[SOLVED] POTS demarc what is all this mess

[TradeJack01]

Hi All,

I want to replace all the phone cabling in the apartment. However, I want to make sure and leave the POTS from outside untouched. I just want to rip out all the other phone cabling that belongs to the apartment.

https://imgur.com/a/3wU5V2T

View: https://imgur.com/a/3wU5V2T


The image shows where ADSL is connected. The phon- out connector of the ADSL modem usually goes back into the other wall socket.

When I connect the phone-out from ADSL modem we have phone connectivity in outlets across the house (but only one out of two wall sockets in every room, tested using middle-2 wire phone).

I am confused as to why the two wires (orange and white) connected to the "ADSL socket" go into a cable that has total 6 wires. Some of the six wires (green, red, blue, yellow) branch out to some of the other cables. Can I just cut those wires and wrap them with electrical tape? I tested all the RJ11 sockets across my house and none currently have a signal using a 2-wire phone (middle 2 of 6). Will my ADSL line (orange, white) be fine by itself if I cut the remaining 4 (red, green, blue, yellow) ? Can I then use the other wire holes going to the rest of my house to run UTP cable?

Are the 4 mystery wires routed to sockets around my house at positions other than middle 2 of 6?

I know this is probably confusing in the way I explained it. I would be happy to post follow up clarifications as needed.

Thank you for your help!

 

[bill001g]

My guess would be is all the jacks are wired the same. So the top jack has the orange and white and the bottom has green and red. The orange and white wire are not connected to anything so likely the top jack in the other rooms does nothing. The bottom jacks are all hooked together so when you connect the out of the ADSL
the other rooms are connected to that.

If you do not need the phone I guess you could cut the wires. Not sure what you would do with the wires. UTP means unshielded TWISTED PAIR. Those wires are not in pairs or twisted. That appears to simple telephone wire not even cat3 which does use twisted pairs. Cat3 you might be able to get to work at 10mbit. That cable I doubt will work for ethernet. There is other technology that might work if you want to spend the money. It has been a while since I looked at that equipment. There was a form of private DSL devices that could run on phone lines. I have also read that they make devices that use similar technology to MoCA but it runs on phone lines.

 

[TradeJack01]

All phone cabling must go, except what is absolutely necessary for ADSL to terminate at this outlet. I will run new UTP Cat6 through the conduits. I just want to make sure I do not cut off too many wires and end up without ADSL.

 

[TradeJack01]

So what might the red, green, blue, yellow.. wires do? Are those for when my phone company offers me a second (or third) phone line?

 

[Murissokah]

So what might the red, green, blue, yellow.. wires do? Are those for when my phone company offers me a second (or third) phone line?

That looks like an old 8-wire phone cable, or maybe a CAT-3 that has been untwisted. Yes, those were from analog times when you needed additional wire pairs for additional phone lines. ADSL works over standard telephone cabling and will only ever use one of those pairs. If you wanted, you could find out where the other end of the cable is and replace it with an UTP, even for DSL. I assume you don't want to do that to avoid interferring with cabling outside your apartment.

 

[bill001g]

If you do not need analog phone in the other rooms I would just replace all of it and just leave the phone line alone. As mentioned you could replace that also. Phone has no issue running over ethernet cables since it is far superior.

If you have conduit I would pull 2 cable to each room. You could then use 1 for ethernet and if you would ever need phone you would have the extra cable and if you needed another ethernet jack then that would work also.

Be very sure to buy quality cable. There is lots of junk on the market. Be sure the wire is pure copper (no CCA) and do not use thin or flat cable the wire size must be 22-24. Cat6 has no advantage over cat5e, if you want to run 10gbit then run cat6a cable.

 

[Ralston18]

Noted: "All phone cabling must go " Why?

For the most part, I would also just leave it all alone. Simply clean it up or hide as much as possible. Label the ends as "dead" or otherwise note that the wire is not in use. But leave in place.

Reasons:

1) Tearing/pulling out the wiring may cause unexpected damage somewhere.

2) Good chance that someone may have spliced wires elsewhere and the ASDL gets disconnected anyway.

3) Having an old wire available may come in handy someday.

Just my thoughts on the matter.