Standard Telephone Wire [telecom]

Google "Telephone station cable".

Googling for "plenum station wire" turned up a couple of possibilities:

No idea about price... Surplusmaster says that they have several spools of 1000' in stock (a couple of different types).

Just off the top of my head, maybe a chain like Radio Shack or Home Depot?

Maybe a sales outlet of Avaya?

There's a company that specializes in the second-hand market, but maybe they'll have what you need:

I guess to me, "standard" phone wire existed before Plenum jackets, so right away you are asking for "new fangled stuff".

Plenum is the expensive part. Not if it is Cat3 or Cat5e vs. what you are looking for which is "voice-grade" in the industry (or Cat1, but nobody calls it that). Generally, the old school 4 wire phone cable doesn't come in plenum jacket, and only the home centers carry it, no contractor uses 4-wire phone cord.

Last time I priced things out, Cat3 plenum was nominally more expensive than voice-grade plenum. Like maybe $10 a reel. cat5e and cat3 are pretty close in price, maybe ~$50 a box. If there is any possibility of VoIP in the future, paying $50 a box premium compared to $90/hour labor for the electrician to repull things is pretty cheap insurance.

You should be able to get bulk cable at Home Depot/Lowes at fairly decently pricing compared to what you'd expect a big-box to charge.

Otherwise, the major distributers like Graybar, Anixter, Allied. Or secondary ones like Digikey, Newark, Blackbox, etc.

Also, you won't find too much definitive pricing online because the market for copper is highly variable. Each shipment in will be a different cost to the vendor, so they are all going to do request-for-quote type sales on cables (or price it high enough to cover the ups and downs, so those aren't the ones you want to deal with).

Define expensive. Back in the day, we actually used to stock Cat-3 Plenum because it was about the same price as Cat-5 PVC. Today, I can't even think of the last time I really bought the stuff....a quick price check shows about $140 a thousand for 3 Plenum and we pay around $200 for 5e Plenum.

hardly worth stocking 2 types of cable.

Carl

I did a search on google for "D Station wire" and a number of vendors came up. Whether they are any good I have no idea, but it's worth checking.

Cat-3 _is_ standard telephone wire.

--scott

Alarm companies still use it but i haven't seen it used for phone lines in many years- cat3 is as cheap if not cheaper & superior for cross talk purposes if you're running two lines on it.

H.

I happened to notice thermostat wire and (door)bell wire at the local big box home center, which appears to be the same stuff as old style telephone wire except for the number of conductors. I didn't check the price vs. Cat 3 or anything.