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I have found disused phone wiring in the walls of a house in Lithuania. The cable was probably installed around 2014 and has the following wire colors:

  • white
  • yellow
  • orange
  • green
  • gray
  • red

White/yellow are connected to the phone jack in at least one place (white on pin 3 of an RJ12 jack, yellow on pin 4); orange/green have been used in one place for a bridge between two RJ12 jacks (orange on 3, green on 4).

I have been unable to match this up with a known standard. Any hints?

If it helps, Lithuania nowadays seems to use mostly RJ11/RJ12 jacks for analog phone wiring. The Polish WT-4 standard (known in Russian as ШТР-IV) is also found, mainly in older installations, but jacks and plugs are still sold. The house in question has RJ12 jacks throughout.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Given the jack/plug type (6 position for RJ11/RJ14/RJ25 anyway) and the fact that you observed pairings at 3 & 4, I'd give a total guess on my part and suggest that it may be similarly done there as here in the US. (Except color.) An RJ11 was for one phone line. If it was for a Princess/Trimline phone and needed power, that was provided on 2 & 5. The RJ14 was for 2 lines and the 2nd line was placed where the Princess power was at: 2 & 5. In the US, the 1st line was red/green and the 2nd line was green/yellow. An RJ25 was for 3 lines with the last line placed at 1 & 6. No idea about EU colors. \$\endgroup\$
    – jonk
    Nov 18, 2022 at 0:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ @jonk Pinouts seem to follow US standard, at least as for line on the middle pair. Non-standard pinouts also exist, notably on older German phones (which to this date still uses a national standard for the wall socket, the RJ11/RJ12 jack is only used on the phone side). There is no EU-wide wire color standard. Italy seems to use white/red for pair 1, Germany has long used white/brown for pair 1, green/yellow for pair 2 (see DIN47100). \$\endgroup\$
    – user149408
    Nov 18, 2022 at 21:09

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Searching the web site of an electronics retailer in Lithuania for similar cables provided a hint, though no pointer as to whether it is an official standard.

Similar cables are made by ELAN s.r.l., an Italian company. They are sold as signal cables of up to 12 wires and use the following color code (of which the first six match the cable in question):

  1. white
  2. red
  3. yellow
  4. green
  5. gray
  6. orange
  7. light blue
  8. brown
  9. violet
  10. black
  11. blue
  12. pink

This would be somewhat consistent with an Italian cable (national three-prong plug to RJ11) which I came across in Italy, which uses white/red for pair 1 and black/blue for pair 2. Images on the Wikipedia article for the Italian national phone jack and plug also indicate that the a/b pair uses white/red, blue being used instead of white for daisy-chaining jacks (where plugging in a device will disconnect all jacks down the line).

So we’re probably looking at an Italian standard, likely an older national one.

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