On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:47:41 -0800, Mark Henigan wrote:
>Carl Gehr wrote:
>> On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:03:10 -0800, Mark Henigan wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I haven't seen more than two wires per line
>>>in years in residential installations; and,
>>>that is all they gave me.
>>
>>
>> I don't mean to be picky or trying to disparage your analysis, but are
>> you looking at the number of 'cables' that were installed, or the
>> number of 'wires' inside the 'cable' that you see?
>>
>> I don't know about Calif., but here in Ohio, I have not seen less than
>> two 'cables,' each containing 'two-pair' of 'wires' in years. My
>> previous house, built circa 1966, had two 'cables' and my current
>> residence, built in 1979 has the same. Newer construction [my son's
>> house] built circa 1996 has three such two-pair cables.
>>
>> One 'on the cheap' construction that I've seen is where the builder put
>> jacks that were only for a single line, even though there were multiple
>> 'pairs' of wires in the box. In that case, we just changed the jacks
>> and the cover, connected the wires and we were off and running.
><snip>
>
>Hello Carl:
>
>there is a thick cable that enters the house via
>conduit. They've added some sort of "user friendly"
>box in the access space to obfuscate. I have not
>opened the telco part of the box. I suspect that it
>would reveal two cables, each containing four wires,
>configured as two unshielded twisted pairs, only one
>of which is connected to the terminal strip.
>
>I'm not certain of the reason, but all I have seen
>is one cable with two active wires running into the
>house in homes here, the "sub"-standard, I suppose.
>Maybe I should take pictures of the installation in
>this house and post them somewhere...in my spare
>time. :->
>
>I'd be interested in your analysis of the photos.
>BTW, the house was probably built around 1975.
>
Mark,
I don't mean to belabor this, especially since it sounds like you have
already solved the problem. Certainly no photos required for my
benefit.
The place/box I was suggesting you look was inside the house where you
already have a phone connected. In my current home, that's where I
found the extra 'cables' with the spare 'pairs' that I use today for my
three lines.
One reason, back in the mid-1970s that the telco ran at least two pair
cables was because they were trying to sell 'Princess' phones [and
other similar] that had a lighted dials or touch pads. In order to
power these lights, the phone actually used two pairs of wires:
1) The usual phone line
2) A low voltage pair that was plugged into a
regular power outlet near where the telco
cable entered the house. [In my case, this
was in the basement.]
The idea was to avoid requiring the phone jack to be near an electrical
outlet.
Of course, this was back when the telco owned the inside wiring and the
whole shebang. So, this was a cheaper way for them to deal with it.
Today, providing power to the phone is both the customer's problem and
what the consumer just expects to have to deal with.
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