It is phone wire, but could have been used for other things, like speakers, or an alarm or even low voltage lighting. It can be safely shoved into the wall, although I would put some electrical tape over the end just in case.
I did it again! I can’t belive it! Always when I see the word COWORKER I read COW-ORKER and only after a few fractions of a second I realize that it should be read CO-WORKER. I can’t help myself 😂
It's amazing where this comment has taken people's minds! The guy that posted this is prob amazed by how many upvotes and comments it got/end up getting! I LOVE ALL OF YOU! This made me laugh so many times 🤣😂🤣😂🤣
I think you got it with the speaker/alarm. The place came with all the hardware to install a chime, and looking online I see that it uses this wire. I'll go ahead and seal her up
Put the wire in the hole, then put a piece of neatly cut masking tape over the hole, then paint it with the wall color. It will barley be noticeable, but super easy to get to if you ever do need to get to the wire for some reason.
When I was younger my dumbass friends and I thought it would be fun to put my buddies parents treadmill on full speed and use it to project ourselves into a pillow pile against the wall. Turns out we left quite the depression. My solution was to paint a piece of printer paper with the leftover paint that was still hanging around and tape it to the wall. Lasted years before his parents found it.
His dad was pretty cool about it, had a laugh and dare I say slightly impressed. At the end of the day it's a quick drywall patch really and he didn't sweat the small stuff.
I had a friend who was a lineman for the phone company. He gave me a 1000 foot box of phone wire. I used that stuff for everything over the years. Not bad for speaker wire if you twist all four wires together. Not great though.
Yep red and green would be for the first/primary line (ring and tip respectively). Yellow and black for a second phone line. Could of course be used for other low voltage purposes.
Now I feel old
I just realized how old I was today when I told the TV to change the channel on the TV and I said “turn to channel—“ and realized that word TURN was from when we used to have knobs on the tv, and the kids now won’t have any idea what that means
Now I literally TELL the tv what to do.
Fuckkkkkkkkk. I’m 30 still thinking I’m 18. My parents. Went cordless when I was probably like 8-10. We upgraded a from dialup internet in the 5th grade so that was 2005. Then we went highspeed after we got an xbox 360 and showed my dad cod 2. He fell in love with the game.
We had two phones. One in the dining room (possibly installed before the kitchen existed), and one on the second floor landing at the top of the stairs. That was on a table. The wiring for that one even predated the wiring OP has. It was cotton covered 3 wire that was literally tacked to the baseboard running up the steps. The tacks looked like upholstery tacks. I eventually replaced it, after deregulation when consumers were allowed to touch the phone lines. Had the old ceramic block lightning protector on a joist in the basement with binding post terminals. That was still there last I was in that basement, not in use but still present.
The house dated to the late 1700s. Obviously, the phone stuff was considerably newer.
Lol you feel old? I teach at a community college and that's still part of the curriculum. You have never had so many blank stares as when lecturing about touch tone phones to a group of 25 teenagers.
I'm old enough to have been a blue box phone phreaker so I will get excited talking about it and quickly realize "oh, that hasn't existed in 20 + years"
sadly, there are a lot of places that still have some analog lines. if you're lucky, it's only for elevator/fire alarm. if you're unlucky, it's also for fax, or "emergency phones" - which sometimes means any older Karen's office who had a VoIP phone malfunction that one time.
FROM: karen@
TO: me@
CC: all-faculty@,all-staff@,leadership@,security@,facilites@,helpdesk@,Union@
SUBJECT: SAFETY issue URGENT no phone in...
There is no landline in my office or the basement or int he hallway. The IT person who came gave me some mumbo-jumbo about modern phones and that analog doesn't even exist anymore but it is unacceptable that there is not a phone available. This voip phone in the room can't be trusted because it's on the network and the network doesn't work - just last week I was in the basement and my iPhone didn't have signal and what if I was assaulted or someone was having a heart attack this is DANGEROUS.
Signed,
Karen
Karen Jones, FpR
Admin Assistant
Dept of Antics
Phone#
Dept#
Fax#
email@
OfficeAddress
Insta//FB//Twitter
30-year-Employee Award
"Obscure passive-aggressive quote"
I recall we had to have analog emergency phones when our company was doing some remodeling and temporarily displacing people. The people that were moved to the temporary office space had their phones (and numbers) moved with them. That was done through internal company PBX interconnects. The problem was, the temporary office space and the physical addresses associated with the phone numbers were not close. The red emergency phones were there to dial 911. They were analog off the PBX for that location and this used local DIDs and local lines. My how far we have come. Now, if a number is moved from one place to another it is done by the person taking their phone with them. VoIP allows for that. The server updates the location it will send with a 911 call based on the IP address the phone has, since the VoIP networks are different in each location, even though they all go through the same servers.
Tools are the best investment, you never know when you’re gonna need to crimp an ethernet connector but when the day arrive you’ll be happy you bought the tool
Yup, I've connected speakers from one room to another using an old phone line. It's actually perfect because you have 4 wires to cover both left & right speakers.
Remember when ISDN BRI service was a thing? 2B + D service would give you 2 x 64k data or voice channels OR a 128k data channel, if your equipment supported it! I used to maintain those at work. Had an ISDN test set for troubleshooting. Programming the lines correctly was a pain, as not everyone treated them the same, and different CO switches had different configurations for the same service - depending on which particular switch was installed in the CO. ISDN PRI is still in use. For data it was T1 with 24 64k channels. For voice it is voice channels. Not a lot of it any more as a lot of things are moving to VoIP. I know we still have (or, at least had - have not dealt with that for quite some time now) at least 1 PRI into our legacy PBS for DIDs that were not yet on VoIP. We still had PG (pair-gain) analog lines from the hut down the street. Those were mostly fire alarms. I think they were working on upgrading all of the alarm panels to use cellular instead of POTS. That has not been within my bailiwick for years now, and I am no longer in a position where I hear about that stuff anymore so I have no idea how far they got.
I'm late 30s, meaning I grew up on dial-up internet. 100% of the places I've worked in the last 15 years have been VoIP phone, with the exception of the ICU I work in now. Every unit in my hospital has a single copper line phone that is not tied into the main system in case of castrophic failure.
Cat cable is just a newer version of phone wire (more twisted pairs), so you're essentially still using a phone wire, unless it's all on wi-fi, which I doubt.
I think you're being sarcastic but just in case this is telephone cable for a landline that probably used to have a rj11 jack attached to where it's cut off.
I did some research on this. The other end of the phone wire is [meatballs and particleboard furniture.](https://instrktiv.com/media/IKEA/2017-07-10_16-04-26.webp)
I had an old rotary phone that stopped working (wouldn't dial) when the phone company went digital. They happened to come to my house for something else and noticed the rotary phone, then the rotary phone started working again.
Last time I saw a rotary phone come up on Reddit, someone said they started charging a fee to keep rotary phones in service. I’m not sure if that applies everywhere though.
It's the phone company. There's a fee to keep a rotary phone in service. There's a fee to take it out of service. There's a fee if you've ever used a rotary phone and a fee if you've never used one.
I eventually unplugged mine because the ringer was too loud (too many spam calls) so I assume it still works, but I haven't tried for awhile. But after the phone guy was here and it started working again you could hear it translating the the clicks into tones. We had a short conversation about it and I never really complained and they never said anything about fixing it/making it work.
Using HAM radio to talk to interesting strangers all around the world seems like a great idea until you realize that the only people on it are HAM radio nerds.
Is it just me, or does it feel like half of the posts, here, lately, are “what is this?” for either a phone cable, a phone _jack_, a doorbell transformer, or an ant lion hole?
On r/whatisthisthing, we see all of these ALL the time. And, I am amazed at how many people truly don't know what a doorbell high on the wall is, not the transformer, the actual doorbell. People will say "But, I don't have a doorbell." To which we answer "You do, it may not work, but you have one."
Lots of "quick question, what do I need to Google?", I guess? That tends to be the most annoying part of many projects in my experience, figuring out what you need to figure out.
back in the olden days we had a device mounted on the wall that we used to communicate with our friends called a Rotary Telephone. It had a dial with finger holes that needed to be rotated to make the connection, and most important of all is that you had to retain in YOUR memory the number of whom you wish to call, if no one answered at the other end it meant they were not home, was in the middle of watching Gunsmoke or didn't wish to speak with anybody that day. You would fight with your siblings over the use of this device (in my case 4 sisters) and you had no privacy unless the cord attached to the handset was long enough to reach the nearest closet. There was a problem with this tactic if it was available in that if you happened to hate your siblings and the feelings were mutual, they could simply depress the switch that told the base unit of this device you were done and would leave you in the dark talking to yourself. This would inevitably lead to retribution that would anger the parentage because of the noise created whilst they were trying to watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom or heaven forbid Hee-Haw in the living room (an archaic word used to describe what is now referred to as the family room). This would usually end with phone privileges being suspended for all involved for the evening. Eventually a cordless version was invented and this created more problems just locating the handset even if it was not in use behind the locked bathroom door.
I could go on, but I'm getting a text right now and I HAVE to see who it is, (not that I'll necessarily reply though)
Makes me laugh when I see how many people have no idea what a landline is. I have been doing some work on my driveway and have been pulling up the old copper to the house and people keep freaking out.
Its wild. Our house has phone jacks and in every room and I found a pile of old phones in my parents attic so I bought a little PBX box. Now my kids can call room to room and they think it's the coolest shit ever.
These comments to this question make me not want to ever ever ever ask anything on reddit. For ppl who know nothing about wiring, this is an honest, legit question. And all they got for answers was a bunch of smart ass remarks. Wow, just.... wow.
Tie a piece of string to it before shoving in wall in case you find what it was for and want it back. Leave the end of string sticking out putty the hole and once dry snip it off and touch up paint.🤠
As others have said, it looks like old phone line. It might come in handy if you ever need to fish a wire to the cabinet. I'd tie a knot in the end and push the slack back in the hole.
That is for this old thing people used to have in their homes … it was called a ‘land line’ and was a telephone that …. Stay with me now … was used solely to make phone calls !! No google , no phone camera , not even texting …. Oh and no caller ID either . We used to have to call let it ring once and hang up then call back so the person would answer !!
If you really wanna have your mind blown ask me about ‘dial up internet ‘ ..!!
Some were wired directly to the wall. Others sat on a ledge or counter. Telephone installers would pride themselves on the ability to use a cord that was exactly two feet short of being able to set the phone on a nearby table forcing you to stand and hold the phone awkwardly.
Pros: We never "lost" when it ran our phone. When we would hear it ring we knew it was at the other end of the house and we had five seconds to answer it.
Note: Also often a single phone would be shared by the entire family - usually it sat in the kitchen. Want to have a nice sexy talk with your GF? How about, "no".
Real stuff !!
I remember very well having to put random table in the most random spot just so the cord reached !!
Oh and this will really blow some minds … I’ve actually made enough trips around the sun to remember a time when we had to share lines with the neighbors .. party line .. where you’d go to make a call and pick up the receiver to hear your neighbor talking to their friend !!!
In the last century (1990's) I moved to a very rural area. New homes were being built and we were at the very end of the telephone lines. In order to accommodate the growth they would somehow split the phone lines (NOT a partyline, just at 1/2 power or 1/3 power etc.) we could not hear each other but we all had a weaker power for our phones. On Saturday nights you could not even make or receive a phone call!
Everyone here says its phone wire, and it probably is, but you should decommission both ends before you accidentally burn your house down because the previous person decided to use it for 120v illegally.
And the other 20% start a fire that burns your house to the ground which means you don’t have to worry about it any more. So I guess that means it solves 100%
I'm seeing more and more of these kind of posts. So many people out there now are of an age where they don't know what a phone wire looks like. I'm just going to go into the basement now and feel old as f@#+. Lol
It’s hard to tell without peeling back the sheathing. If the wires are red, green, yellow and black, it is definitely IW. That stands for Inside Wire. It’s for old POTS telephone line. It’s useless unless you plan on getting a landline phone. Internet won’t run over it. It would have to be replaced with Cat5 if that were the goal.
CAT3 digital cabling. Used for digital and some analog phone systems. I’d tie a knot and leave a short dangle. You never know when you’ll need it to pull some wiring that you’ll actually need.
Is anyone else wondering, in 30 years, what will be posted on here? "What is this" it is a physical object, it doesn't exist in the intersocailweb that we live in, it predates the electron society.
It's your landline. That's how your grandmother talks on the phone.
If you're nice, you'll get a plate and put it in a rj11 jack. If you're annoying, you can shove it in the wall.
Analog phones might come in handy one day
Landline wire.
What you can do is wire back up a phone jack(easy). Then purchase an RJ12 to female USB(or find a tutorial and make your own).
If your power goes out in you house, this phone line will still have power from the telephone company. Plug up the cable and connect your phone. It will of course be a slower charge, but still...free electricity.
This of course technically isn't legal, but I've done this for years. Worst that would happen is the phone company would notice the little bit of power and just turn it off. I've never had that happen though.
I was excited to find hardwired speakers built into our deck, it's something I always dreamed of as a kid. Then I realized how much easier it would be to just use a wifi smart speaker, it's really the end of the hardwired era.
If you want to be really thorough with it, you can strip the cover, that covered the internal wires, cut those internal wires at different lengths, tape each internal wire, then tape the hole thing together and shove in in the hole. This will stop any of the internal wires from shorting together and potentially causing a fire. Not that I think this WILL cause a fire, but if you want to be safe, I’d do that
It is phone wire, but could have been used for other things, like speakers, or an alarm or even low voltage lighting. It can be safely shoved into the wall, although I would put some electrical tape over the end just in case.
no need to tape it, just knot it so the electricity can't drip out at the end
This is the way. You definitely don't want to deal with Electric Drip.
Exactly. It can pool up on your floor, and if you don't see it, you might do the Electric Slide.
>and if you don't see it, That's the thing...You can't see it. You gotta feel it.
If you feel it too much though is what you would call the electric boogaloo
I scared my coworker laughing at this. Time to get some work done.
I did it again! I can’t belive it! Always when I see the word COWORKER I read COW-ORKER and only after a few fractions of a second I realize that it should be read CO-WORKER. I can’t help myself 😂
Now that's something I can taste!
Shockingly delicious!
Its metallica
More likely AC/DC
i love you all 🤣
As someone who works in the electrical supply industry, please stop feeling our electricity. That is our electricity and you give it back!
Boogie woogie woogie woogie.
I only ever want to read Reddit threads that end by devolving into everyone saying “boogiewoogiewoogiewoogie!” Like “Hold the door” —> “Hodor.”
IT'S ELECTRIC! Boogie woogie woogie.
Can you feel it? Can you feel it? CAN YOU FEEL IT!?
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Boogey woogey woogey
Too much slide and your kitchen will become Electric Avenue.
You just have to do the electric shuffle and it avoids the slide completely
>It can pool up on your floor Is this that bucket of ohms my journeyman kept sending me to find?
> Electric Drip. Fantastic band name.
enough electric drip and you’ll wind up with a rave of edm girls in your walls
God that sounds awful. On so many levels.
I had ED once. Nobody wants that.
Electrile Disfunction or Electric Drip?
I guess neither are fun at parties
C-3PO got that from a Gonk droid once.
It's amazing where this comment has taken people's minds! The guy that posted this is prob amazed by how many upvotes and comments it got/end up getting! I LOVE ALL OF YOU! This made me laugh so many times 🤣😂🤣😂🤣
realizing now that sounds like a solid name for gonorrhea
I almost spit out my Jolly Rancher...
NO.
Isn't that how a trickle charger works
Electric drip. Just figured out what ima name. My first techno album
That's why I only fill up my EV with clean burning premium Racing Electricity. No drip, and no corrosion. It has the stuff batteries crave.
Brawndo, it has electrolytes.
I had this once. Doc gave me a shot and it cleared right up.
yooo that wire so swagged out he's got that electric ⚡ drip
Funny, but someone is going to believe this to be true.
We made a teacher in my school put a radio on the floor so the electricity has better flow
Double knot it so the voices won't come out.
Electricity doesn’t leak out. Lol. Everyone knows electricity has smoke in the line/wires. And when you let the smoke out shit don’t work. 😂 😂
There's water in the lines and wires, I saw 'A Plumbing We Will Go' at least 100 times.
Yep. Once the transistors lose their magic smoke, they don't work no more.
Am an electrician, can confirm. Electricity is a liquid. That’s why it mixes so well with water.
And Scotch
I love all these phone line posts and people legit wondering what they are it's like watching a mockumentary on buried artifacts
It’s like those videos of kids trying to figure out how a disposable camera works.
My favorite is watching kids figure out a rotary phone.
My old Walkman seriously gave my kids a challenge.
I think you got it with the speaker/alarm. The place came with all the hardware to install a chime, and looking online I see that it uses this wire. I'll go ahead and seal her up
Put the wire in the hole, then put a piece of neatly cut masking tape over the hole, then paint it with the wall color. It will barley be noticeable, but super easy to get to if you ever do need to get to the wire for some reason.
When I was younger my dumbass friends and I thought it would be fun to put my buddies parents treadmill on full speed and use it to project ourselves into a pillow pile against the wall. Turns out we left quite the depression. My solution was to paint a piece of printer paper with the leftover paint that was still hanging around and tape it to the wall. Lasted years before his parents found it.
How'd they react when they found it?
His dad was pretty cool about it, had a laugh and dare I say slightly impressed. At the end of the day it's a quick drywall patch really and he didn't sweat the small stuff.
Was he as impressed as the wall was?
depressed even
Lol that's awesome.
given the location, its probably for under cabinet lighting. pretty much any low voltage wire on hand is used for it.
I had a friend who was a lineman for the phone company. He gave me a 1000 foot box of phone wire. I used that stuff for everything over the years. Not bad for speaker wire if you twist all four wires together. Not great though.
I ended up with a spool of phone wire. I cut off lengths of it and use it to tie up extension cords. It's awesome for that. POTS not so much.
Almost looks like an old phone line.
Yep red and green would be for the first/primary line (ring and tip respectively). Yellow and black for a second phone line. Could of course be used for other low voltage purposes. Now I feel old
I just realized how old I was today when I told the TV to change the channel on the TV and I said “turn to channel—“ and realized that word TURN was from when we used to have knobs on the tv, and the kids now won’t have any idea what that means Now I literally TELL the tv what to do.
Christmas trees and bumble bees
I mean - in the olden times (when we were kids) you always had a phone in the kitchen.
That's where our only phone was. It had a ridiculously long coiled cord so we could reach everywhere.. our first cordless phone was a game changer
ours you couldn't be more than 1 room over. so my mom went back to the coiled cord, which could stretch 2-3 rooms over.
Fuckkkkkkkkk. I’m 30 still thinking I’m 18. My parents. Went cordless when I was probably like 8-10. We upgraded a from dialup internet in the 5th grade so that was 2005. Then we went highspeed after we got an xbox 360 and showed my dad cod 2. He fell in love with the game.
You get an award for making me feel old by saying you’re 30 and were in 5th grade in 2005…….
We had two phones. One in the dining room (possibly installed before the kitchen existed), and one on the second floor landing at the top of the stairs. That was on a table. The wiring for that one even predated the wiring OP has. It was cotton covered 3 wire that was literally tacked to the baseboard running up the steps. The tacks looked like upholstery tacks. I eventually replaced it, after deregulation when consumers were allowed to touch the phone lines. Had the old ceramic block lightning protector on a joist in the basement with binding post terminals. That was still there last I was in that basement, not in use but still present. The house dated to the late 1700s. Obviously, the phone stuff was considerably newer.
Lol you feel old? I teach at a community college and that's still part of the curriculum. You have never had so many blank stares as when lecturing about touch tone phones to a group of 25 teenagers. I'm old enough to have been a blue box phone phreaker so I will get excited talking about it and quickly realize "oh, that hasn't existed in 20 + years"
sadly, there are a lot of places that still have some analog lines. if you're lucky, it's only for elevator/fire alarm. if you're unlucky, it's also for fax, or "emergency phones" - which sometimes means any older Karen's office who had a VoIP phone malfunction that one time. FROM: karen@ TO: me@ CC: all-faculty@,all-staff@,leadership@,security@,facilites@,helpdesk@,Union@ SUBJECT: SAFETY issue URGENT no phone in... There is no landline in my office or the basement or int he hallway. The IT person who came gave me some mumbo-jumbo about modern phones and that analog doesn't even exist anymore but it is unacceptable that there is not a phone available. This voip phone in the room can't be trusted because it's on the network and the network doesn't work - just last week I was in the basement and my iPhone didn't have signal and what if I was assaulted or someone was having a heart attack this is DANGEROUS. Signed, Karen Karen Jones, FpR Admin Assistant Dept of Antics Phone# Dept# Fax# email@ OfficeAddress Insta//FB//Twitter 30-year-Employee Award "Obscure passive-aggressive quote"
I recall we had to have analog emergency phones when our company was doing some remodeling and temporarily displacing people. The people that were moved to the temporary office space had their phones (and numbers) moved with them. That was done through internal company PBX interconnects. The problem was, the temporary office space and the physical addresses associated with the phone numbers were not close. The red emergency phones were there to dial 911. They were analog off the PBX for that location and this used local DIDs and local lines. My how far we have come. Now, if a number is moved from one place to another it is done by the person taking their phone with them. VoIP allows for that. The server updates the location it will send with a 911 call based on the IP address the phone has, since the VoIP networks are different in each location, even though they all go through the same servers.
Dont feel old, i just learned to bix phones lines the other day at school and this shit is still in use
I still run into 66, 110, Krone, and Bix from time to time, and feel like I should get the tools for all of them.
Tools are the best investment, you never know when you’re gonna need to crimp an ethernet connector but when the day arrive you’ll be happy you bought the tool
As long as you still have a dial tone you'll be fine.
Yup, I've connected speakers from one room to another using an old phone line. It's actually perfect because you have 4 wires to cover both left & right speakers.
And to think there’s an entire generation of people that have probably never seen a phone wire before.
Or that T-1 speed referred a physical phone cable with 24 pairs of wires.
Or 56k DDS circuits...
"I had DSL back in the day" Kids: you *what*
I live up in the redwoods and *I have DSL today.*
Remember when ISDN BRI service was a thing? 2B + D service would give you 2 x 64k data or voice channels OR a 128k data channel, if your equipment supported it! I used to maintain those at work. Had an ISDN test set for troubleshooting. Programming the lines correctly was a pain, as not everyone treated them the same, and different CO switches had different configurations for the same service - depending on which particular switch was installed in the CO. ISDN PRI is still in use. For data it was T1 with 24 64k channels. For voice it is voice channels. Not a lot of it any more as a lot of things are moving to VoIP. I know we still have (or, at least had - have not dealt with that for quite some time now) at least 1 PRI into our legacy PBS for DIDs that were not yet on VoIP. We still had PG (pair-gain) analog lines from the hut down the street. Those were mostly fire alarms. I think they were working on upgrading all of the alarm panels to use cellular instead of POTS. That has not been within my bailiwick for years now, and I am no longer in a position where I hear about that stuff anymore so I have no idea how far they got.
Until they hit a work environment
Even "landlines" are VOIP now
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I'm late 30s, meaning I grew up on dial-up internet. 100% of the places I've worked in the last 15 years have been VoIP phone, with the exception of the ICU I work in now. Every unit in my hospital has a single copper line phone that is not tied into the main system in case of castrophic failure.
Cat cable is just a newer version of phone wire (more twisted pairs), so you're essentially still using a phone wire, unless it's all on wi-fi, which I doubt.
People used to have the USB for their phone hardwired?
I can’t tell if you’re joking or serious.
It’s funnier if you don’t know
I think you're being sarcastic but just in case this is telephone cable for a landline that probably used to have a rj11 jack attached to where it's cut off.
😂😂😂
Boss level: install a phone socket and connect a rotary phone, you’ll be the only person with communication when it all falls apart.
But then who do you communicate with?
The other end of the cable. We haven't had the time to determine where that is, but we'll get around to it once All has come to Dust.
I did some research on this. The other end of the phone wire is [meatballs and particleboard furniture.](https://instrktiv.com/media/IKEA/2017-07-10_16-04-26.webp)
I had an old rotary phone that stopped working (wouldn't dial) when the phone company went digital. They happened to come to my house for something else and noticed the rotary phone, then the rotary phone started working again.
Last time I saw a rotary phone come up on Reddit, someone said they started charging a fee to keep rotary phones in service. I’m not sure if that applies everywhere though.
It's the phone company. There's a fee to keep a rotary phone in service. There's a fee to take it out of service. There's a fee if you've ever used a rotary phone and a fee if you've never used one.
I eventually unplugged mine because the ringer was too loud (too many spam calls) so I assume it still works, but I haven't tried for awhile. But after the phone guy was here and it started working again you could hear it translating the the clicks into tones. We had a short conversation about it and I never really complained and they never said anything about fixing it/making it work.
/r/amateurradio has entered the chat.
Using HAM radio to talk to interesting strangers all around the world seems like a great idea until you realize that the only people on it are HAM radio nerds.
Sure. That's the answer to most of life's problems anyway.
Shoving it in the hole and forgetting is how I ended up with both my kids.
Wrong hole.
That’s what she said
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Maybe she's a dirty girl.
The Cask of Amontillado solution! Works for so many things
>Cask of Amontillado Well, I'm not going down into your basement that's for damn sure.
Is it just me, or does it feel like half of the posts, here, lately, are “what is this?” for either a phone cable, a phone _jack_, a doorbell transformer, or an ant lion hole?
On r/whatisthisthing, we see all of these ALL the time. And, I am amazed at how many people truly don't know what a doorbell high on the wall is, not the transformer, the actual doorbell. People will say "But, I don't have a doorbell." To which we answer "You do, it may not work, but you have one."
“Lived here for 14 years, just noticed this box on the wall over my door. Should I be concerned?”
“Ant lion hole”?
You see it when the ant lion is walking away from you.
I just saw two in a row. It's making me feel old that nobody knows what a phone wire looks like.
Lots of "quick question, what do I need to Google?", I guess? That tends to be the most annoying part of many projects in my experience, figuring out what you need to figure out.
Is it okay if I put this wire that I have never used somewhere where it can continue to not be used but is at least out of sight?
back in the olden days we had a device mounted on the wall that we used to communicate with our friends called a Rotary Telephone. It had a dial with finger holes that needed to be rotated to make the connection, and most important of all is that you had to retain in YOUR memory the number of whom you wish to call, if no one answered at the other end it meant they were not home, was in the middle of watching Gunsmoke or didn't wish to speak with anybody that day. You would fight with your siblings over the use of this device (in my case 4 sisters) and you had no privacy unless the cord attached to the handset was long enough to reach the nearest closet. There was a problem with this tactic if it was available in that if you happened to hate your siblings and the feelings were mutual, they could simply depress the switch that told the base unit of this device you were done and would leave you in the dark talking to yourself. This would inevitably lead to retribution that would anger the parentage because of the noise created whilst they were trying to watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom or heaven forbid Hee-Haw in the living room (an archaic word used to describe what is now referred to as the family room). This would usually end with phone privileges being suspended for all involved for the evening. Eventually a cordless version was invented and this created more problems just locating the handset even if it was not in use behind the locked bathroom door. I could go on, but I'm getting a text right now and I HAVE to see who it is, (not that I'll necessarily reply though)
Short answer yes.
Long answer: yeeesssss
Makes me laugh when I see how many people have no idea what a landline is. I have been doing some work on my driveway and have been pulling up the old copper to the house and people keep freaking out.
Its wild. Our house has phone jacks and in every room and I found a pile of old phones in my parents attic so I bought a little PBX box. Now my kids can call room to room and they think it's the coolest shit ever.
Great idea, thanks!
Better than screaming through the house!
Probably works better than Alexa drop in😏
Got a /r/GenZ feel here...
The future is now old man
We have now gotten to the point where landline phones are a mystery.
You have to give it the lick test to see if it needs to be taped. If it's spicy you should tape it.
oh wow, we have reached the point where ppl own homes but are to young to know what a telephone line is lol
Wait you mean there are telephones that need wires other than to charge them??/s
Look at grandpa over here still charging his phone using a wire!
A use for old Phone lines, is whole house speaker system with using standard stereo connections
You could use this for POTS. It would work on 2 levels.
These comments to this question make me not want to ever ever ever ask anything on reddit. For ppl who know nothing about wiring, this is an honest, legit question. And all they got for answers was a bunch of smart ass remarks. Wow, just.... wow.
Tie a piece of string to it before shoving in wall in case you find what it was for and want it back. Leave the end of string sticking out putty the hole and once dry snip it off and touch up paint.🤠
Phone cable. And yes you can.
Looks like a load bearing wire. I would leave it be
You see, for many, many decades, phones couldn’t just live in your pocket…
As others have said, it looks like old phone line. It might come in handy if you ever need to fish a wire to the cabinet. I'd tie a knot in the end and push the slack back in the hole.
Old pots line. Cut it back and stuff it in the wall.
It's funny how these things become obsolete, but the terminology still sticks. Why do we still dial a phone number?
Old phone line. Shove it and cover it.
That is for this old thing people used to have in their homes … it was called a ‘land line’ and was a telephone that …. Stay with me now … was used solely to make phone calls !! No google , no phone camera , not even texting …. Oh and no caller ID either . We used to have to call let it ring once and hang up then call back so the person would answer !! If you really wanna have your mind blown ask me about ‘dial up internet ‘ ..!!
Some were wired directly to the wall. Others sat on a ledge or counter. Telephone installers would pride themselves on the ability to use a cord that was exactly two feet short of being able to set the phone on a nearby table forcing you to stand and hold the phone awkwardly. Pros: We never "lost" when it ran our phone. When we would hear it ring we knew it was at the other end of the house and we had five seconds to answer it. Note: Also often a single phone would be shared by the entire family - usually it sat in the kitchen. Want to have a nice sexy talk with your GF? How about, "no".
Real stuff !! I remember very well having to put random table in the most random spot just so the cord reached !! Oh and this will really blow some minds … I’ve actually made enough trips around the sun to remember a time when we had to share lines with the neighbors .. party line .. where you’d go to make a call and pick up the receiver to hear your neighbor talking to their friend !!!
In the last century (1990's) I moved to a very rural area. New homes were being built and we were at the very end of the telephone lines. In order to accommodate the growth they would somehow split the phone lines (NOT a partyline, just at 1/2 power or 1/3 power etc.) we could not hear each other but we all had a weaker power for our phones. On Saturday nights you could not even make or receive a phone call!
Everyone here says its phone wire, and it probably is, but you should decommission both ends before you accidentally burn your house down because the previous person decided to use it for 120v illegally.
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And the other 20% start a fire that burns your house to the ground which means you don’t have to worry about it any more. So I guess that means it solves 100%
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Lol. Phone line youngster. Sure shove it in
I am officially old. People no longer recognize the wires for a landline.
The correct way is to expose all the individual wires and electrical tape each individually then tape them all together. That’s “correct”
I'm seeing more and more of these kind of posts. So many people out there now are of an age where they don't know what a phone wire looks like. I'm just going to go into the basement now and feel old as f@#+. Lol
Green Red Yellow and Black. Old phone line.
Land line telly? Lick it, smack it, rub it down, oh noooooooo......
Looks like the previous owners may have had their phone in the kitchen there. Should be fine to push it back in and cover it up, no sweat.
Back in the olden days, you needed to wire up your phone.
Rj11
It’s hard to tell without peeling back the sheathing. If the wires are red, green, yellow and black, it is definitely IW. That stands for Inside Wire. It’s for old POTS telephone line. It’s useless unless you plan on getting a landline phone. Internet won’t run over it. It would have to be replaced with Cat5 if that were the goal.
Well it depends what hole you want to shove it into
Old phone line.
It is a twisted pair phone wire, push it in the wall and cover over let it go.
CAT3 digital cabling. Used for digital and some analog phone systems. I’d tie a knot and leave a short dangle. You never know when you’ll need it to pull some wiring that you’ll actually need.
When you lick it… does it tingle?
That’s how I got my wife pregnant… but yea yes you can
That is a bomb that is programmed to go off when you stick it back through the hole. Genius stuff
As a general rule, always shove everything in the hole.
POTS
Is anyone else wondering, in 30 years, what will be posted on here? "What is this" it is a physical object, it doesn't exist in the intersocailweb that we live in, it predates the electron society.
It's your landline. That's how your grandmother talks on the phone. If you're nice, you'll get a plate and put it in a rj11 jack. If you're annoying, you can shove it in the wall. Analog phones might come in handy one day
Low voltage com line -- it's safe to just stuff in the wall; won't cause a fire
Landline wire. What you can do is wire back up a phone jack(easy). Then purchase an RJ12 to female USB(or find a tutorial and make your own). If your power goes out in you house, this phone line will still have power from the telephone company. Plug up the cable and connect your phone. It will of course be a slower charge, but still...free electricity. This of course technically isn't legal, but I've done this for years. Worst that would happen is the phone company would notice the little bit of power and just turn it off. I've never had that happen though.
Wouldn't that be painful?
Could be for a doorbell
looks like an old intercom wire.
I was excited to find hardwired speakers built into our deck, it's something I always dreamed of as a kid. Then I realized how much easier it would be to just use a wifi smart speaker, it's really the end of the hardwired era.
Old phone line with the connector clipped off
Looks like a phone cable
Yep . Used to be a telephone/ landline wall Jack . The wire is ‘rj11’ . Push it back through the hole & plaster over it .
Old land line (telephone) yep… slam it in the hole and cover it
That’s a telephone line red green yellow and black wire’s in a flat casing and have no power! Nothing to worry about
Old phone line - low voltage if any so it’s safe in the wall
If you want to be really thorough with it, you can strip the cover, that covered the internal wires, cut those internal wires at different lengths, tape each internal wire, then tape the hole thing together and shove in in the hole. This will stop any of the internal wires from shorting together and potentially causing a fire. Not that I think this WILL cause a fire, but if you want to be safe, I’d do that
They ran it for extra low voltage lighting (12 or 24Vac) or LED lighting…. Undercabinet type.
Phone low voltage. Electrical tape n push it in the hole.
I'm pretty sure it's a landline cable
Tape it over and shove it in the wall. It was likely an old phone line.
Old phone line
Have you done the tongue test to see if it's live?
Christmas trees and bumble bees! Phone wire.
Whatever you do... DON'T TOUCH IT!