phone wiring and any technician that worked for them would have been fired making that mess. They would never use electrical tape. They would use crimp splices that had an insulating "goo" in them. This looks like an amateur job.
The old Western Electric Princess and Trimline phones would use the black/yellow pair in the jack to be used with a "wall wart" transformer that plugged into an AC outlet to power the dial/touch tone lamps on those phones. When the later models of those phones were converted to LEDs for the dial/touch tone illumination, the black/yellow pair in the jack could be used for a two line phone that used one jack for both lines.
rat king
Its The old landline if you use it you can get one to ten mbps. We got one mbps on or old verizon landline and they would not help us with getting fiber,so as soon as another supplier came when I asked them we climbed aboard
What's the plate look like on the other side?
Odds are it is some form of telephone system wiring. Those small wires should lead to larger bundled wires you may be able to use as a fish line.
If you cant use them to pull, fell free to just cut them off.