Electrical outlet/phone jack question

[Innisfree]

I feel like an idiot, but help me out here.

In our master bedroom, we've never needed to plug a phone into a jack before. Now that I'm trying to find one, I see two blank plastic plates at appropriate spots on the walls, but...they're blank. No way to plug in anything at all. Two little screws, top and bottom, that's it. What on earth am I seeing? Why would someone do this? And, if I drag the massive ancestral Victorian furniture aside enough to remove them, will I be able to put a phone jack there?

(Architecturally speaking, this is definitely intended to be the master bedroom, and the house is of an age which suggests there should have been a jack there somewhere.)

[scholastica]

Are you talking about a landline and an extension to it? You will only be able to do it if the phone line was run to there in the past and is still there.

[Innisfree]

Yes, sorry, a landline. Actually I'm trying to plug in our modem there. I just can't figure out why the blank plates would be there. Getting to them is not easy, so I was wondering if this is some standard practice and if there's any way to guess what's behind them before I strain my back hauling furniture around.

[scholastica]

It could be outlets that are no longer in use or it could be a jack. There's no way to know unless you take the plates off. Sorry.

[City Mouse]

Yep, Take the plate off and see what is behind there. If it is untapped phone cables, it is not hard to open the wires and attach the correct cover plate is the wire is there. I did it myself at 16 when I wanted a phone in my room. 

[gardenmom5]

you need to see what is there.  if you need a hardwired phone, it must have wires that lead to where the phone comes into your house.

same for cable, or internet, etc.  - we had renters in our house for a short period - they had cable installed - so those plates for us, are where we closed it up.

we now have a hardwired base station in dh's office (he disconnected my kitchen telephone jack at a basement swtich, so I couldn't put the base station there), with a bunch of handsets that plug into electrical sockets and are basically wireless.  (one handy feature is being able to use them as an intercom.)

[Innisfree]

Okay, thanks. Guess I'll have to move the heavy furniture to check this out.

[Lanny]

Those could be covering an outlet for electrical wiring (110 VAC) or POTS (landline telephone) cables.

Or, there might not be anything in the tubing going to those places in the wall. IMO, that's unlikely. there are probably cables leading to those places where the plates are covering the holes in the wall. If not, then you would need to install cable, to the place where you want to plug in a Phone. If the cables are there, you just need to buy a standard Phone Jack in the Hardware section (Electrical area) of your local Superstore and install that.

Probably one of them is for 110 VAC) and the other is for a landline phone.

In general, I believe it is best to put the Modem (I am assuming you are talking ADSL here) in a CENTRAL place in the house. 

[RootAnn]

The people who ran the phone lines likely didn't see the need for a phone jack there for themselves, but thought someone else might want one someday. So, one of them likely has non-terminated wires in there. As others have pointed out, you'll need to buy a new cover with the jack and connect the wires yourself. It is possible, depending on the age of the house, that one has wires for the phone and the other is a cable cord. Or, both could be for a phone. Or, theoretically, they could be just empty boxes.

If you have a handy family member, including yourself, then you would just need to buy the proper materials (one example is what I linked above) and do the hookup yourself.

[Innisfree]

33 minutes ago, Lanny said:

Those could be covering an outlet for electrical wiring (110 VAC) or POTS (landline telephone) cables.

Or, there might not be anything in the tubing going to those places in the wall. IMO, that's unlikely. there are probably cables leading to those places where the plates are covering the holes in the wall. If not, then you would need to install cable, to the place where you want to plug in a Phone. If the cables are there, you just need to buy a standard Phone Jack in the Hardware section (Electrical area) of your local Superstore and install that.

Probably one of them is for 110 VAC) and the other is for a landline phone.

In general, I believe it is best to put the Modem (I am assuming you are talking ADSL here) in a CENTRAL place in the house. 

Thanks, Lanny.

The modem has been in a central area heretofore, but needs to move. Younger dd is having a hard time self-regulating sleep vs. internet, so it needs to be under our direct control.

2 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

The people who ran the phone lines likely didn't see the need for a phone jack there for themselves, but thought someone else might want one someday. So, one of them likely has non-terminated wires in there. As others have pointed out, you'll need to buy a new cover with the jack and connect the wires yourself. It is possible, depending on the age of the house, that one has wires for the phone and the other is a cable cord. Or, both could be for a phone. Or, theoretically, they could be just empty boxes.

If you have a handy family member, including yourself, then you would just need to buy the proper materials (one example is what I linked above) and do the hookup yourself.

Thanks! I'll explore what's underneath and proceed accordingly.