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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 1,253
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djk Offline OP
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Electricians are expected to do a lot more telephone wiring here these days as Eircom no longer does any internal stuff and the house has to be fully prepared with ducting etc...

this is the current system: http://www.reci.ie/eircominterface.pdf

Any other Telco as over the top about it?

Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 2,498
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Nope, AFAIK Telekom Austria will do all your phone wiring up to the jacks, just the cheapest way (stapled to the walls). If you supply the cabling you can have it all in-wall. They even offer (or offered?) small (5 branches) PABXes. We still have one of them, they were manufactured from 1980 to 1990. I think you can figure out the mentality of our Post if you hear we got it in fall 1992... When it broke the last time we were told there aren't any more spares... the technicians just carry around a few salvaged ones in their vans and replace with old parts... and you can have the beasts repaired until they run out of old ones... he tried to give us one, but it only worked with pulse dial. So he said he was going to dump it. Now it's mine... might come handy once...
And when we asked for a new handset cord he told us they only got a few spares every 2 years and in 2 weeks they were all gone... slightly reminds me of eastern block!4

Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 1,691
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This is from personal experience:

In old flats (such as the ones I've lived in), the wire exits from a hole in the wall and goes into a small terminal block on the wall supplied by the telephone company (in my childhood it was called New York Telephone, now it's called Verizon - whatever that means [Linked Image] ).

In the old days it used to be a type 42-A terminal block - a funky looking little 2-inch by 2-inch square of hard plastic with four terminal screws, only two of which were used for a single line private phone.

See:
[Linked Image from phonecoinc.com]

A square box-like plastic cover would be fitted over this block to protect it. Hence the colloquial term "box" for this type of fitting.

Nowadays, the 42-A block has been supplanted, and is commonly replaced, by a weird looking "Network Interface Box".

Basically this is a "box" with an RJ-11 type socket so you can plug your phone directly into this socket to test for faults (to see if you get dialtone so you know if it's your interior wiring that is at fault or the telco wiring).

I used a big picture here so you can see how it looks. To access the jack, you rotate the spring-loaded cover out of the way.

[Linked Image from phonecoinc.com]

From this block or socket the subscriber-provided wires may be run to their respective extension sockets.

Other times (such as my case as a child when we only had _one_ phone), this was THE only phone socket for the entire flat.

When that was the case, if you had a phone with an RJ-11 type plug, you'd just get one of these simpler (read: cheaper) boxes, which is a 42-A block with a cover fitted with a modular jack on the side.

[Linked Image from phonecoinc.com]

All fixed wiring was surface-mount (stapled to the wall and baseboard trim) and used 2-pair cable (four solid conductors in a jacket).

Bill Addiss and other USA-based electricians, what is phone wiring like in modern-day houses and apartments? I'm only familiar with the old methods in old apartments.

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 01-09-2004).]

Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 1,253
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djk Offline OP
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a lot of 1970s houses would have a square box with terminals at the corners VERY like that.

It had a plastic door that pushed shut on it and normally you just wired extensions into it in a daisy chain configuration.

The new installations are all like that PDF though..

I think it's a little excessive although i think they're futureproofing for broadband services etc etc..

Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 2,498
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Old style phone connectors were pretty much like the connector block described above, with 2 main differences. The phone cord wasn't connected via screw terminals, it had spade connectors. And the cover screw had a seal sticker with this logo over it.

[Linked Image from members.aon.at]
(Of course without the Post.at text, that's recent www-frenzy nonsense. They even call their Postbus service Post.Bus).

There were four terminals inside, only two of which were used. IIRC they were A, B, E and W2. E was probably Earth (never saw that used) and an auxiliary bell would be connected to A and W2.
Party line phones used a huge relay box (about 20x20x10 cm) until they disappeared in the late 90ies or maybe even early 00s. Later there were several styles of modular jacks. The residential version was pretty much like a 4-pole version of a headphone jack only it got thinner towards the tip with each ring. About 1cm in diameter (first ring). Usually only one socket, if there were more they were wired in some master-and slave setup that prevented from overhearing any conversations. Commercial locations used a 10 or 12-pin rectangular plug (angle plug with all the pins sticking out). Later the so-called TSS plug was introduced. TSS stands for "Telefon-Steck-System", i.e. phone plug system.

[Linked Image from holzinger.cc]

and the matching socket as it is usually installed by the Telekom, 3rd party sockets look different.
[Linked Image from holzinger.cc]

Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 7,520
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There are underground phone lines run to some new housing developments, but in general if somebody requests service for an existing house, BT (British Telecom) will just surface run the drop line by the most convenient route.

That usually entails anchoring it to a bracket at about eaves level, running along/down an outside wall, then through to the inside to the network demarcation, which for new services is the NTE5 interface .

The NTE5 has a removable panel at the bottom, and the subscriber is allowed to remove it to connect extension wiring. BT will also advise anyone having line problems to first remove the panel and plug their phone directly into the main jack to check whether the fault lies on the internal wiring.

Everything up to and including the NTE5 is BT-owned. Before the NTE5 was introduced the master jack had no such removable panel, and strictly speaking the subscriber was not allowed to access it to connect extension wiring. (They were expected to either connect via a plug and two-way adapter or get BT to connect the extension wiring -- In practice, of course, that didn't always happen! [Linked Image]).

Until the early 1980s systems were most often hardwired where there was just a single phone, the line running to a 52A connection block:

[Linked Image from web.ukonline.co.uk]

The square cutout at the end of the box accepts the grooved, molded strain-relief of the phone cord.

All of these older systems had the entire system, including all extension wiring, owned and installed by the GPO (General Post Office), and nobody else was supposed to interfere with it in any way.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 01-09-2004).]

Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 1,253
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djk Offline OP
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In the above PDF file the Irish NTU ISDN connections are for this:

The two line wires feed an ISDN NTU which is connected to that white connector box on the "out side"

2 wires come back from the ISDN NTU and are connected to the "in side" of that white block.
These provide an analogue phoneline hardwired back to one of the analogue ports ont he ISDN NTU

Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 8,443
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Paul,
So that's what them connection blocks are officially known as.
I've got one here, with the telephone still on the end of it, that I changed over to a push-button type a few years back.

Joined: Aug 2001
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The block pictured above is the one used with the 700-style phones, introduced in 1959, and standard throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

The 52A came in various colors to match the phone and cord.

Notice the strap fitted across two terminals. This was generally left in place in single-phone, non-party-line installations to link the bell to one side of the line. The strap could be removed to add a series-connected extension bell.

Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 456
C
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In the USA (and Canada at least), 3 pair twisted pair cable is usually installed.
(as opposed to the 2 pair non-TP wire, called
JKT, distinguished by the red/green/yellow/black conductors)
Astute (usually after market installers) will install Cat5 wire for telephone.

Around here anyway, there is a slightly heavier
JKT with 3 conductors, and in an older house, I have come across an old 3 wire twisted cable, with brown insulation, with red/green/yellow silk strands in the wires.

The NIDs around here have just bolt terminals where the interior wiring connects.

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