Old cables and connectors near phone socket

[#1]

I have recently had my carpet replaced with vinyl flooring. I have now found these connectors hiding in a cupboard, I'm guessing they were under the carpet before. One end disappears into the floor and the other into the skirting right next to the phone socket (that bit of skirting was also replaced with the flooring).

Internet performance has been a bit sketchy since the flooring went in. What are these cables and do I have any options to improve them?

Thanks

[#2]

@JimboCycling 

It looks as if someone has made an official bodge-up of extending your phone cable.  Those connectors are intended for joining electrical wires and it seems someone has found a novel use for them instead of using jelly-crimps.  They can be opened and reused by lifting the 'flap'.  It appears that the phone cable has been extended with a piece of figure 8 flex instead of using twisted pair so I'm not surprised the quality of your connection is affected.

Are you sure this was previously under the carpet and the floor layer hasn't done this?

[#3]

@JimboCycling  Welcome to the forum.

As @RobPN says these WAGO connectors are meant for mains electrical wiring. I use them and they are brilliant for that job, They also work with cable sizes from 0.14 to 6 mm² so should be adequate for this job.

However it is a scruffy bodge and looks like it is extending the incoming BT wiring before it gets to the Master socket. If so this wiring should only be modified by Openreach who will charge about £160 to properly move a master socket.

An alternative is to look in your local press where you might find adverts from a retired telecom engineer who can sort it for you.

There also looks to be some very old and grotty mains(?) cable lurking that might need looking at.

[#4]

Thank you both for your replies. To clarify:

- the cable with white paint all over it comes from under the floor, and then thin blue and orange wires come out of that into the WAGO clips

- the gold cable comes out the other side of the WAGO and into the skirting next to the phone socket.

- the other cables visible in the picture are power leads for router, phone etc and not relevant to the query here. I don't think there's any mains cable unless I'm missing something.

When you refer to figure 8 flex, is that the gold cable?

How long have WAGO clips like that been around? We bought the house in 2014 so if this was all hiding under the carpet it would have been from before then. 

[#5]

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@JimboCycling wrote:

When you refer to figure 8 flex, is that the gold cable?

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@JimboCycling 

Yes.

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How long have WAGO clips like that been around? We bought the house in 2014 so if this was all hiding under the carpet it would have been from before then. 

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IDK, but they've been around for several years.  Perhaps @Baldrick1 might know.

PS  This Wikipedia article says the 221 series was released in 2015.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAGO_Kontakttechnik

EDIT:  PPS  This article says 2014

https://www.wago.com/us/companyhistory

[#6]

Wago connectors have not been around that long compared with choc blocks. They are claimed to be compatible with the requirements allowing them to be used in inaccesible locations, so I would not worry about their reliability.

You will find discussion about whether they really are suitable for inaccessible locations in line with BS7671 back in 2011 so I imagine that they were fairly new then.

I thought that the tatty gold cable had mains on it. I gather that it a bit of old mains cable that has been repurposed. This may work fine for phones but you need somethind better for broadband. Get it fixed properly.