Help with my landline wiring

[Jean07]

I live outside the US, my landline/internet provider won't send me a technician to repair the wiring because they're just useless, so I want to do it myself. I've been reading about it because I don't know anything about telecommunications and I think I found out which kind of wire my landline has. I think it's an old quad cable and I want to replace it with a Cat5e. I have many questions and I want you to at least help me clear my doubts.

Please have in mind that:
In my country is very difficult or expensive to get certain tools, so, the less tools/equipment the better

I live in a small building with 8 apartments which means there are 8 landlines, the wiring is old and some technicians who have come here in the past said we should change it all and that's what I want to do. I want to change the wiring for my landline, from the external port (about 60m from my building) to my apartment. Using an individual cable that has nothing to do with the other 7 lines.

How can I tell which cable goes to my apartment? The wiring is a total mess. What do I need? I've seen technicians using some kind of phone they connect directly to the wires and an operator displays a voice with the telephone number, and I've seen another gadget with a probe at the end that they put in contact with the wires and it emits a sound to check whether the cables work or not.

Is there any way I can "create" a gadget like those? Or any other way to decipher which cables belong to my landline?

Also, I want to know if using Cat5e is the right choice. See, my phone line uses a regular cable with a RJ11 connector and the Cat5e uses RJ45 (correct me if I'm wrong) so I don't really know if my phone or internet will work after replacing the old wiring. Is there any adaptator to change from RJ45 to RJ11? Because my modem has only one DSL port and it's RJ11.

I'm extremely naive in this topic but I know I could handle it with the right information so I would appreciate any help you can provide me.
Note that the only choices I have are: either repair it myself or pay to an individual technician to do it, which would cost me about 2 months of my entire payment (I know, it's a messed up country). You can tell why I want to do it myself.

I attach pictures of my modem, router and phone jack just in case you need them and if you want any other pictures you can ask for them.
Thank you in advance and sorry for the long post

Modem: ZTE ZXHN H831A
Wifi Router: TP LINK TL-WR841N

 

[Ralston18]

It will not make a difference if you replace the landline (RJ-11) coming to your apartment unless the existing cable is damaged/defective and creating problems.

As I understand the photographs you have DSL. So the phone line will go to a splitter/filter in your apartment. One line out of the splitter goes to the telephone.

The other line out of the splitter will go to the grey DSL port on your modem. Then an ethernet cable will go from the yellow ethernet port on the modem to the blue WAN port on your router.

Splitters/filters often cause problems. But still swap out any cables that you can with known working cables. Narrow the problem down. Lastly replace the splitter.

Which line goes to your apartment is a messy issue.

Most cables are printed with specification information along with some distance measurement.

Look inside the wall outlet and see if there are some "footage" or "meter" numbers printed on the cable. Estimate the distance to the central panel where the wiring to all 8 apartments originates to your apartment.

See if you can identify a wire at the central panel with a footage or meter number that is around your wall outlet's number + or - the distance.

Failing that look very carefully for any marks or other indications that match a telephone wire at the cental panel to your apartment.

Otherwise you will need some test equipment to identify which wire goes to your apartment. And that will most likely involve unplugging each cable one by one. Probably not a good idea.

But it may be okay if you talk with your neighbors and tell them that you will be doing some testing during the night and identifying whose cable is whose. Your neighbors may be glad to have that information. Maybe some of your neighbors will even help.

 

[nigelivey]

Buy a toner.

 

[jsmithepa]

This is not as difficult as you made out to be, and zero tools are needed if you can find a RJ45 jack that uses screws or comes with its own little plastic punch-down tool.

1. Assuming the jack shown belongs to you, notice there are two pairs of cables, only 1 pair of which is connected, the black-white to green-red. Disconnect one leg and the dial tone should die.

2. Which pair is inbound, and which pair goes into your house? Simple, bring your handset to this junction, disconnect both legs of the connection and connect your phone directly to one side at a time, then you know.

3. When you replace this with CAT5, only the middle pair of the 4 pair cable is used.


Because am surer-noisy, are you currently having a problem, reason why you want to go through this trouble?

 

[Alabalcho]

Assuming that you take the risk (legal, electrocution, falling off the telegraph pole):
If you want to identify which pair is "yours" at the other end of multi-pair cable, you need only a voltmeter (that's not much of advanced tool), and old analogue one (with a needle, not a digital one) will work best.
When a phone line is not in use, there are 48/60VDC (depending on the system being used) across the phone line. Once you lift the headset, this voltage will drop close to zero. So, with help of a friend at home:
- connect a voltmeter to a pair of wires;
- ask the friend to lift the headset (you will have to shout, use walkie-talkie, cellphone, another friend in the middle);
- you will know it is your pair when the voltage changes

But - be careful. When phone line rings, there is about 60VAC going down the line, and while it will not kill you, it will shock you.

 

[Ralston18]

As I view the jack photograph there are two incoming wires (blue and white). I think (thought?) the black wire behind the white wire was just a shadow of the white wire.

Anyway the blue connects to the red (ring) wire and the white wire conects to the green (tip) within the RJ-11 jack. Those are the only two "live" incoming connections.

Then out of that jack would be a standard RJ-11 wire going into the DSL splitter that separates the telephone connection between the telephone and the ZTE modem.

Am I viewing the photograph wrong. Also seeing a silver grounding wire poking out....

Anyway agreeing with the need to identify which cable is the OPs with respect to the run from the central panel to his apartment.

Not sure sure about fitting in or replacing that cable run with an ethernet cable per se. Just one pair of the four would be used to provide the end red-green connection at the RJ-11 wall jack.

Feel that I am missing something. Thanks.

 

[Jean07]

Thanks for your answers. Please let me clear some things first:

The wiring has never been replaced, so it's really old, we're talking about 30+ years. Mine specifically it's been having issues for the last couple months and right now it just doesn't work at all and that's why I want to replace it.

I still have the same doubt about the Cat5e cable and the DSL port in my modem. If I replace the old quad cable for the Cat5e do I have to change the phone jack as well? And if so, does the jack for Cat5e have a RJ45 output? Can I use some kind of adaptator to go from the RJ45 output in the new phone jack (if that's the case) to a RJ11 cable to plug into my modem? I'm worried about all the RJ45 - RJ11 thing and the compatibility with my modem.

And I understand I will be only using 1 pair out of the 4 the Cat5e provides, but I don't mind, I just want new wiring because the one I have right now it's not working and if I'm replacing it why wouldn't I use a newer wiring rather than buying another old quad cable?

 

[BuddhaSkoota]

I still have the same doubt about the Cat5e cable and the DSL port in my modem. If I replace the old quad cable for the Cat5e do I have to change the phone jack as well? And if so, does the jack for Cat5e have a RJ45 output? Can I use some kind of adaptator to go from the RJ45 output in the new phone jack (if that's the case) to a RJ11 cable to plug into my modem? I'm worried about all the RJ45 - RJ11 thing and the compatibility with my modem.

By the looks of the current jack, it would probably be best to replace it with a new RJ-11 jack. The Cat5e cable can be wired directly to it, so you wouldn't need any type of adapter. You would just need an RJ-11 cable to go from the jack to the modem.

 

[Jean07]

Thanks for your answers so far, I have one more question:

The wire I want to change is one part of the whole wiring, so, as I said, I want to replace that part with Cat5e. Will it work? That means I would be using both quad and Cat5e tied together.

I made a sketch of the complex where I live, the blue and orange lines represent the wiring. The orange one is the wire I need to change (Wire B ~15m) and the blue one is the wire coming from the external port (and the one for all the buildings) to my building and is about 65m long.
I want to know if replacing only WIRE B would cause any trouble or if it'll work at all, because I would be mixing quad and Cat5e. Do I need to replace just wire B or both of them?

http://i.imgur.com/QWPYGnK.jpg