[happyneko]

I just moved into a new house, built in the 1970s and in a lot of rooms i have plugs that look like this

From what i understand this is an old style phone line. I assume that it goes down to this box in the basement

I don't know if this is somehow still in use, but I don't plan on having a home phone so i'd rather just remove it and try to use the wires as pull strings for coax since theres no cable in a lot of the upstairs rooms. my question is, was everything still low voltage back when they used this? the wire that concerned me was the black one, but I think that might be disconnected. Outside of my home there is a severed black wire on that same side of the house that looks like a cable line. I don't really know how to test if anything on this is live or not.

 

[Missouri Bound]

Yep, that's an old phone plug. Using the existing wires as "pull strings" is a great idea, unless they are stapled somewhere. You will find that out soon enough. What will you do for internet connection?

 

[happyneko]

i have cable internet. is this actually still useable for today's phone service? like i can't find any rj11 phone plugs in the house, i'm beginning to wonder if the previous owner had a phone or not. if i called verizon and asked them to come out, would they use this old thing?

 

[Missouri Bound]

Nope, it's obsolete equipment. That equipment has been replaced by Demarks (SP)

 

[a7ecorsair]

Yes, that is still usable. If you had Verizon come out they would probably pull those and install an RJ11 box right in the same spot. You can actually get a RJ11 adapter that will plug right into those old four prong plugs.

 

[gregzoll]

It is telephone. It should be actually a newer box that allows a RJ-11 cord to plug in. You can go to Radioshack, Lowes, Home Depot and pick up the newer style jacks. They are color coded (Red, Green, Yellow, Black), so pretty much dummy proof. Also, you can still purchase the 4 prong adapters for those older style biscuits.

As for pulling coax, yes you can use the cat-3 for backpulling, but I would rather not, if you can try to just leave alone, due to the next person who moves in may want telephone there, not coax. If you own, pull Cat-5 or Cat-6 with the coax, otherwise if renting, check with landloard if you can pull the networking & coax up there with the telephone, and terminate near the telephone demarc.