Connecting To Phone Box ?

[Robert11]

Hi,

I will be adding a new phone jack to a wall in the house. As there's no phone wire or other jack anywhere near it, the simplest approach seems to be to just connect it to the main phone box of Verizon's on the outside wall, which is directly opposit where I want the new extension jack to be.

Can I just strip the wire, and place the the bare red and green wire's copper under the screw terminal of the appropriate screw terminals in the outside box ?

Or, is there some kind of connector, or crimp on tab, that should be used when going to the main phone box of Verizon ?

Any caveats to be aware of ?

Thanks, Bob

[avid_hiker]

You CANNOT hook up to that box. If you have a basement, the cable coming into the basement from the Phone box should have a splice for all the phone jack connections. Follow this and sooner or later you will find the splice's. This is where you want to hook up your new wires......just match the colors up and walla..

Dean

[RayV]

Why not?

[noname87]

Bob,

I assum> Hi,

[noname87]

Bob,

I am assuming that the box you refering to is the NIU (network interface unit). Yes, you can attach the wire without attaching any terminals. That is what the box was designed for (I used to work in the group that designed them).

[Roger Shoaf]

This will work fine.

As far as caveats go I can only think of a couple of things. First is to not bugger up the wire when stripping and to make electrically sound connections. The second thing is to realize that the box is there to separate your wiring from the phone companies expensive equipment. It has protection to prevent something on your end from buggering up the Telco equipment so it is important that you only hook wires to your side of the box.

[deke]

Sure you can.

The connection must be secure. That's the only warning.

Be prepared to switch the red and green wire to your phone if you notice a problem. In the old days, ringer and tip were criticical, but on newer phones made in china, you never know which will work best.

[mm]

Good thing you didn't blow a fork!

[Oren]

They (HIU) sure have come along way in 50 years. My Grandfather would pull these ceramic/copper fuses if my siblings talked on the phone to long. Even take one with him when he went to town. My brother simply put a table fork in ... for the fuse - while he was gone.

-- Oren

"The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!"

[Jackson]

I've got the same question, assuming the OP is talking about hooking up on the customer side of the network interface device. In fact, I'd almost say that is the most ideal place to connect to!

Maybe I'm missing something...........

[Milhouse Van Houten]

That's bullshit. You can hook to the customer side of the NID all day long, that's where the house wiring goes.

[Milhouse Van Houten]

Yes Bob, you can do it. The only caveat is if there is an alarm system installed you should make sure the new phone wire goes to the 'house side' - usually recognizable by a hanging splice inside the NID. If there is an alarm dialer wire, it should be the ONLY one connected to the NID - and on that same cable the will be the alarm panel's output feeding the house phones.

Ohh-- and if DSL service is in use, and you are filtering from the NID- that will need to be addressed as well.

[Jim Redelfs]

Any good, Cat-rated, four-pair, Type CM cable. Don't buy/use flat garbage wire (i.e. Menards).

It takes just a PAIR of copper wires to run a phone device. They are usually red/green or white/blue (blue+whitestripe + white+bluestripe & slightly twisted).

If you have a Standard Network Interface Device (SNI/NID) on your house, it will be so marked. The instructions for wiring SHOULD be inside the cover after you open it where it is marked "Customer Access". If you are even just modestly handy, simple observation should do the rest.

If you do NOT have a SNID, the wires will likely be terminated as a group on two, common binding posts. There is one binding post for each "side" of the pair.

Polarity is a virtual non-issue now.

If there are ~4 or more conductors attached to a binding post or the "slots" in the SNID are full, you can "tap" or "three-way" an existing, live pair with your new pair. This is often done to avoid disturbing the "rats nest" of wires at the protector. Good luck!

[Jim Redelfs]

He most certainly CAN. In fact, he SHOULD.

If the home has an official SNID, it's even easier now than ever.

This was settled in the 1984 Modified Final Judgement of the Consent Decree that broke-up The Bell System. (Part 64)

(No, I am not a lawyer. I am a Network Technician. But I LIVED through this monumental event and absorbed more worthless trivia than I would have ever thought.)

This is common in "new construction". Unfortunately, many wiremen are stubbing-out their phone and coax cable ABOVE the rim joist and it makes NO appearance, whatsoever, in the UNfinished basement.

Many, perhaps even most, older installations "hub" at the "box" where the service enters the house. This is proper.

[Eigenvector]

Having looked at that box on the outside of my house it's a little intimidating thinking that you can just unscrew those nuts and remove your wires. Those are BIG bolts holding those phone wires on and the rather large cable connected to them from the power pole doesn't help any.

[Jim Redelfs]

That is why the FCC mandated a SNID on every new service and, on existing services, retrofitted with a SNID if one is not present.

Fear not, however. Without an official SNID, you can easily connect together the ends of multiple station wires using a common wire nut and, with a single "jumper", connect to the protector block - the "BIG bolts".

Properly terminating multiple wires on a single, nut-torqued, threaded binding post, even with spacer washers, is an acquired skill. After 34-years, I almost have it.

[avid_hiker]

Sorry guys,

I guess I was under the wrong assumption, and assumption it was, that this box belonged to the phone company and not the home owner ; so the home owner shouldnt mess with it. In reading all these posts, I would guess I made a big boo-boo in saying that he shouldnt mess with it.

I apologize for any confusion to the postee :-)

Dean

[Rick Blaine]

It depends on the age of the house... Older housing may still have the telco only terminator block.

[Jim Redelfs]

Protector.

DIY attachments to this device are legal.

If innocent, well-intended DIY connections to one's own telco protector (block) were EVER truly "illegal", I know of no prosecutions.

In "the good old days", if someone tampered with their phone service, resulting in a repair call, the trouble was identified and corrected or removed. The subscriber was given a warning about improper connections. If a subsequent improper connection resulted in a dispatch, management got involved. It was - and is - a non-issue.

Telephone is the "Rodney Dangerfield" of utilities: It gets NO respect at all.

[Steve]

I have yet to see a modern telephone sold in the USA, Chinese or not, without a bridge rectifier to make the reversal of tip and ring totally irrelevant.