(multiple photos attached) I dug out the service line to my home and it looks like an old flexible copper line is capped and unused, and now a black plastic or rubber line is clamped to an elbow connected to the above ground metal pipe I'm used to looking at. I was expecting metal pipe underground, too. Is this normal? I'm wondering if the old copper line sprang a leak and this is what they put in place.
Second Edit: Not electric! See my update comment and new photos.
Edit: Thanks everyone, you've convinced me it's most likely private electric from the panel on the side of my garage to power something in the yard that is no longer there. My guess is a sprinkler controller given my location and other details of the front yard. I was assuming this line was for something coming into the home, which made me discount it possibly being electric. I'll have to dig and follow to see where it terminates. I'm assuming it's been disconnected from the panel and is a dead line, but I'll be cautious.
Also to be clear there are multiple photos including with the cover removed, if you didn't notice.
Original request:
Buried shallow in PVC, comes into my garage and disappears somewhere I can't trace easily. No voltage detected with NCV tester. Figured it's either cable (which I use for internet) or old phone line (don't use, don't even know where it terminates) or maybe a Cat5E related to old DSL? (I see some Cat5e dangling around near where my coax cable emerges from the wall, it looks like it was cut open with two of the little wires tapped into and joined to another Cat5E, I don't get it.)
I had utilities marked and both cable and telephone marked as running under the driveway alongside the gas and electric, far away from this. Wondering if one of them was just lazy or wrong or both.
Can you tell from the black cable inside this box what it might be?