Telephone jacks

[Tonyrotary]

In another thread, Bingster got me thinking about telephone jacks. More specifically pre modular jacks. We all know that at one time phones were hard wired or later on had 4 prong jacks. What I would like to hear from members is who still has some of these around there homes and the location and are they still live. I remember my great Aunt who still had an old hardwired outlet. Can't say if it was still live though. She was born in the very early 1900's. She remembered when Chicago was still a small but growing town. The changes she must have seen in the telephone system!

[Phonesrfun]

If memory serves me, the thing you described in the other thread as the little hole describes a pre-wired house or apartment, but without a jack.  The Bell system had a faceplate that fit over a standard wall outlet box, and sometimes it was just a "mud ring" that formed an opening in the hollow wall.  The wires were inside the wall and attached to a small connecting block.  The hardwired phone cord would go through the small round opening and be hard-wired connected to the connecting block inside the wall and tied down to it to keep the wire from being pulled out.  With no phone connected, the face plate was put back on the wall and the hole was still there, unless that faceplate was replaced with a total blank.

[jsowers]

During the 50s and 60s the Bell System had what they called "Telephone Planned Homes" where the house either had conduit from a central point to all the rooms, attached to boxes in the wall, or conduit with wire already pulled or a multi-pair cable pulled throughout the house, into a wall in each room. I have several booklets about it and one very prized (by me) sign that was posted in a housing development to publicize it. It's pink and black. Very 1950s. There's no telling how many houses from that era still have that original sturdy wire in use.

My aunt's house was pre-wired in 1965 with gray station wire and I was fortunate enough to be the one to "finish the job." Unfortunately her garage and bedroom burned a few years later and it all had to be replaced with Cat5, but the conduit was still good.

I know someone with the multi-pair wire kind of wiring and it's circa 1961 and still in use with his DSL. The wire is in his attic and drops down inside the walls. All the installer had to do was use a beeper to locate the wire within the wall and he made a hole, found the correct wires and mounted the jack in the wall. Originally they would have used those flush, round Bell System 4-prong wall jacks or round hard-wired mounting blocks.

My mom's phone line is still on the original 1953 wire to the same box in her den. She recently converted to VOIP for the long distance and they actually used that old wire. Three white wires--braided. One of them is silver underneath the jacket and two are copper. They also somehow pushed two coax cable lines into that conduit from under the house.

Below are the sign and a box with some advertising on it for Telephone Planned Homes. It was a free service from the Bell System. I think it encouraged their customers to get extensions.

[joey67]

Much of the housing built in San Francisco bay area (where I lived until 12 years ago) was built almost immediately post WW II. Many of them were plaster walls with 2 foot crawl spaces as "basements", and usually only 2 bedrooms 1 bath on 150 x 55 foot lots. Due to the time period that they were built it was actually common to encounter the type of phone connection described at the beginning of this post. 

[Sargeguy]

I still have circa 1928 twisted pair telephone wire connecting my 634A to the NID.  I have replaced some of my modular jacks with 4-prongs and connecting blocks.  The subset is hardwired