Home telephone wiring in NZ

I had to perform some work on my home phone line including running new cable to a newly installed patch panel. I was suprised to notice that the existing cable had simply been twisted onto the incoming cable pair so this was quickly remedied.

Anyway, the incoming cable contained a single pair comprising of yellow and black wires. There had been several fingers in the pie and the cabling through the house was quite a mess, and figuring out the colour codes took a little bit of work, Here’s a guide for those living in an older NZ home who need to perform work on the phone line:

Cable Type Tip Ring
Incoming line Black Yellow
Existing house wiring Red White
Cat5 cable White(w/blue) Blue
Flexible phone leads Green Red

If you are still unsure, grab an LED and 10k resistor and connect the across the line. If it glows, the cathode is connected to tip and the anode to ring.

Connector Type Tip Ring
BS6312 (BT style) 5 2
RJ11 (6P6C) 4 3
RJ45 (8P8C) 5 4

5 thoughts on “Home telephone wiring in NZ

  1. Tony Girling 20 November 2011 / 14:03

    Hiya. I ran a ‘phone extension from the POST outlet to plug my PC into. It works in that I can dial out and pick up calls using Bitware but when I try to send a fax from the PC it gets intercepted by the fax/phone attached to the POST outlet. Is this avoidable or inevitable?

    Ps. Are you the NZLamb from Blenheim?

  2. Ar500 Targets 24 July 2013 / 05:17

    I appreciate, lead to I found exactly what I was looking for.
    You have ended my 4 day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a nice day.
    Bye

  3. Simon 9 March 2017 / 09:43

    If the LED glows, why the cathode connected to the tip but not ring since the ring side is negative?

  4. uHealth 8 October 2019 / 10:23

    Thanks! I have black, yellow, white and brown 4 colours from ground, and my house have black, white, green, blue, red and orange 6 colours. Connect ground incoming black, yellow, white and brown to house red, white, blue and green? Really confused!

    • uHealth 8 October 2019 / 16:44

      I connected black to black, white to white, brown to orange and yellow to red. Have broadband but the phone is not working. Why is that?

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