old home wired for additional jacks but not connected

[Abi05]

I need some help - I am clueless about phone lines so don't get too technical on me, please!!! :)

I moved into an old home that had been remodeled. It looks like phone jacks were placed on every wall during the remodel. However, most have solid covers over them with a phone symbol - but no plug in for the phone cord. When I unscrew and remove the covers, there is a continuous wire in the wall that I can pull out about 6 inches but it is not cut. I am assuming this means that the house was wired for the ability to make the jack active if needed?? I bought an actual jack - what do I do with the cord from the wall? If I cut it in half and connect it to the jack, what do I do with the other half of the wire??!!

Hope this makes sense.....

[mango man]

what you have is loop wired . when you cut it in half hook both ends up to the jack and splice the unsed pairs .

best way is to not cut iit , instead take a razor knife and carefully slit the outer jacket exposintg the inner conductors now carefuully scrape the inslation from the pair you are using for a 1/2" or so and wrap the unislated wire around the screw of the jack , leaving the other pairs undisturbed.

if that seems a little much for you then go ahead and cut it , but if you dont splice the unsed pairs you may have problems later if you need ehtm and there is heavey funniture in front of the jack .

anyway buy some jacks and depenning on the cable used , you will hook up the red and green wires in the cable to the red and green screw terminal on the jack OR you will use the blue with white trace to red and white with blue trace to green .

what you have is one cable that has been looped from jack to jack so if you only connect one side you will have no dialtone on everything downstream of it.

[security101]

one way to check if it is a loop is to count the phone plates and then go to where they connect in basement, or near the circuit braker panel, or at the NIC (phone box on outside of house by the electric service entrance) and count the wires coming from the house. If you see 1 or 2, it is probably looped, if you see same amount as plates, it will be "home run" - all the wires go to one place! In this case you should try again in the boxes in each room - some times we wire them in to staples or some other fastener that holds the wire in the wall till drywall is up - and the thought is reach in and pull wire out of the holder (staple) to release the loose end - could be going down or up - a small mirror and a flashlight will help to look in wall.

Hope this helps - if you hadent already figured which you have!
jim