[SOLVED] How is my house phone jacks wired? Where do they terminate?

[dorlow]

Ok, a few weeks ago, I ditched Uverse TV and switched to antenna TV. I bought the FireTV Recast as a DVR and tuner and also two fire TVs. It seems to be working pretty well, but every few minutes, the video will stop and start buffering. I setup a constant ping to all of the firetv devices. Every so often, when I'm having video issues, the pings will get a ton of latency and then they'll start randomly dropping. I figured, I'll just bypass the wireless and wire them in. I opened up one of my phone jacks and was plesantly suprised that the house was wired with CAT5. So, I just bought a few switches and a spool of cat5. I was assuming all of my phone jacks would terminate to the phone box outside the house. I guess I should've checked this before ordering everything. I just went out to my phone box and there are only 3 CAT5 wires. (One of them runs right out the box and under the siding of my house... no idea what is up with that..) I searched Google and someone suggested that maybe the phone jacks terminate in the attic. I just got up there and don't see any phone connections. We don't have a basement. So, how are these phone jacks wired? Where would they normally terminate in a newer house?

 

[Ralston18]

You mentioned three CAT5 wires. One gets "lost" under the siding. What about the other two wires?

Is there a floor plan for your house?

If so get a copy or simply sketch one out as close to scale as you can. Mark where the electrical panel is located. Mark where the telephone service comes into your home. Mark where cable service comes into your home.

Then mark where all of the phone jacks are located. Mark the cable jacks, Mark the Ethernet jacks/outlets. Get sense of the big picture.

You do not have a basement so that is out. Unlikely that any installer would go into a crawl space. Attic has been eliminated: nothing found but again installers are not likely to go there.

Any sort of furnace or utility room? Look there. Where is your electrical panel - where are the circuit breakers located?

Look for any boards that are just somewhere on a wall. Could be a covering....

Look in all closets, look in the garage (if you have one). You may find some plastic panel cover containing all of the connection points,

Check local codes. There may be some prescribed location + or - depending on allowances, grandfathering, etc..

Google "telephone ethernet patch panels".

Images. Get a sense of what you are physically looking for.

 

[popatim]

Follow the phone line from the rooms end back. Odds are you'll find that the lines have been spliced into since you can do that with phones.

 

[dorlow]

How do I follow the wire from the jack back to the source? It's behind walls. I have no idea where the wire is going after I can't see it through the gang box. I did find some tools to allow me to trace wires behind drywall, but they're quite expensive (around $800... my wife would flip if I bought that. I ditched cable to save money and she's already kind of freaked out on how much the ota dvr cost and the network switches and wire and other stuff has costed... saying we might as well kept cable.)

 

[dorlow]

You mentioned three CAT5 wires. One gets "lost" under the siding. What about the other two wires?

Is there a floor plan for your house?

If so get a copy or simply sketch one out as close to scale as you can. Mark where the electrical panel is located. Mark where the telephone service comes into your home. Mark where cable service comes into your home.

Then mark where all of the phone jacks are located. Mark the cable jacks, Mark the Ethernet jacks/outlets. Get sense of the big picture.

You do not have a basement so that is out. Unlikely that any installer would go into a crawl space. Attic has been eliminated: nothing found but again installers are not likely to go there.

Any sort of furnace or utility room? Look there. Where is your electrical panel - where are the circuit breakers located?

Look for any boards that are just somewhere on a wall. Could be a covering....

Look in all closets, look in the garage (if you have one). You may find some plastic panel cover containing all of the connection points,

Check local codes. There may be some prescribed location + or - depending on allowances, grandfathering, etc..

Google "telephone ethernet patch panels".

Images. Get a sense of what you are physically looking for.

I don't have any floor plans of the house.

We have two furnaces... (wierd the way they do things in the south.) We have one furnace for the downstairs and that unit is outside. Then we have one unit for the upstairs. Part of it is in the attic and part of it is outside. So, we don't have a so called furnace room.

Our electrical main panel is outside right next to the AT&T box. Then there's a subpanel off that panel in the garage. I looked all over the garage and do not see any kind of phone utility box.

 

[dorlow]

So, I work in IT. I've done my fair share of networking. (Got my CCNA in college.) So, I do know what a patch panel looks like. I've never seen one in the house anywhere.

 

[Andyme177]

Now you guys are talking about my world I spent 25 years as a cable installer. depending on your definition of new home at the D-mark which is outside next to the main power panel for the home the Cat5's are two blue and one grey if so the blue ones are usually going into an ON-Q panel in the master bedroom closet. (usually a screwed on white cover) If this is not the case then the splices are going to be in behind the jacks. NEC codes would not allow a reputable installer to make a connection in an attic without being encased to prevent fires.

If you are running all this high power stuff and want to connect it together I'd never use 20 year old Cat5 run at least a Cat6a

to find the route go get a toner/tracer any hardware store has them even harbor freight connect it outside to the Cat5 blue and white pair then go to your wall jacks put the probe in the jack where it gives the loudest tone is the first landing point could be spliced there or just a home run to that one a/o.

those pre-wired phone lines used the cheapest quality recycled copper because the analog phone didn't need anything to carry bandwidth etc...

 

[Ralston18]

Going back to the 3 CAT5 wires at the phone box....

Can you see enough of each wire to determine if there are footage markings on the wires?

If so, can you open the wall jacks and look at the wire(s) inside - is there enough slack to maybe pull out a foot or so and check for footage marks?

General idea being that you can use the footage markings (if any) to identify where any given run may start and/or stop.

Or maybe discover some markings made by the installer.

Not ideal and can easily become confusing if, for example, the installer used a section of wire left over from another job.

 

[dorlow]

I just looked in all of our closets and can't find any panels or boxes anywhere. I looked around the master bedroom and didn't find anything. Our house was built in 2007... so its not super new. This is getting really frustrating. This can't be that difficult finding the other ends of these cat 5 cables.

Now you guys are talking about my world I spent 25 years as a cable installer. depending on your definition of new home at the D-mark which is outside next to the main power panel for the home the Cat5's are two blue and one grey if so the blue ones are usually going into an ON-Q panel in the master bedroom closet. (usually a screwed on white cover) If this is not the case then the splices are going to be in behind the jacks. NEC codes would not allow a reputable installer to make a connection in an attic without being encased to prevent fires.

If you are running all this high power stuff and want to connect it together I'd never use 20 year old Cat5 run at least a Cat6a

to find the route go get a toner/tracer any hardware store has them even harbor freight connect it outside to the Cat5 blue and white pair then go to your wall jacks put the probe in the jack where it gives the loudest tone is the first landing point could be spliced there or just a home run to that one a/o.

those pre-wired phone lines used the cheapest quality recycled copper because the analog phone didn't need anything to carry bandwidth etc...

 

[dorlow]

So, I just checked outside again. Our phone box on the side of the house only has one blue cat 5 running out of it into the house. Then there's the grey cat 5 that goes under the siding (like it was an after thought to the house.) So, I'd say I'm pretty sure when the house was originally built, only the blue wire existed. I took the cover off the box in our yard for the phone company (actually it's a cylinder). There is a ton of twisted pair in there. But, I hooked up my toner to one of my phone jacks and then toned for it out in the cylinder thing in the yard and didn't get tone on any of the wires. I doubt they terminate there because we're one of the few houses that have one. I'm sure they're going to everyone else's house.

 

[dorlow]

So, frustrated now. I just rented an amprobe at-7030. Watching YouTube videos, it shows how it traces wires behind walls. Well see what I find out with that.

 

[Andyme177]

You opened up the service pedestal in your yard!!! Careful that could have voltage depending on the type. That Pedestal is where everyone on your street would be connected if they have a home phone and is not intended to be opened by a homeowner. The wires branch from there to the box on the side of each house in the area. When it comes to phone lines they start at two pairs orange/white and blue/white and go up to 400 pairs. Part of the reason phone lines would have static was based on the number of lines in use at the same time. A single phone line carries 12 volts when in use and fluctuates when not in use but active.

My Suggestion if you want a wired network run your own cables Cat6 or newer will give the best connection option. special tools exist to do a wall fish and there are a couple good ways to put RJ45 jacks where you want them in a home.