How easy/difficult to replace internal phone wiring?
emax4
Enthusiast - Level 1

Hello. A few months ago our phone service went out. I spent a good deal of time with the extremely helpful and patient Verizon phone tech (true!) who determined that the issue is within the old telephone wiring of the house. I took my charged and working cordless set outside, hooked it up to the main box, and it worked, so I knew it wasn't the phone. He said it could be an issue with the internal jack itself.

So just this week I wenr out and got a replacement jack. I hooked it up correctly with the two wires that were originally there (blue wire with red dashes, and red with with blue dashes), but no luck. I saw a bigger tangled mess that I managed to pull out of the hole:

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This doesn't surprise me, because I knew in our fuse box we have a larger tangled mess of nappy wires:

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Here's an uglier view:

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We're using a cordless telephone on a base, with two matching bases for the main base; one in the bedroom and one in the basement. Therefore, we only need a single line coming in. Can I simple cut and remove the telephone wiring from the fuse box area? Also, Can I cut off the mess of wires from the hole in the wall? What's I'd really like to do is run all new telephone wiring from the box outside (we have the standard box and the new FiOS box) to the phone jack in the living room. That phone jack is in a wall between the dining room and the living room. I'd just like to cut down the unnecessary wires and run a single group of wires from the box to the living room phone jack. I can't seem to find good hits when I look up "replace internal phone wiring".

I don't have phone test tools but have wiring experience, good soldering skills (not needed for this), covered gloves, multimeter, current tester, and other tools. I've been unemployed for almost a year and would like to save money without getting in over my head or potentially damaging the existing FiOS equipment. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thank you.

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Re: How easy/difficult to replace internal phone wiring?
walt178
Specialist - Level 3

The actual connections are fairly easy.  All you will need are wire strippers and a screwdriver.   I've done several with no problem.  The links below provide all the info you should need. 

The hard part will be removing the mess of old cables and running new wiring from the interface box to the jacks. Why anyone connected the phone using a cable with that many conductors seems strange.  So before starting the removal make sure it isn't used for some other purpose also.

http://wire-your-phones.com/

http://www.wireityourself.com/telephone.html

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Re: How easy/difficult to replace internal phone wiring?
armond_in_nj1
Master - Level 1

@emax4 wrote:

... I saw a bigger tangled mess that I managed to pull out of the hole:

image

...  in our fuse box we have a larger tangled mess of nappy wires:

image

...  Can I simple cut and remove the telephone wiring from the fuse box area? Also, Can I cut off the mess of wires from the hole in the wall?  ...Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thank you.


I strongly suspect that the "mess" is a ball of 22 gauge wiring that could once have related to networking of some sort.  If you plan the either replace it with Cat5e, or run new phone wiring (which these days should also be Cat5e or better, then just cut it and be done with it.  However there's always the possibility that some day you may need it, so it's your call.

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