Tag: Tip and Ring

Dear Mr. Electrician.  What is the telephone wiring color code for the phone jacks in my house?  I want to replace all the old telephone jacks, but I am confused by the tip and ring color code.  The new telephone jacks have red, green, yellow, and black terminals, but the wires inside my walls have eight wires with different color stripes.  How do I connect the new telephone jacks? Answer:  I have put together a residential telephone wiring color code chart to help you understand how to connect the existing four-pair telephone wiring in your walls to the new telephone jacks.  You can see it further down on this page. NOTE: Some text links below go to applicable products on eBay or Amazon.  As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  Using my links helps to keep this website FREE. Table of Contents TELEPHONE COLOR CODE FOR JACKS IN YOUR HOME PRINCESS TELEPHONE TELEPHONE TOOLS The four-pair wire can have four separate telephone lines at each jack location.  However, if you only have one phone line for your house, you should use the same color pair for each new phone jack you install. There are two types of standard residential modular telephone plugs.  The most common is the RJ-11, which uses only two of the wires in a four (or more) conductor small cable.  It is the same kind of plug that you use to plug your household telephone into the phone wall jack. The other is the RJ-14, which uses four wires and it’s used to handle two telephone lines or 2-line phones. TELEPHONE COLOR CODE FOR JACKS IN YOUR HOME "Tip" refers to the one side of a two-wire telephone wire circuit connected to the battery's positive side (+) at the telephone company's central office. "Ring" refers to the one side of a two-wire telephone wiring circuit connected to a battery's negative side (-) at the telephone company's central office. Generally, the phone company connects the telephone lines at their termination block in a specific order.  The blue pair is; first, the orange pair is second, the green pair is third, and the brown pair is fourth.  So for one phone line, the blue pair should be the correct line to connect to. However, there may be instances where the phone company found a problem with the blue pair and had to use the orange pair instead.  In some circumstances, it is possible that there was a problem with all of the telephone pairs going into your house, and the phone company had to split between pairs of wires. When removing the old telephone jacks, take note of the telephone wire color code and which wires are being used on the old jacks. The blue pair is connected as the primary telephone line.  The solid blue wire is the "Ring" and gets connected to the red jack terminal.  The white wire with a blue stripe is terminated on the green "Tip" screw. One pair of wires is used for one telephone line.  The pairs of wires are twisted together...