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enter image description here

Black wire is coming from a hole to the brick wall so possibly outside. It looks like it’s falling apart and attached beside the main circuit breaker panel for the house. No idea what it is.

cjs
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rausted
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    +1 for making half of DIY.SE feel really old right now.... – Criggie May 27 '22 at 23:41
  • I've suggested an edit to explain that it's not "attached to a switchboard" but is attached to the wall next to the circuit breaker panel for the house. A "switchboard" is (usually) something entirely different it's not surprising someone who doesn't know what a landline is wouldn't know that a switchboard is a central panel to which you connect all of the telephones in (usually) an office or other business. ("Switchboard" is also used for industrial power distribution systems, but I've never heard it used for residential panels.) – cjs May 29 '22 at 12:14

2 Answers2

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That is a telephone wire.

From roughly 1880 to 2010 people who were not in the same place and wanted to speak, did so mostly using telephones connected by pairs of copper wires.

The black wire contains one or more such pairs and brings them into your house from a pole or underground. The beige plastic box connects those to pairs of copper wires that run all over your house. The three beige wires and the grey one probably go off to your kitchen, bedroom, living room, etc. where there once would have been telephones.

On the left: a telephone. On the right: A patch bay for telephone wires, similar to what we would call a "router" today.

enter image description here enter image description here

jay613
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    That’s very cool I didn’t know that! But how do you upload photos? – rausted May 26 '22 at 13:25
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    I love the inclusion of a picture of a telephone! It's even a rotary, so kids these days might have a chance of understanding the term "dial a number". – FreeMan May 26 '22 at 13:30
  • There is a button in the editor where you can attach a photo. On computer (not phone) you can also copy/paste a photo into a question or answer. Note there is a small possibility the wires in your house are still in use for a burglar alarm, a fax machine, a "backup" phone line, or even for DSL internet. Very unlikely, and you would probably already know ... but possible. – jay613 May 26 '22 at 13:31
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    ...at 110 bits per second! With your phone handset jammed in the acoustic coupler! Then 300, then 1200, then 2400, 4800, 9600, 19.2K on up to about 56K, which was as good as you could do on this wiring until DSL came along, where you might get 1-7 M depending how close you are to the central office, and how bad the wiring is between you and them. – Ecnerwal May 26 '22 at 13:31
  • On a more serious note, it’s not used for security or DSL. And the one landline port in the house I’m pretty sure is not connected to it. Do I get rid of it? – rausted May 26 '22 at 13:43
  • If you have a land line you should positively verify where is is coming from. Typical scenario today is a telephone jack on the back of your ISP's router, and a lot of people will plug in a wireless base station to it so as not to use internal house phone wiring at all. Just make sure you have that, or some variation of it, before you start chopping out wires. – jay613 May 26 '22 at 13:53
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    If you happen to have a landline phone, plug in and check for dialtone. In some areas even phone lines without active paid service are maintained at a minimum level of service to provide a way to call emergency services (those calls will go through, others will not.) There's no particular need to remove it, or harm in leaving it, regardless. – Ecnerwal May 26 '22 at 13:54
  • Also, the black outdoor wire MAY run through an underground conduit that MAY be useful to you in future so check on that and don't lose track of the conduit. Or, if the black wire is suspended between your house and a pole you may want to get rid of that entirely. FIRST get the phone company to cut their end, THEN you cut yours ASAP. – jay613 May 26 '22 at 13:54
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    @Ecnerwal typically if your ISP owns the copper pairs they will forcibly move land lines to their VOIP router. At least that's the way Verizon does it where I live. Some people keep their land line "for emergencies" and don't even realize that when they got FIOS their land line became VOIP ... you don't have a choice, they don't even tell you. – jay613 May 26 '22 at 13:57
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    That's assuming your phone company even offers that service in your area. Verizon local to me is like "FIOS? yeah, you see the ads but we can't be bothered to put that in where YOU live. Have some crappy overpriced slow DSL on 80 year old wires." Most folks use cable internet, where the company is hated just as much, but the speeds are higher for similar money. – Ecnerwal May 26 '22 at 13:59
  • @Ecnerwal my town has been waiting more than a decade since the neighboring town got FIOS. The cherry pickers are out there installing now, and all my neighbors are literally running out with smiles and lemonade thanking the linesmen and begging them to "Do my house next" (they aren't doing tails yet). I hope you get yours soon. – jay613 May 26 '22 at 14:08
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    For those people interested enough to still be reading this ... my analogy to a "router" is poor .... it is humbling and literally awesome to watch how an actual router for copper pairs worked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvPH-tsD9ZM – jay613 May 26 '22 at 14:09
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    While this is starting to get chatty, I just have to add that I grew up in a home with a "party line". I'll bet no younger person knows what that is. There were 2 other parties on the line, each with a different ring pattern so we knew if the incoming call was for us or the others. Picking up the phone to make a call often led to realizing one of the other parties was already on the line and our call would have to wait. You could literally hear their conversation. ...just chiming in for your enjoyment. – George Anderson May 26 '22 at 17:35
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    Note: the photo on the right is of many 66-style punch-down blocks, not patch panels. Patch panels have ports which terminated cables can be plugged into. To cross-connect on the pictured punch down blocks, you have to use an impact termination tool and raw insulated paired wires taken from a spool. – Todd Wilcox May 26 '22 at 21:36
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    The square plastic device with the top removed is called an "entrance bridge." It connects the telephone company's wires (the black ones) to the home telephone wires. The shiny box below it splits the home wiring into two lines. – Wastrel May 27 '22 at 14:49
  • @GeorgeAnderson Oh yes, I think I remember that feature form old American TV shows as a plot device to accidentally spill secrets to other household members. – Hagen von Eitzen May 29 '22 at 20:47
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Landline Telephone. The black wire is the drop wire from the pole or outside interface.

The cover could be screwed back on.

It's not connected to the electricity supply at all, other than there might be a grounding wire (but none is visible in this picture, and there's no connection between the two systems in this picture, nor would there normally be such a connection.)

They are just in the same general area, which is common.

Ecnerwal
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  • Thanks! I am embarrassed I didn’t think of that :) – rausted May 26 '22 at 13:27
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    Land lines work when the electricity is down. – Xanne May 27 '22 at 03:19
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    @Xanne: Telcos seem to put much less effort into ensuring that's the case than they used to. – supercat May 27 '22 at 17:50
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    @Xanne Land line provides its own voltage, around 48 VDC (probably depends on where you live). Granted, if the reason the electricity is down is because someone knocked down a utility pole, you'll likely lose both power and land line, since they run on the same poles in many places. – Darrel Hoffman May 27 '22 at 17:52