Communications Wire: Phone, Network & Alarm Cable

Old telephone “quad” and Cat3: 22–24 AWG, four conductors or many pairs — pre-1990s phone wiring and office riser cable. Cat5 / Cat5e: 24 AWG, four twisted pairs (eight conductors) — the 1990s–2000s network and phone standard. Cat6 / Cat6A: 23 AWG, often with a center spline or shielding — the gigabit era. Alarm, security, and fire wire: 22–18 AWG multi-conductor for panels and sensors. Thermostat wire: typically 18 AWG solid, often in a brown jacket. Different jobs, same scrap story: thin copper, lots of plastic.

Copper recovery is the share of a cable’s weight that is actually copper — and communications wire is thin by design. Twenty-four-gauge conductors wrapped in jacket, pair insulation, and sometimes shielding leave far less copper per pound than building wire. That is not a flaw; it is the product doing its job. The honest move is to sell communications wire insulated rather than strip it — buyers purchase it by the category as a matter of course, and the labor of stripping thin pairs almost never pays.

Cat5 and Cat5e are 24 AWG four-pair cable; Cat5e is the tighter-spec version. Cat6 steps up to 23 AWG conductors and frequently adds a center spline or foil shielding. The copper difference is real but modest — Cat6 carries roughly 12.5 pounds of copper per 1,000 feet — and yards commonly buy Cat5/6 as one published category. Don’t overthink the generation; sort it as communications wire and sell it insulated.

Office teardowns, network upgrades, alarm panel replacements, and residential rewires. Data-center decommissions produce it by the pallet — see our data-center copper cable page. Volume is the story with comms wire: one office floor’s worth of Cat5e is a different proposition than a grocery bag of it, and buyers quote accordingly from photos.

Photograph what you have — the wire, any jacket markings, and the overall quantity — and send it to Ironcrest for today’s offer. We buy nationally and coordinate pickup from your site.

Sell your copper to Ironcrest →  |  Call or text 312-880-8174  |  Send photos →

See also: What type of copper wire do I have?  |  Should I strip this wire?  |  Copper wire grades guide (canonical)

Is old telephone wire worth anything?

Yes — as insulated communications wire. Old quad and Cat3 phone wire is thin (22–24 AWG) so the recovery is low, but it sells by the category like all comms wire. Don’t strip it; sell it as-is.

Is Cat5 cable worth scrapping?

As insulated wire, yes — especially in quantity from office or network teardowns. Stripping individual Cat5 cables is almost never worth the labor; the copper per foot is small. Bundle it, photograph it, sell it insulated.

What is the difference between Cat5 and Cat6 for scrap?

Cat6 uses slightly heavier 23 AWG conductors (vs. 24 AWG in Cat5/5e) and often adds a spline or shielding, so it carries a bit more copper — roughly 12.5 lb per 1,000 ft. Yards typically buy them as one communications-wire category.

What does “communications wire” mean at the scrap yard?

It is the buy category for telephone, network, alarm, and similar thin multi-conductor copper cable — graded by copper recovery, well below heavy building wire. Knowing the category name helps you describe your lot accurately.

Should I strip network cable?

Almost never. The conductors are 23–24 AWG — the stripping labor dwarfs the copper recovered. Sell it insulated; that is exactly how buyers purchase it.