On 8/14/2010 10:31 AM, John Smith wrote:
Would someone please decipher these phone cables?

There are four cables going into the phone box. One of the cables'
blue/dot blue conductors is terminated with a plug and plugged into a
jack. This cable's orange/dot orange conductors is spliced with the
blue/dot blue conductors of the other three cables. There are more than
9 jacks in the house and all jacks work.

I opened two wall plates and found only one cable in the box. Thus,
these two are not daisy-chained. I assume there is one more such box
somewhere.

What's going on here? Why is orange/dot orange spliced with blue/dot
blue? And how come those three cables still work (can dial in and out)
when they seem not plugged into the phone box? Thanks.

Typically the first line in a house (line 1) is on the White/Blue
pair. A second line (line 2) on the White/Orange pair. Could there
have been two lines in the house at one time? The second line was
removed and the jacks wired on line 2, the orange pair were connected
to line one. That would extend dial tone to all the jacks without
having to go around to every jack to switch over to the Blue pair.

There could be tap connections made anywhere in the house where the
wire is accessible. There are likely a few daisy chained jacks as well.

Or

The jacks were wired/connected by a hack.

Telephone require two conductors to work. The color of the
insulation is irrelevant. If everything works and you don't want to
make any changes then just close up the box before you break something.

LdB