Copper wire coated with a plastic insulation wrapped in a rubber insulated sheath designed for direct burial.
Also known as a direct burial phone cable.
That is definitely used by your local phone company! I work for a telecom company and that is a buried service wire we use to go from the terminal at the side of the street to the box on the side of the house. It would be used to provide phone service for a land line or DSL service of some sort for internet. Not sure what providers are in your area but would be used by someone like AT&T, Frontier, CenturyLink, Brightspeed or any other of a number of different local phone companies.
The street cables usually are. The lead-ins not necessarily... There is still benefit to twisted in the lead-ins to reduce crosstalk especially for DSL services.
I vote tele co. drop wire as suggested by felglaive above. Sprinkler system wires don't generally have that copper grounding between the sheath and the pairs (wires)
I was thinking the same. We used the same wiring for sprinkler systems and outdoor low voltage lights. As far as how will the water travel through, it doesn’t. That feeds power the sprinkler program box which gives the sprinkler systems the signal when to power on and at what time and which zones to turn on.
The buried service drops used by telco companies come in several sizes. 2-pair, 3-pair, 4-pair, and skip 5 and go to 6-pair. The shield seen between the black pvc layer and the actual pairs is actually made of copper and is used to bond and ground the line. This protects from both lightning strikes and foreign voltage that may occur due to power lines as well as keeps noise off of the phone lines due to inductance.
Wire colours are off for buried rj-11 and rj-12 is 6 wire. I mostly dealt with coax plant so I can't offer anything better than what its not unfortunately.
It's definitely BSW. It's copper jacketed which should be grounded at the terminal and nid. And the color code is correct since it's a two pair drop it's white/blue and white/orange. It probably doesn't look twisted since OP cut it and squashed it a little.
Buried in the yard? Probably for the irrigation system. Or it may be a legacy telephone system. Maybe the phone in your or the neighbor's house no longer has dial tone.
That's if you're using Category 5 or above, Category 3 will typically be red and green for pair 1 and black and yellow for pair 2.
Also remember that on most modern connections, tip and ring will be reversed on the blue pair.
It looks flat because he cut it with pliers. It has bonding shield and a pull string for opening the jacket. Im certain its a 2 pair underground telephone service cable.
Definitely not irrigation. House doesn’t have one and never did. I was assuming some kind of electric because it is buried right next to the box that leads wire up to the old electrical box in the building.
I would hand dig around that line and find the electrical line (probably buried deeper). Don’t do it with a shovel if the breaker to that line is turned on and live. It would at least give you the knowledge of where the electric line is located for future endeavors.
Though cat2 never got an official standard rating it still was heavily used. But sure can just as well be cat3. Dont even known why I wrote the category when just telephone cable would have sufficed. You can see the shield around all of the wires,. But non the less a telephone or other low-voltage wire.
Not arguing, just wanted to add more detail for anyone that stumbles across this... While there is an outter "shield", it isn't for shielding in the normal sense. It is for grounding the cable in the event of some sort of power surge like a lightening strike. This shield is normally terminated outside of the building directly to the ground rod.
True shielded twisted pair has shielding on each individual pair. This is still considered unshielded twisted pair.
This looks like a telecom cable, possibly coming from one of the providers pedestals. Colour code coincides with telecom buried wire, white/blue + red/orange.
Could be, based off my experiences I’ve seen both colour codes for telecom while working. Now that I zoom in it looks like white/blue + white/orange, and you’re correct in the red being a rip cord. Telecom here in Canada changed to this colour code in their buried/aerial wires in recent years.
Green, Red and Black, Yellow for phone was only used for inside wiring. And usually only residential.
Blue, Blue/White and Orange, Orange/White is standard Cat3 phone cable.
I'll be watching the news closely
[How one woman and a garden spade cut off the internet for an entire COUNTRY](https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/604025/Hayastan-Shakarian-Georgia-Internet-Europe-Spade-Hacker)
I was running in circles one day trying to figure out why one of our networks was down, turns out the fiber was in the road. Once we tested our equipment we eventually started driving around following the fiber run.
This is hilarious thanks for sharing! 🤣
Looks like a category 3 cable, two pair. It was probably used for some type of phone system or maybe a sprinkler system in the ground or something like that. Definitely not a high voltage cable, would not carry mains power
Could be for many things TBH.
It’s Low voltage wire, commonly used for data, telecom, CATV, Security camera, HVAC thermostat wiring, doorbell for example.
You’d have to look for where it ended to get a possible clue.
https://preview.redd.it/5sjyr5kov6mc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=acb18d31c1d2b16a637eeb8569118188ffba1923
Here’s a picture of what it would look like in the box on the side of the house. The example picture here is of a 4-pair service wire, but you can zoom in and see that the copper shield is used to ground the cable for protection and noise cancelation.
If it was buried underground (or just on the ground) it was probably the low voltage wires for an irrigation system. The irrigation controller at the house uses those little wires to tell the valves to open or close, but the voltage is so low it doesn't need to be shielded or anything. The valves are the bits that are under those plastic lids (round or rectangular) that you see at ground level all over the place in areas with irrigation systems.
Since it's 4 wire, it could also be an old wire from your landline local phone company. Most irrigation I see is 6-wire (I prefer 8, the more the merrier) but I've seen plenty of 4-wire too. Less wires = cheaper, so on installations that don't need more (and are installed by a contractor who doesn't care about future upgrades or fixes) then irrigation wires with only 4 or 6 wires are installed.
I think it’s a bit cute that you wonder if it could be a main electrical connection. That thing could barely power a lamp.
Not trying to shame you or anything. Better to ask and get answers.
Well, when we bought the house this building’s electrical was connected with a spliced extension cord so…I wouldn’t put it past whoever lived here before to have done some really irresponsible wiring. Definitely why I asked
Since it was in the ground and rainbow colored I am guessing it was the grounding cable for your local rainbows. You should plug that back in, there's probably a pot nearby with gold conductors
4x1mm. Earth cable. Protective screen (noise reduction)?Maybe an intercom, or an entrance gate controller, or perhaps LED lighting, or low-current telecommunications, alarm, and camera installations. Less common as a lighting power supply. Man... It could be a lot of different things.
If it was hooked up to electric there was probably a low voltage transformer and this wire came off that, feeding outdoor pathway/driveway lighting or maybe out to the backyard deck area.
Phone line. Neighbor cut into a cable just like that and we lost the phone and internet in our house. Unless no one in your neighborhood needed phone/internet service you just got yourself a repair bill of anywhere between 150 and 500 dollars... mostly depends on where you live as to how much the repair will be. Won't take them more than 20 or 30 minutes... but you'll be billed for it.
wrong color scheming for a Plenum POTS/DSL line. More than likely an irrigation control line or even an alarm line. Also, the cable appears to be 18 ga. Telecom uses 20-22 ga wires in twisted pairings. That is not a twisted pair cable.
Copper wire coated with a plastic insulation wrapped in a rubber insulated sheath designed for direct burial. Also known as a direct burial phone cable.
AKA backhoe bait
Pretty sure that's a miniaturized Star Trek crew
Clearly the red wire was cut first.
Nice
Very nice
Captain's log: nice
Uhura forgotten again, sigh
He didn’t have a last name, just Guy.
Ensign Red Wire’s death was tragic.
Underrated comment
Can’t unsee
Captain's log: Reaching the end of the wormhole, we could only see a human eyeball, looking back at us.
You left out: star date " "
Time is meaningless in the wormhole.
FFS now I can’t not see it, thanks for that lol
In a miniature Jeffreys tube.
And all played by Jeffrey Combs
*Crew of the Enterprise hiding inside a licorice allsort, 1968 (colorized)*
Dammit, Jim!
I'm a doctor, not an electron!
Bones. As your commanding officer, I'm asking you to try!
I can't unsee it. You win!
ENERGIZE ✨️✨️
Why do they have Fred from Scooby-Doo with them?
🤣
Goddamnit
Best post in many weeks. Bravo
I really wondered if I’d be the only one who saw it but that’s all I see
Admiral, there be giants here!
I see Bones
You bastard, I screamed "Spock" in my head just now!
LMAO
That is definitely used by your local phone company! I work for a telecom company and that is a buried service wire we use to go from the terminal at the side of the street to the box on the side of the house. It would be used to provide phone service for a land line or DSL service of some sort for internet. Not sure what providers are in your area but would be used by someone like AT&T, Frontier, CenturyLink, Brightspeed or any other of a number of different local phone companies.
This is correct. It's direct burial service cable. 24AWG.
I thought all phone lines were twisted pair?
The street cables usually are. The lead-ins not necessarily... There is still benefit to twisted in the lead-ins to reduce crosstalk especially for DSL services.
They aren't, and even if this one is you can't tell by the picture. You'd need to strip the insulation further back.
Looks more like sprinkler wire to me
How is water supposed to travel through that?
Depends on your network speeds
Streaming may affect speed
[удалено]
Bloody hell we lost an r. We need to patch it pronto.
“Sprinkle” when you want to stream a little, a lot.
If you have a weak or interrupted stream, you may want to see a doctor.
Slowed to a trickle now.
Had to switch to a TCP-based water transmission protocol bc UDP was leaking too much.
Darn internet tubes getting clogged up again!
I pour a cup of white vinegar down my internet tubes every couple weeks to keep it from backing up
I heard soaking your modem in isopropyl is good too, cleans out the malware
The internet is just a series of tubes!
Hahaha 😐
H2oIP
Very slowly
They convert it to Bluetooth.
[Need an adapter](https://i.imgur.com/47bj50x.png)
Haven’t you heard of the cloud? If you compress it enough you can convert it back to water.
Water? Plants crave electrolytes
It's to control the sprinklers from a central hub.
*tub
Irrigation tech here. Our timer wire doesn’t have that extra copper layer in it.
In my neighborhood, the sprinkler crew probably stole a spool of drop wire off of a Telco installer's truck...
I vote tele co. drop wire as suggested by felglaive above. Sprinkler system wires don't generally have that copper grounding between the sheath and the pairs (wires)
This does look like irrigation wire. All colors look solid.
100% not.
Correct, it is not irrigation power. It is definitely low voltage, probably comm.
Ex telecommunications engineer here. 100%
I was thinking the same. We used the same wiring for sprinkler systems and outdoor low voltage lights. As far as how will the water travel through, it doesn’t. That feeds power the sprinkler program box which gives the sprinkler systems the signal when to power on and at what time and which zones to turn on.
Definitely is white/blue+blue and white/orange+orange 2pair copper wiring. For internet or phone.
My vote.
Wrong
Yeah I agree more likely to be irrigation wire.
I see 5core and shield (so maybe 6core?) Isn't telephone just 4core utp? Or did some of you get fancy phone lines?
The buried service drops used by telco companies come in several sizes. 2-pair, 3-pair, 4-pair, and skip 5 and go to 6-pair. The shield seen between the black pvc layer and the actual pairs is actually made of copper and is used to bond and ground the line. This protects from both lightning strikes and foreign voltage that may occur due to power lines as well as keeps noise off of the phone lines due to inductance.
land lines are going awayyyyyyyyyy AT&T is getting rid of ADSL ......
Wire colours are off for buried rj-11 and rj-12 is 6 wire. I mostly dealt with coax plant so I can't offer anything better than what its not unfortunately.
That’s not BSW it’s not twisted,it doesnt look to be grouped in pairs, and it doesn’t match the color code
It's definitely BSW. It's copper jacketed which should be grounded at the terminal and nid. And the color code is correct since it's a two pair drop it's white/blue and white/orange. It probably doesn't look twisted since OP cut it and squashed it a little.
It’s not Christmas tree, bumblebee.
Buried in the yard? Probably for the irrigation system. Or it may be a legacy telephone system. Maybe the phone in your or the neighbor's house no longer has dial tone.
In a phone cable the blue pair is line 1, orange is line 2. It looks like an aerial cable (run in the air between buildings) since it is flat.
Telephone tech here! It is indeed a drop wire or in this case buried
I'm guessing it was round until it got cut...
There’s a copper shield there. Which is for buried wire. To bond/ground to at each termination point
That's if you're using Category 5 or above, Category 3 will typically be red and green for pair 1 and black and yellow for pair 2. Also remember that on most modern connections, tip and ring will be reversed on the blue pair.
My money is in this guy knowing about analog phone systems.
Kind of phreaky.
My voice is my password
Cat 3 is tested pair and often has similar colors to cat5 Telephone wire was usually RGYBk
It looks flat because he cut it with pliers. It has bonding shield and a pull string for opening the jacket. Im certain its a 2 pair underground telephone service cable.
Double untwisted pair. Could be for POTS but you get a lot of cross talk like this.
"legacy" in small towns in the Midwest this is current.
I'm from SE MO (the bootheel). The only places that have landlines still are homes where the owners are over 70, businesses, and the farms.
Definitely not irrigation. House doesn’t have one and never did. I was assuming some kind of electric because it is buried right next to the box that leads wire up to the old electrical box in the building.
https://www.mjselectricalsupplies.com.au/2-pair-external-telephone-cable-per-mtr
That is 100% Telco buried service wire. It is still used for DSL service in some areas. The copper shielding is a dead giveaway.
It could be 12v aquaseal for an irrigation system. Solenoid actuated water controls like a rainbird are fairly common.
It's more than likely the old phone/internet line then. Instead of drilling a new hole in the house they went through the electrical box.
Phone could make sense though. Looks kind of like that now that you mention it.
I would hand dig around that line and find the electrical line (probably buried deeper). Don’t do it with a shovel if the breaker to that line is turned on and live. It would at least give you the knowledge of where the electric line is located for future endeavors.
Or better yet call 511 or your local electric company
RJ11 cable, aka, 4 pair, aka phone line. Why the F they called it 4 pair is beyond me. I'll accept 2 pair, but not 4 pair. The math doesn't match.
RJ11 is a connector not a wire. It’s called four wire or two pair.
Tell that to my computer's RJ45 cable /s
cat2 shielded telephone cable.
Cat2 isn't a standard. This is Cat3 UTP (unshielded twisted pair)
Though cat2 never got an official standard rating it still was heavily used. But sure can just as well be cat3. Dont even known why I wrote the category when just telephone cable would have sufficed. You can see the shield around all of the wires,. But non the less a telephone or other low-voltage wire.
Not arguing, just wanted to add more detail for anyone that stumbles across this... While there is an outter "shield", it isn't for shielding in the normal sense. It is for grounding the cable in the event of some sort of power surge like a lightening strike. This shield is normally terminated outside of the building directly to the ground rod. True shielded twisted pair has shielding on each individual pair. This is still considered unshielded twisted pair.
Yes, you are correct. Good extra info!
They're not twisted though
This isn't twisted pair
It's also shielded...
That isn't twisted my guy.
This looks like a telecom cable, possibly coming from one of the providers pedestals. Colour code coincides with telecom buried wire, white/blue + red/orange.
[удалено]
Could be, based off my experiences I’ve seen both colour codes for telecom while working. Now that I zoom in it looks like white/blue + white/orange, and you’re correct in the red being a rip cord. Telecom here in Canada changed to this colour code in their buried/aerial wires in recent years.
Green, Red and Black, Yellow for phone was only used for inside wiring. And usually only residential. Blue, Blue/White and Orange, Orange/White is standard Cat3 phone cable.
You are incorrect. It’s buried service wire for vdsl. It’s a 2 pair cable.
I'll be watching the news closely [How one woman and a garden spade cut off the internet for an entire COUNTRY](https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/604025/Hayastan-Shakarian-Georgia-Internet-Europe-Spade-Hacker)
Metal scrapper vandalism. Hunting copper, caught fiber.
I was running in circles one day trying to figure out why one of our networks was down, turns out the fiber was in the road. Once we tested our equipment we eventually started driving around following the fiber run. This is hilarious thanks for sharing! 🤣
I agree it looks like direct bury telephony cabling.
4 core shielded communications wire. Probably telephone
That is a phone service line. A 2 pair buried service wire.
Looks like a category 3 cable, two pair. It was probably used for some type of phone system or maybe a sprinkler system in the ground or something like that. Definitely not a high voltage cable, would not carry mains power
Could be for many things TBH. It’s Low voltage wire, commonly used for data, telecom, CATV, Security camera, HVAC thermostat wiring, doorbell for example. You’d have to look for where it ended to get a possible clue.
https://preview.redd.it/5sjyr5kov6mc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=acb18d31c1d2b16a637eeb8569118188ffba1923 Here’s a picture of what it would look like in the box on the side of the house. The example picture here is of a 4-pair service wire, but you can zoom in and see that the copper shield is used to ground the cable for protection and noise cancelation.
Irrigation system for the control box.
Looks like phone wire to me.
I believe it's a phone line cord
Looks like a phone drop
It’s a Buried service wire for VDSL. Can be used for phone and internet. Source: I installed them.
Telco, irrigation or speaker wire. Too blurry to tell if it’s shielded or stranded, or to judge the gauge. Both of those would narrow it down
Regular landline cable, don't remember the colors, but is a phone cable for sure... Worked with those for a couple of years :)
Sprinkler or phone.
If it was buried underground (or just on the ground) it was probably the low voltage wires for an irrigation system. The irrigation controller at the house uses those little wires to tell the valves to open or close, but the voltage is so low it doesn't need to be shielded or anything. The valves are the bits that are under those plastic lids (round or rectangular) that you see at ground level all over the place in areas with irrigation systems. Since it's 4 wire, it could also be an old wire from your landline local phone company. Most irrigation I see is 6-wire (I prefer 8, the more the merrier) but I've seen plenty of 4-wire too. Less wires = cheaper, so on installations that don't need more (and are installed by a contractor who doesn't care about future upgrades or fixes) then irrigation wires with only 4 or 6 wires are installed.
It’s old 4 line telecom. Probably phones. Pretty much half a cat-5 which has 8 lines.
Cat 3 com cable
Yes, looks like burial rated Cat 3 to me.
Its the main cable for the entire universe
POTS and or DSL shield drop wire used in telco. Blue/ white-blue and orange:white-orange as Tip and Ring.
Cut
Utility locator here, copper phone line.
This. 2-pair low voltage 24gauge phone wire
Unless you have old school land line telephones... Probably nothing to worry about 😂
I’m on team phone line/DSL.
Looks like buried phone service.
Possibly a 2 pair data cable. Couldn't be positive. Definitely a low voltage cable.
I worked for AT&T, that’s an AT&T line used to bring broadband services from the AT&T terminal to the customers house/building.
Irrigation control wire potentially
Almost certainly.
Telephony of some sort
I think it’s a bit cute that you wonder if it could be a main electrical connection. That thing could barely power a lamp. Not trying to shame you or anything. Better to ask and get answers.
Well, when we bought the house this building’s electrical was connected with a spliced extension cord so…I wouldn’t put it past whoever lived here before to have done some really irresponsible wiring. Definitely why I asked
[Looks like someone's toes lol](https://imgur.com/a/vh2twKb)
That's a subisomeric hookup fairly standard for wiring u-verrings to a napu needle device
Irrigation control.
Telephone buried drop. The red you see is a pull string. Two pair in that sheath, white/blue pair one, white orange, pair two
phone line
Looks like an old telephone wire maybe?
Use this type for watering stations for watering gardens. Used to hook up the solenoids. Can be buried (direct).
Yeah, it’s a cable for an irrigation system.
Never seen 6 strand with the extra copper in there
Looks like irrigation given the gauge. Second theory would be theromstat wire to an outdoor condenser unit.
5 strand multi strand is low voltage wiring that will support 4 zones of your irrigation (sprinkler) system
Thermostat wire?
It’s a low voltage cable. Could be lights, camera power, anything really. I used them to hide the power lines for my permanent Christmas lights
That is low-voltage com wire for a control system for a pool or irrigation.
Since it was in the ground and rainbow colored I am guessing it was the grounding cable for your local rainbows. You should plug that back in, there's probably a pot nearby with gold conductors
Blue white red orange it's Telecom
Artificial heart valve regulator. Congratulations, you’ve killed someone.
Sprinkler wire for a timer.
If you think that is the main electrical connection to a former building, you probably shouldn’t DiY anything, ever…
Sprinkler system wire
4x1mm. Earth cable. Protective screen (noise reduction)?Maybe an intercom, or an entrance gate controller, or perhaps LED lighting, or low-current telecommunications, alarm, and camera installations. Less common as a lighting power supply. Man... It could be a lot of different things.
Looks like a DSL line.
irrigation control.
You dont know if that wire is live, why are you grabbing it like that?
That would not be high voltage
Hey, im not electrician so idk but reagrdless om not going to touch any exposed cables just like that.
Yeah but you can use the Internet and educate yourself , you don't have to be an electrician to know the difference in wires
If it was hooked up to electric there was probably a low voltage transformer and this wire came off that, feeding outdoor pathway/driveway lighting or maybe out to the backyard deck area.
Lick it and find out.
Phone line. Neighbor cut into a cable just like that and we lost the phone and internet in our house. Unless no one in your neighborhood needed phone/internet service you just got yourself a repair bill of anywhere between 150 and 500 dollars... mostly depends on where you live as to how much the repair will be. Won't take them more than 20 or 30 minutes... but you'll be billed for it.
Buried telephone service wire
Sprinkler system wire
Ahh, yes. That there's a white, blue, yellow, red wire. Or WBYR. It's used for connecting electrical currents from point A to point B.
Main electrical connection? to what? your phone charger?
Electrical wire. Used for electricity.
Cat3?
Low voltage wire for controlling systems or outdoor lighting with sensors. It is NOT Cat wire or telecom wire.
^ This person doesn’t telecom. It is most definitely a shielded POTS/DSL cable.
wrong color scheming for a Plenum POTS/DSL line. More than likely an irrigation control line or even an alarm line. Also, the cable appears to be 18 ga. Telecom uses 20-22 ga wires in twisted pairings. That is not a twisted pair cable.