Options For Mounting Your Wall Phone

A brief history:

Everyone is familiar with the modular wall jacks for wall mounting a telephone. It has the screw head above and below the socket to engage the back of the phone, securing it to the wall. If you're unsure of what the modular wall jack looks like, CLICK HERE to see a picture. Before the invention of the modular wall jack, phones were attached directly to the wall with screws through the back of the phone. The wires would come out of the wall behind the phone, run through a hole in the back of the phone, and attach directly to terminals in the phone. This method is commonly referred to as "hard wired".

In the late 1960's, the modular wall jack was invented by Western Electric. To accommodate the new technology, a modular backing plate was developed to be added to the backs of existing wall phones so they could be hung on the wall with ease rather than be mounted and wired in place. These plates fit the Western Electric 354 wall phone and all brands of 554 style and newer wall phones.

What are your options?

Generally, all the wall phones sold on this site with the model numbers 554, 2554, and 3554 automatically come with the backing plate. If you intend to hard wire one of these phones in place, you will need to let me know.
 If you are buying a 354, you will need to pay additional to have a modular wall adapter plate attached. You will see this option on the 354 page.
One thing I'd like to point out is that not all modular wall jacks are created equal. The really cheap ones have a difficult time engaging the vintage phones. If you put a vintage phone on your wall jack and it doesn't work, odds are you will need a new wall jack. Buy a good quality wall jack to replace it, it's easy to do. Two good names to look for are Suttle and Leviton.

Which applies to you?

I have a modular wall jack and am purchasing a phone that does not have a modular back plate:

• Method 1: "Hard wired", Remove the wall jack and mount the phone on top of the hole where the wall jack was. Run the wires through the back of the phone and connect inside the phone. Mount the phone to the wall. This is by far the cleanest looking method for mounting a wall phone. It's very easy to do, there's no high voltage to hurt you. Just connect the red and green wires, attach the phone to the wall, and you're set. I can give you further instruction via email or phone if you need.
• Method 2: "Piggyback", Mount the phone to the wall next to your modular wall jack. Run a short cord (pigtail) from the phone to the wall jack. If you are going to use this method, let me know how long you would like the pigtail to be. I will have a cord the length you wan with a modular plug on the end of it for you to plug into the wall jack. I can give you further instruction via email or phone if you need.

I have no modular wall jack and the phone I am purchasing does:

In this case, you can purchase a surface mount modular wall jack, mount it to the wall where ever you want it, then run a cord to the nearest phone jack. I have these available on all modular wall phone pages as a separate purchase. All I need to know from you is how long you want the cord to be. Measure from where you want to put the phone to the nearest jack to determine the cord length. You will also have a choice of cord color, white, black, silver, beige, or ivory.

I have no modular wall jack and the phone I am purchasing does not have a modular back:

You will need to mount the phone to the wall and run the cord that comes on the phone to the nearest jack. I put a standard 7' cord on the phones I sell in this situation. If you need a different length, let me know. Anything over 12' will incur a small fee for cordage. You can also request cord color, white, black, silver, beige, or ivory. If no request is made, I use black or silver, depending on the color of the phone. These are the most neutral colors to use.