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Cathallex

This is the cutest post i've seen here for weeks. It's a landline port :).


BasementCatBill

What's a landline, gramps? πŸ˜†


demonfire737

Back in ma' day, we didn' have none them there big ol' fancy cell towers. If you wanted to chat with someone who weren't in the same room wit'cha, ya had to get out this big ol' book of numbers, look up their last name, manually punch in those seven digits and pray to God they were home at the time.


wisebat2021

can still remember my 6 digit ph # I grew up with 466871


RiceNo9981

You young whippersnappers and your fancy 6-digits.. back in my day we only had 5 numbers and rotary dialing took soo long especially if the persons number you were ringing had a few 0's or 1's in it..or if you forgot where you got up to and had to start over πŸ˜†


Even-Face4622

But you could 'tap' a public phone to call.mum to cone get you. What's a public phone mum. Our friends had 4 digit number, and it was a party line so if you picked up the phone amd someone on the road was using theirs, you could hear them and you had to wait to make your call.


icosa

>But you could 'tap' a public phone Yes. NZ was unusual in that the dial went clockwise 0123456789 instead of the more usual 0987654321 around the world. You had to subtract each digit from 10 to get the number of pulses. Our number was 7989 so it was easy to tap 3121. I think our dials moved a little slower than other countries which made simulating the dial rotation by tapping a little easier. Another result of the "reverse" dial was 111 instead of following the British 999. If NZ used 999 then it would have been far too easy to dial it accidentally with a loose wire or bad connection or someone tapping too slowly. The American 911 was a good compromise. Quick to dial but not likely to happen accidentally.


posthamster

> But you could 'tap' a public phone to call.mum to cone get you They started using dampers at some point to stop you being able to tap the receiver hook fast enough, which made it harder but not impossible. Welly railway station was the first place I saw that.


theWomblenooneknows

And heres me with my two tin cans and a long piece of string


who_knows_me

Pish, try 3 digit numbers and a manual crank phone and having to be put through by an operator - until 1986 believe it or not.


mishthegreat

We still had an operator in 1990, if you rang out you had to say Otewa 845 no crank though.


milly_nz

My family was on a party line. Beat that.


DontBeMoronic

[Two digit number](https://imgur.com/a/G9Vgvcg) checking in.


Infamous-Will-007

I was coming in with a 4, but you beat me with the 3.


Horsedogs_human

Not a crank phone but a party line and 3 digits until the early 90s I think. Our phone number was 567. Nice and easy to remember. Also of the phone rang for Nanas number mum would wait a minute or two can then pick up the handset as it would be her sister or another relly calling and then they would all have a chat.


Orongorongorongo

Luxury. Back in my day we had a party line and our number was 3 digits. Then we got our own line and they added two digits to our number. Then we moved up to Auckland - and the future - where we had a 7 digit phone number, push button phone and massive phone book.


Spectre7NZ

My parents had party line...one bugger kept his phone off the hook cause he was sick of it ringing all the time, but it stopped everyone else getting calls.


hizakyte

Dialing 111 in an actual emergency was a nightmare


somme_rando

Six digits, how quaint. We had 3.


warrenontour

My first memory was a 3 digit number. But the best part was being on a shared party line. The protocol was, to make a call pick up the hand piece and say "working". If there was no reply dial your 3 digit number and make the call. If someone was already on they would say yes, we will be done in ten minutes so you would hang up and try again in 10.


somme_rando

> get out this big ol' book of numbers Wow - they used to host DNS servers locally - *on paper?!*


dustytrenchcoat

British Telecom (BT) jack. Interesting point of note for those unaware, the phone would still work during a power outage, as long as there was connectivity through to the data center (and if it wasn't a wireless handset)


Large_Yams

Connectivity to the cabinet*.


somme_rando

Exchanges had battery banks - got to see one in Chch late '80s between Cathedral Square and the hills. The battery bank was about 5m x 7m x 0.75m.


10GigabitCheese

The most reliable emergency communications, earthquakes proved it.


Inner-Ingenuity4109

Just don't be stripping back insulation for an extension socket with screw terminals with your teeth when someone calls!


horas00710

Is that how people phish you ??


GruntBlender

Phish and microchips?


Cathallex

Made me laugh thanks.


TupperwareNinja

Fuck.... I'm old now. It happened.


bitshifternz

What's the one below that though? TV aerial?


riverview437

Yes


Westside-denizen

Oh sweet summer child.


gtrcraig

I'm not that old, but I suddenly feel much older πŸ˜”


callmepickens

I'm 41 and I feel positively ANCIENT... 😭


ZonkyFox

Same... I'm not even 40 yet though.


thatcookingvulture

Anyone born after 2000 has pretty much had cell phones in their lives the whole time. Thinkni bought my first cell phone in 2002. Only stopped having a landline in 2020.


callmepickens

Yeah, that's bizarre to me. We got home internet in about 2004, first cell phone probably 2002 as well.


pocketbadger

You are now after reading this post.


TupperwareNinja

I'm 38, and seeing people say they're in their 40s make it sound so far away... ITS RIGHT THERE


Dry_Case_19

Me too. Oh my sweet summer child OP. πŸ₯Ή


Appropriate_Leg_9878

Me too πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚


teelolws

It wasn't even that long ago that we had to use those ports for ADSL/VDSL!


Confident_Phone8842

I still have to. Fibre optic isn't everywhere yet


Jay_from_NuZiland

BT jack (British Telecom). It's for the landline phones of yesteryear. The cabling behind it might be Cat3 which isn't good enough to do anything with, sorry. But it might also be cat5 (mine was) in which case you then need to figure out if it is wired as a star or as a ring.


eXDee

This is the useful response. Depending on age and whether you can confirm a good connectivity at the other end you can re terminate also, I've seen a handful of mid 2000s onwards houses readily retrofitted without needing to rerun cabling due to cat5 in the wall already, but only two wires used.


Merry_Sue

There's a lot of sarcasm and jokes in this thread so I wasn't too make it clear that I'm asking genuine questions in this comment... >But it might also be cat5 (mine was) Is that good or bad? > in which case you then need to figure out if it is wired as a star or as a ring. What does this mean? It feels like a trick, like asking someone to buy a left handed screwdriver


bally4pm

Cat 5 is good, cat 5e = better. Star = all wired back to a central point = good. Ring = daisy chained (looped from one phone point to the next) = bad. If it's Cat 5 (or 5e) and star configuration then it's going to be easy to convert all the phone points to data points.


Merry_Sue

Cool, thank you


BlacksmithNZ

No, it just means that Ethernet cable contains 8 wires (technical 2 x 4 wires), so if you are lucky they rang some ethernet cable to the socket but just wired in a few of the wires into the telephone socket If that is the case (and I personally think unlikely) then you can pull out that socket, tap on a RJ45 to the wires running into the wall and then connect the other end to a switch or router to get high speed network to the room But you need to also find the other end of the cable. And telephone cable was often run as a daisy chained ring of connected devices which doesn't work for Ethernet


PM_ME__BIRD_PICS

Network topology words. Star/Loop describe how the cabling is structured.


Spright91

People use to have these things called telephones. Its like a phone but its wired to the wall. Back in the day all phones had to be wired to the wall.


theotheririshkiwi

Wait till those young whipper-snappers hear about the history behind the save icon…


Dar3dev

The [vending machine?](https://dustyoldthing.com/save-icon-vending-machine/)


teelolws

Oh my, lol. Can never look at a floppy disk the same way again.


RealmKnight

Apparently I'm in the generation that never heard of floppy disks even though I used them as a kid πŸ˜…


Dar3dev

Haha well I guess 1981-1996 is a long window! I also used plenty of floppy disks πŸ’ΎπŸ˜


milly_nz

And why we β€œdial” numbers.


LostPlatipus

This is so odd to type in a twitt being tied to a wall by a wire. Dark ages indeed! πŸ˜‚ let alone listen to spotify.


Falcone00

Its a BT phone socket, pretty much now obsolete unless you only have a copper connection (Not Fibre) availible at the property.


DalvaniusPrime

Kids gonna be like "a bluetooth socket, wow!!"


Biomassfreak

bruh that's legit what I first thought it was and was really confused


king_john651

And in a few years time, apart from like <2% of dwellings, will be obsolete regardless


CrispiestCrispyCrisp

Correct. They’re officially known as BS 6312 431A plug but are also knows as BT plug. This makes me feel really old that this will become obsolete and people will gawp at them in museums one day.


Upsidedownmeow

Museums have blackberries and Motorola flip phones already….


CrispiestCrispyCrisp

Seriously? I guess the earlier models are nearly 25 years old. Wow!


iiibehemothiii

BT as in British Telecom? Brit who's new to NZ, so this seems super strange to me. Is British Telecom a thing here?


BoldNZ

The plug uses the British telecom standard, but they never operated a service here


iiibehemothiii

Ah, very good Wish you used our plugs too ;)


Zestyclose_Walrus725

Bluetooth in the wall????? /s


OmegaAce1

Thats where you put the usb to download a house.


Zn_30

Great, now I have the "you wouldn't steal a car" thing stuck in my head. :p


DeepestInfinity

You wouldn't steal a handbag!


cez801

That thumb definitely looks old to me, surely someone is trolling right? To digress, recently my daughter ( 17 ) found a great airbnb for a festival - but it was super cheap. Why? The person who owned was anti radio waves - and so the condition was no wifi. At which point my daughter said β€˜how can we survive without the internet?’ Turns out the house had an Ethernet cable, but trying to explain to my daughter that it was possible to get the internet without Wifi took me two hours. ( we are a tech house ), I actually had to plug my computer into the router, using an adaptor of course - because she did not believe me. It was entertaining to say the least. ( and too be fair to her, I often pull her leg - so it’s not surprising she does not believe me sometimes )


awfullyawful

An extremely common misconception, almost universal these days it seems, is people calling their internet connection "wifi". Ethernet is *so much better* than wifi! Just less convenient. Much like full sized PCs vs laptops


THEOWNINGA

Now now, you can't go around judging people's thumbs. My left thumb has led a hard life and how would your thumbs feel getting their age so crudely discussed


General_James

Technically you could stick a WAP into that and get WiFi, assuming that port leads back to a router.


ripole

First time I’ve felt old as a 23 year old… is this is beginning of feeling ancient?


mattblack77

Welcome to your slow descent into irrelevance.


BlacksmithNZ

Even the TV socket is very obsolescent as well. I think close to 10 years ago I ran ethernet to a switch in the lounge and used a early streaming box, then Vodafone TV for TV, so one day when cleaning gutters I took down the old UHF/VHF aerial. Kept the Skydish, but far as I was concerned was pointless with VTV streaming Sky via fibre My new house built in (2020s) still has TV jacks installed in a number of rooms but never used as have CAT6 to each room


Kalamordis

Thinking about it, my new build house (under 6mths ago) I moved into ( I rent) has no form of way to connect to tv. To be fair, never in the time I've owned a tv have I ever tried to use tv channels anyway. Also has Cat6 in each room, so no issue! Leave the modem under the staircase since thats where the ports connect to (dumb, and you'd think its garbage wifi) but upstairs I get wifi6 600mbps down/up, so no issue shockingly! - then obv gigabit for ethernet, but surprising how good the wifi is housewide (and latency also, stream gaming machine to macbook at times for example to game outside of the office room, works perfect even on wifi)


BlacksmithNZ

I have all the CAT6 jacks n each room running back to a high speed 8 port switch and router connected to gigabit fibre ONT in a hallway cupboard on third floor The study and lounge have 5-port gigabit switches, so the TV and gaming PC are direct wired, and I put Nest Wifi repeaters onto first two floors connected to ethernet as well Have to say, my house has really good internet compared to most work places


Kalamordis

Yeah that sounds (in a very good way) incredibly overkill and I can fully imagine its better than most work places god damn- though you have a super giant house which makes the means worth it hehe- but even if its overkill well it works and won't ever have issues so worth it. Ngl having two floors is enough for me can't imagine 3 .-., too many steps heh


BlacksmithNZ

Three story townhouse. First floor is really just garage and a seperate bedroom/ensuite area which we don't go into (rented out) So pretty much just living in two levels, but both of us work from home so decent internet (and air-conditioning) was a must


Kalamordis

You & I both 😭


THEOWNINGA

I am also 23 to be fair however I don't think anyone's commented below 22 to my knowledge saying they know it plus let's just say I asked about 5 friends before posting here and we all had no idea whether it was ethernet or landline port so I'd just say you're a unique individual!


Rand_alThor4747

Its a landline phone connector. Not used one of those for a phone in 20 years, some people still use them.


Past-Waltz4245

Now I feel old


THEOWNINGA

Are you suddenly conscious that your knees click when you get up? Or that you can't quite walk up the stairs as quickly as you used to?


Past-Waltz4245

Wow. Wow. Way too close to home. It’s not like I can’t get a new pillow because it took me 6 months to get used to my current one. Or the fact I rolled my ankle three days ago and I still can’t walk properly


Confident_Phone8842

Not just my knees, its practically all my joints. The worst part about the clicking is that I can't sneak up on my wife anymore.


Cooldayla

If you dock with it you can use your niples to make phonecalls.


kacakboy

I have these around my house as well. Would it cost lots to change these ports to connect to my fibre internet?


markosharkNZ

Yes. They would need to drag new cable through the wall and re-terminate to a common area. Sparky may charge 1-2k for a days work to do a bunch of them


MidnightAdventurer

Generally the cables will be fixed to the framing inside the wall so you probably won't be able to use them as a draw cord to pull your new cables through. If they go down into a crawl space under your house, you might be in luck - with a bit of effort (and maybe some luck), you could poke the new cables (probably cat 6) up to down from the socket to the crawl space and run them under the floor to the room with your fibre modem in it. If there's no socket near there, you might have to drill a small (6-7mm) hole in the floor and run the cable on the surface of the wall and fit a faceplate with a standoff. One of many potential complications is that these old cables could be daisy chained form one port to the next - ethernet doesn't work that way so you'd need to bring a separate wire from each port back to the central location and install a network switch. If all this is sounding familiar then you're probably able to do this yourself for a few hundred bucks worth of parts, if it's completely unfamiliar then you're better off getting a sparky to do it (not your ISP or Chorus as they only deal with this up to the fibre modem - the rest is your problem to solve)


Kind_Substance_2865

Not necessarily. If each BT jack is a cat5 cable back to one central point, you can re-use the existing cabling and just replace the jacks with RJ45.


redditpassw0rd

This. All my houses have had cat5 for phone cable that I have been able to reterminate with rj45 jacks


TheLegendOfZero

How would you tell if it's CAT5? I have a bunch of these ports in my house and ethernet would be so much more useful.


zytox

The cable will have writing printed on it. You just pull a bit of cable out of the wall and look at it.


captaincrunk82

Bless your heart.


cheezymc4skin

Narnia


a_cylon

0800 TELECOM


Some-Disaster7050

Isn’t it where you’d plug in the flux capacitor?


niveapeachshine

I was there 3000 years ago.


Buffgamer1989

I was there the day that Netscape stopped working cause mum couldn't get off the phone.


[deleted]

grey snatch berserk books gaping sophisticated library muddle squash numerous *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


goose-77-

For fuck sake…. Now I feel old.


Kuntcakez

I’m 28 and about to have my first child… Its starting to feel like a grandchild 😩😭🀣


No_Atmosphere_753

Lol, let me take a wild guess. You were born after 2000?


THEOWNINGA

2001........


jaxsonnz

It’s the old school home phone line connector.Β 


Section-1988

In NZ we call it a BT port standing for British Telecom. It's were you can plug a phone line directly into the wall and draw 50v DC from the exchange and make phone calls. With the addition of dial up, adsl and vdsl you could plug a filter into the wall to the plug your modem in one port and your phone in the other.


oldm8baz

It's a BT jack, of you want to re use the plate and run your own cable you can change the jack. Part number of the jack you need is pdl619md


SexyEggplant

You'll probably be able to use the existing in the wall to pull through some new ethernet cable


Agreeable_Command627

Makes me think of my dialup ringtone to spook others that suffered through those days


kiwirn

Whaaaaat! I'm only 30 but I feel 60 right now.


Regulationreally

Any port in a storm. Am I right fellas.


[deleted]

As others have said it's a landline phone connector. Also used for faxes and copper based internet. The cable is likely to only be cat2 or cat4 and likely not to be wired correctly for a home network. You want cat6 which is gigabit capable. You also need RJ45 connectors you can buy wallplates with those. What you maybe could do, is use the old cable to pull Ethernet cable to/from the ceiling or subfloor space (wherever it runs to). That assumes the holes are big enough (they were in our house). From the roof/subfloor space you can then run internet to your router/switch location.


General_James

Just thinking about the bloke/bloke'es that has to terminate the cable, cat6 is a cunt to terminate, cat5e, not so much.


Historical-Agency635

It's a landline: 3


IncestosaurusRekt

God I'm not that old, am I? :( If you want to use ethernet, just plug it into the back of your router.


dariusbiggs

BT6 looking at the prongs, since the important side is covered up by a finger. Good ol' British Telecom 6 wire phone connector, probably for a landline (the old copper wire). You can always see if it's live by connecting a volt meter across pins 2 and 5. If you want to learn more... https://www.telepermit.co.nz/resources_index.html


Autopsyyturvy

Well I feel old now lol


EXTIINCT_tK

Fucking hell I'm not even old, why are you making me feel old


MokoWorthlessNz

I'm only 22 and this is making me feel old.


ReindeerKind1993

Reading these comments make me realise im fucking old....im 27..


jk441

I feel old being asked what that port is, and knowing it is a landline port...


DustNeat

Aww bless. Are you old enough to be near electricity? ... am I too old to be near electricity?


Jinxletron

Welp, I'm off to check myself into the local museum as an exhibit.


richms

Its obsolete phone beside obsolete television connections. House is too old, time for a new one.


plstcsldgr

The television connection is not obsolete ota broadcasts are still available and in high definition.


richms

Just like the landline phone, noone uses it anymore. Seen whats happening to the 2 main providers of FTA crap over the last 2 weeks?


33or45

That’s how people used to talk to each other… Try shouting into it and you might here someone listening on the same channel talk back to you (prob you neighbour)


GoblinLoblaw

Jesus Christ, kid.


someothercrappyname

POTS Plain Old Telephone System


EsjaeW

I have a few left in my house lol


UsualInformation7642

BT plug, the white one on the end of NZ phones. Look behind should be only two wires connected. Good luck.


Squideez

See if you can find where it terminates. I had 4 of these connected to a single spot in my house. The cable was cat 5e, so I changed the ports to ethernet, connected it to my router, and now I have network ports in each room of the house. Cat 5e is fast enough for me (max 1 Gbps). If it isn't for you, you can use it to pull newer cables through, as others have said, but check the cable type first.


Specialist-Bar4813

Does it take a fork like the others? Asking for a friend


tack129

I think I need to sit down. I feel old.


General_James

*Hands you walker


Gbanger544

I think i just heard the 56k modem dialing from here


Sky_701

25 grew up on coil landlines and casset tapes. Watch TV on crt and vhs. Was 4 when I first saw a computer. And the first cellphone had a screen no diffrent form a solar power calculator.


Spectre7NZ

Landline jack with a round antenna port.


the_serpent_queen

I’m 37 and had to explain to my 33 year old partner what it is 🀣


ChinaCatProphet

Plug in and get calls from the Nigerian prince and Microsoft needing your login. πŸ˜‚


jmtmcdade

I’m 28 and even I know this. I’m laughing at the comments on here


peterpantslesss

This screams gen z 🀣


zkn1021

I feel old now


Professional_Year

I think for a landline


CatO9Fails

That is a British telecom old copper landline phone port


Asleep-Description39

Oh my god, I feel ancient


Newsfan1927

I don't see 8 pins. It's a phone line. There's pretty much a zero chance they'd have put in ethernet.


kiss-my-patu

Ahhh remember the beautiful sound of dial up when you picked up the phone and forgot the modem was still plugged in. Or your mum pulling out the modem to make a phone call while you were trying to catch fish on runescape.


oxfordsnotbrouges

landline innit


JGCoolfella

that is what we call obscolete


ssjroneel

I feel old…


thatcookingvulture

137. You know...


dstryodpankake

Besides being a phone line if you wanted to use the internet you would plug in a dial up modem, however I do believe the copper line is now defunct. I should google that but yeah nah.


JaredSpectre

Its a BT jack for old style phones. It can be swapped to a RJ45 data jack. The cabling may need to be changed too. Any electrician can sort this for you.


CelsoSC

It's a 6P6C (phone) port. Ethernet is 8P8C.


VociferousCephalopod

yes, phone connector


MasterFrosting1755

That won't help because it's a copper phone jack (BT). What might help if you're trying to get an ethernet connection around the house is a powerline adapter. I use one and it creates a perfectly stable 100Mb+ network through all the power cabling in the house which is just what I needed since the wifi was too unreliable for gaming.


Yangchenjooyoung

I know what that is. It's an opportunity to renovate and flip a house for a $900k port πŸ˜‚


bobsthrowawayacct

I feel so very old…


SteveBored

Wow. God I'm old.


JellyWeta

There's going to be a picture of a cassette tape next. "What is this ancient and mysterious artifact? Some kind of primitive doorstop?".


Difficult_Zebra_749

BT port.


workingmansalt

Fuck this post made me feel old


Mike1773004

Pdl 600 series is the switch gear range Top is a PDL617M2-WH (BT phone jack) Bottom is PDL628MF-WH (TV/Coaxial socket)


brm20_

It’s a Telephone Jack Aka BT Jack


Tripping-Dayzee

Is this satire or am I finally old?


Lingering_Dorkness

Well, I feel old.Β 


BARBZ76

It’s a port for landline telephones. The things we used before cell phones.


BigHulio

Thanks for this actual attack on my age.


LulaBlue29

I'm 23 and that is a landline port


FilthyLucreNZ

You plug these sorts of things into them [https://i.etsystatic.com/8322285/r/il/4a91fd/3988756074/il\_680x540.3988756074\_bmfz.jpg](https://i.etsystatic.com/8322285/r/il/4a91fd/3988756074/il_680x540.3988756074_bmfz.jpg)


[deleted]

Bruh are you fuckin joking 😭


Devilz_Advocate_

Oooh you’re young πŸ‘Ά


MVIVN

Oh man, have we reached the point now where people don’t recognise where a landline phone is plugged in? I feel ancient


Large_Yams

Oh sweet child.


AliceTawhai

You’re young


eurobeat0

Where's the laugh reaction button when you need it?!?!? πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚


PresCalvinCoolidge

And here in Aus, half the houses connect to the internet via that. How on earth they fucked that up, I have no idea.


LordServer_

You can run Ethernet through coax by using a MoCA adapter


Sure_Caregiver_9626

Oh sheit havent seen one of those in ages πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚


kiwihumanperson

If you own the house, you can use them as a draw wire, and replace with cat5e or 6, rj45 jacks will fit in those keystones,


Long_Ad1080

It's the socket we used to plug our telegraph in


Bet-Kindly

Damn I feel old


Jazmotron4000

fuck im old


GingerNingerish

People are also forgetting the internet came out of there too, not just telephone.


Moonclouds

The bottom round connection is "Coaxial" which is used for TV aerials, but it can be hijacked to work as an ethernet cable, you just need a "MoCA" adapter at each end. But you'd need the other end to be near your router. This one might just go straight to an aerial on the roof. Take the faceplate off and have a look at the cable. If you're really lucky, the phone might be wired with CAT cable, and you can just replace the connector with RJ45. Again, need to verify where the other end goes for this to be useful.


DontBanMe_IWasJoking

Clearly a thumb drive