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.
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4 hours, is what it is. Possibly more.
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.
That is POTS!
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
Flux capacitor
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.
It looks like a 25-pair phone cable. You could use it to carry Ethernet if the other end is in a useful location.
The house is wired for 2 4line phone lines with other wires spliced in to carry phone thought the house
I’m only seeing 6 pairs here. And, as I recall, 8 pair ewire is not a thing. 6-12-25 are the standard sizes for single binder in-home wiring of the era.
A rats nest.
This is cat5. Convert it by toning the other end and putting a switch and plugging into your router
Years of neglect.
Looks very much like CAT3 Cable, 25 Pair, UTP.
Little high on that pair count, look again. 😉
Other pairs might still be hidden in the wall.
This isn’t an office building, and nobody “hid extra pairs in the wall” for good reason. This wiring is a very specific technique used to quickly feed phone pairs in new SFH and apartment buildings of a certain era when the minor CAPEX advantage of a single shared cable over home runs was sold to developers as a cost cutting measure (or just done anyway to pad wallets when home runs were specified).
You’re definitely right that it uses standard 25-pair color code, but it’s just a six pair residential run here: white from blue to slate, and red-blue.
Rat5e
Were those wires connected to tin cans?