Agreed. I tugged on each phone wire a to see if they were free. And I got lucky on all of them.

One of the problems I had was a kinked conduit where concrete was poured on top, or at least that is what I assumed. Was a bit difficult to get the “knot” (where the phone wire was connected to the CAT5E) through that spot.

The twisted pair (should be two but one pair is broken...) installed in the 60s in my home are so stuck you will never, ever, get those out without ripping the wall apart. Originally the coaxials should have gone through the same pipes, as there should be enough space, but there is so much gunk in there it was impossible and they layed out a new tube though the floors and ceilings in the corner. For fun and because institutional knowledge is for suckers, they tried the same with fiber and simply gave up so now we are in limbo because computer says we have fiber but we don't.