What am I missing here?

So this house I'm buying was built in 2017. On my first quick pass through the house I noticed all the bedrooms had an ethernet jack, as well as one directly below the tv mount in the living room. I was so excited that finally someone had enough sense to wire a home.

Upon further inspection, because they just didn't look right, they're all phone jacks. Why would anyone wire an entire house, and the tv, for telephone and not ethernet?!

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Northwest · M

Mixed viewpoints in this thread.

1. An RJ-11 (standard phone jack), is just that. It is used to do a home-run (every plug has its own separate wire run, back to a central location), or as part of chain connection, leading back to a central location.

2. The actual phone service, does not have to come from a traditional phone company, that connects you via a wire, back to its central office. It could be through a Voice over IP (VoIP) service provider, but you still need to plug your phones in, if the phone set is not wireless.

3. WiFi alone, may not be the best solution for some locations.

4. If your WiFi service is interrupted by microwave ovens, you should get a different WiFi router. That problem only existed for a brief period of time, in the 2.4Ghz space, and before the industry created the WiFi standards, 20 years ago.

5. Even if you use WiFi in your home, ethernet cabling, is also great, if planned properly, in certain locations. For instance, it will not be long, before all media services (including traditional TV channels), are available as streaming services. It would be nice, if the TV can plug into a wired ethernet connection, or your FireTV, or whatever you're using. In my house, I use it to connect various media clients, and as a backbone connecting the 3 wireless access points.

6. Cellular service is not the same as WiFi services.