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cat 5 and phoneline on same line question

mcveigh

mcveigh

Diamond Member
I'm trying to repair some old network cables at work and was wondering how you run network and phones over the same cat5 cable. in the offices they take 2 wires and put them to a rj11 jack and the rest to a rj45 jack in tha same wall plate.
any problems with this?

when I try and trace the cat5 cable back it seems to go into our switch without having those 2 wires break out anywhere, i'm confused.
also can anyone reccomend some good websites on phone wiring?

Thanks!
 
It's workable, but --REALLY-- not recommended. It's usually/probably broke out at a punchblock along the way ("in the closet").

If you have any swing with the powers-that-be, convince 'em it's a bad thing and get a decent cable plant installed. Depending on the type of phone (digital or analog) the ring tones could be messing with your hubs/switches/routers (ugly crosstalk). You pretty much kill the Cat 5 spec breaking out the pairs like that.

FWIW

Scott


 
I concur with Scott - wiring network/phone on the same cable is not a good idea. If you're looking at phone wiring, you can always go with Cat3 for just RJ11 standard phone line hookups; Leave all 4 pairs of CAT5 for your data network, and run the Cat3 separately 🙂
 
scott and SML are spot on this one. Do not split pairs on data connections and expect them to meet cat5 specifications. What I generally do is run two cat5 connections to each outlet plus one cat5 (its cheap ya know) for voice with pairs 1-2 on a jack and pairs 3-4 on a jack.

Each outlet has three cat5 cables, two fully terminated and certified to cat5 specs plus another one for 2 voice lines.
 
spidey: any particular reason you run cat5 for phone? i've talked to a few other people that have done that too and the reason was they just wanted cat5 everywhere; any advantage to using cat5 over cat3 for phone?
 


<< any advantage to using cat5 over cat3 for phone? >>


none that I know of, just easier and less "human error" prone. that way I know each run is cat5 and if need be can get some folks in to reterminate for network connections.

Think about it, why confuse cable installers by using two different kinds of wire? Although I do use different colors, that confuses them enough. 🙂
 
One advantage of Cat5 for phone is that it can later be used for data or you can run several phone lines on the same pair of wires if you need it. The wire is cheap, the labor to install is expensive. Might as well use the good stuff.

- G
 
thanks Garion. I think I'll do CAT5 for the phone in my new place now - the cable is so cheap anyways, like you said, and I'm probably putting the electrical contractor's kids through college by now anyways heh heh.
 
yes you can use cat5 for phonelines. however, the excess voltage of the phone line will interfere with any network run through wires of the same cable. of course the network and phone would use different wires. this means that the network will be slowed down and possible packet errors can occur.

what i recommend is some cat3 cabling (also 8 conductor, which means 4 independent lines) for phone lines, and cat5 for network. if you're gonna rewire your house, the complexity or required network star topology makes it worthwhile to install 2 cables at once. after all cabling is cheaper.

there is no advantage of using cat5 over cat3. cat3 is still cheaper than cat5. but if you get cat5 in bulk, 1000ft or more, you may as well just get more cat5.
 
Mday: I have no intention of running the data and voice on the same CAT5 cable 🙂 The builders were intending on using CAT3 for the phone, and since I have a few spools of CAT5 anyways I may as well have them use that.
 
Thanks guys, The old "computer guy" did they wiring, and a it's all screwy, wires all over the place.
I' think i'll put all cat5 cables back to spec. Does anyone know of some places to get info on phone wiring? we are going to a computer and software based solution from artisoft soon and I need to learn.
we'll hire an outside source but would prefer if we can do it internally. it's 2 phonelines and a fax line. so it's not too hard.

thanks again!
 


<< Think about it, why confuse cable installers by using two different kinds of wire? Although I do use different colors, that confuses them enough. >>



We did more or less the same, blue cable for live data, yellow for spare and red for voice.
 
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