What kind of phone cable is this?

Question

I'm trying to convert my phone line into ethernet cables, but I'm trying to figure out how to do it.

I read that you need cat 5+ cables to use for decent speeds. But when I look in the closet box, I see a strange cable that has 6 wires inside.

1. orange with white stripes
2. white with orange stripes
3. blue with white stripes
4. white with blue stripes
5. green with white stripes
6. white with green stripes

And I couldn't figure out what kind of cable this it. Reading the text on it, I don't see any catX names. Instead I see stuff like FT4.

Does anyone know what kind of cable this is and if it can be converted to ethernet, and if so what kind of speeds are expected from it?

Answer 1

The best use of this sort of cable would be to pull proper cat 5 or better. If you asked me what sort of cable it is? "Phone cable, possibly cursed". If you asked me what sort of speeds? "Slow, possibly cursed".

In theory you might be able to use this sort of cable with an ethernet punch block or keystone if its solid cable - but practically, there may be a lot of issues using this

A quick google suggests "FT4" refers to flame resistance which while is good for code compliance, tells us nothing about what sort of cable this is.

Practically - even modern voice grade cabling uses cat5 and up these days (Its more common and economies of scale mean just not connecting half the cables is cheaper), so this is likely old and using cat 1 or 2 - since cat 3(which is also voice grade) and up is a formal standard. The 'stripes' are nothing like standard ethernet either which is concerning.

Even with something that looked like to spec ethernet cables if you quinted over short ranges - 2 pairs tends to be flakey and behave in a slightly unpredictable fashion

Basically, to quote Ian Malcom - "Just because you could, doesn't mean you should"

Answer 2

Appears to be Cat3

6 Pair Cat3 Cable - PVC - Per FT

Answer 3

That's Machine stranded wire if you ordered wire from say Grainger generic 6 strand wire that's the way it comes normally has a silver and blue aluminum foil which is the shielding unless you specifically say unshielded when you order and I don't think that wire transfers any faster or slower than any other generic wire.

That wire is used in 75% of any production Maintenance Department that at least Plastic injection molding. We used it for Machine wiring and if you needed a cat 5e it worked just as well.