Doing your own telephone wiring

In most residential phone wiring, the cable contains four individual wires. Most phone wire installed in the U.S. during the second half of the 20th century is of the following kind: Four-strand wire: The kind of wire shown above has recently become obsolete. For all new telephone wiring projects, you should use Cat 5 cable.

Ron discusses wiring for phone circuits and USOC wiring. He covers the pair colors and their positions in the jack and how to convert old wire colors to the new Cat 5e colors. #RonKipperDatacomm.

FYI, if purchase multiwire cable with 4 pair (8 colored wires) for four lines, the wiring convention is the same as above, with LINE 3 using BLUE + WHITE and LINE 4 using ORANGE + BROWN. All telephones, residential telephone, jacks, connectors, etc., that you can buy today follow this wiring convention.

Attach telephone wire to the old jack. Open the casing, or unscrew the plating, on the old jack. Loosen the screws that secure the red, green, yellow and black telephone wires. As necessary, trim damage from the old wires and strip the insulation from the tips. Strip the insulation from the tips of the new wires, too.

Category cable works just as well as the old cable for phone service, and it works much better for data (such as for a DSL internet connection). With either type of cable, once the cable is run to the jack location, wiring the jack is a simple matter of matching up the correct wire colors.

Incorrect wiring or wires touching metal: Check for proper wire colors and connections. Static on the line: Phone line wires wet or have loose connections: Check the wires and inside the phone jack covers for signs of moisture. No sound on the line; "dead air" Wire off, wire crossed, or wire is shorted to another

Connect the wires . CSA-approved telephone wire is colour-coded to help you connect the proper wires: Using a wire stripping tool, remove about 10 cm (4 inches) of the outside plastic sheath (usually beige or grey) that bundles the wires together. Be careful not to nick insulation or cut the wires beneath the sheath.

This is a gray or tan box that measures roughly 8 inches by 12 inches. ... Plug a telephone wire into the telephone jack. ... Touch one of the wires of the multimeter to the phone wire, then touch the other one to another port on the phone, ...

Where two wires are to be terminated at the same terminal, make sure that the colours of the wires from each cable match each other. After you have made the three terminations on one side of the socket, e.g. 1,2,3 as shown above, turn the tool around to make the terminations for 4,5,6 so that the ‘blade’ of the tool (longer edge), is again facing towards the middle of the socket.

Pinch the wire sheathing against the back of the new jack with your thumb. Hold the tip of the bare wire with a needle-nose pliers, and wrap it clockwise around the terminal screw. When your phone quits working or static develops on the line, your phone jack may need to be replaced. We’ll show you ...