Question Moment of Truth. Switching RJ11 over to RJ45 in 7 outlets in the walls.

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Hans Gruber

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Dec 23, 2006
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I am going to give my Cat5 wiring a shot. I am going cheap to start out. Cat5e tool less keystones with wallplates. The phone lines are using 4 wires of the 8 wires. I figure swapping them over to RJ45 with all 8 wires connected should give me something.

I will connect one of the jacks to the gigabit switch at the modem.

Think of it as a pipe that has a signal already. I am simply going to throw bandwidth down the pipe and see what comes out throughout the connections.

Worst case scenario is 100mbps but only if there are bundles with only 4 wires connected instead of all 8.

I don't think most people have seen old Cat5 cable. Everything is mostly Cat5e. If they saw it they would assume 8 wires cat5e.
 

DaaQ

Golden Member
Dec 8, 2018
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West Coast
Is it too late/dark for a picture to the left of that NID picture above?
Where does the line with the orange/green pairs connected go to?

So the Blue pair is scotch locked to the brown pair that hits the termination point, which is orange pair off the telco line?

Edit 2
Looks like it was set up for two voice one data line, where is the other end of that wire?
 

Hans Gruber

Platinum Member
Dec 23, 2006
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Is it too late/dark for a picture to the left of that NID picture above?
Where does the line with the orange/green pairs connected go to?

So the Blue pair is scotch locked to the brown pair that hits the termination point, which is orange pair off the telco line?

Edit 2
Looks like it was set up for two voice one data line, where is the other end of that wire?
Nothing from the telco is Cat5. The wires you see to the right that say Data, Voice and the 3rd box is blank are all the Cat5 coming from my house. The Telco which was originally GTE and then Verizon and now I think it's Frontier. If they had put in Fios I would still be with the phone company.

To the left is actually my neighbors wires. They have two Cat5 wires coming into the box, I only have one Cat5 wire. Everything coming out of that white tube is phone company gear that I don't touch which is on the left side of my box.

From my living room I can clearly see one wire going upstairs which is of course live now. Then another going downstairs but it's also the main line connecting to the phone line outside. When they added the basement phone that was the builder, not the phone company. There is probably another termination point and if I can remove that I should have all 8 wires light up green on my tester. But I think those are in the walls. I will have to get a tone meter to find out where.

But the biggest clue was seeing the brown wires not connected. When this place was built they only used 4 wires. I cannot explain why I get 6 wires lighting up and not 4 but the same wires that do not light up in the basement are the same wires disconnected outside. There must be a T between the living room and outside to the phone box which is in between the living room and above the garage and next to the laundry room which is my auxiliary office. I'm basically like the stapler guy in Office Space when they retired him to the basement.

I don't know, do you think 100mbps is good enough? It's high 80's low 90's down.

If I can find that termination point and remove it. That would make it a straight shot to the laundry room with a coupler. Maybe I shouldn't give up. My mind wanders to the flexible 6ft drill bit. I like the idea of wires in the walls and not some sloppy looking mess. My powerline does 150-180mbps down here in the basement. I am running off my new 100mbps ethernet right now.
 

Hans Gruber

Platinum Member
Dec 23, 2006
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Is it too late/dark for a picture to the left of that NID picture above?
Where does the line with the orange/green pairs connected go to?

So the Blue pair is scotch locked to the brown pair that hits the termination point, which is orange pair off the telco line?

Edit 2
Looks like it was set up for two voice one data line, where is the other end of that wire?
Those two other Cat5 cables belong to my neighbor on the left which I didn't include. Now I remember my neighbor had it wired for two Cat5 wires. Moved out probably around 2000. So the left Blue and White and Orange and white wires are phone company gear and not Cat5 wires. Thick heavy gauge stuff. The only wires we should consider are the 4 pairs of Cat 5 to the right of the Data, Voice little boxes. Bottom right is the Brown pair of wires connected to nothing.
 

DaaQ

Golden Member
Dec 8, 2018
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Nothing from the telco is Cat5. The wires you see to the right that say Data, Voice and the 3rd box is blank are all the Cat5 coming from my house. The Telco which was originally GTE and then Verizon and now I think it's Frontier. If they had put in Fios I would still be with the phone company.

To the left is actually my neighbors wires. They have two Cat5 wires coming into the box, I only have one Cat5 wire. Everything coming out of that white tube is phone company gear that I don't touch which is on the left side of my box.

From my living room I can clearly see one wire going upstairs which is of course live now. Then another going downstairs but it's also the main line connecting to the phone line outside. When they added the basement phone that was the builder, not the phone company. There is probably another termination point and if I can remove that I should have all 8 wires light up green on my tester. But I think those are in the walls. I will have to get a tone meter to find out where.

But the biggest clue was seeing the brown wires not connected. When this place was built they only used 4 wires. I cannot explain why I get 6 wires lighting up and not 4 but the same wires that do not light up in the basement are the same wires disconnected outside. There must be a T between the living room and outside to the phone box which is in between the living room and above the garage and next to the laundry room which is my auxiliary office. I'm basically like the stapler guy in Office Space when they retired him to the basement.

I don't know, do you think 100mbps is good enough? It's high 80's low 90's down.

If I can find that termination point and remove it. That would make it a straight shot to the laundry room with a coupler. Maybe I shouldn't give up. My mind wanders to the flexible 6ft drill bit. I like the idea of wires in the walls and not some sloppy looking mess. My powerline does 150-180mbps down here in the basement. I am running off my new 100mbps ethernet right now.


OK, duplex or condo? Didn't know this wasn't a single family build.

How many jacks or lines do you have inside?

You have one wire from the NID that feeds, what sounds like a star topology. ( I can't recall if this is correct terminology)

When you open the wall plates, do each of them only have one wire pair? One cat5 not two? If two then its a Bus topology ( I may have these reversed)

Important information, is the basement finished? drywalled ceiling?
 

Hans Gruber

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Dec 23, 2006
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OK, duplex or condo? Didn't know this wasn't a single family build.

How many jacks or lines do you have inside?

You have one wire from the NID that feeds, what sounds like a star topology. ( I can't recall if this is correct terminology)

When you open the wall plates, do each of them only have one wire pair? One cat5 not two? If two then its a Bus topology ( I may have these reversed)

Important information, is the basement finished? drywalled ceiling?
It's a townhouse. But you can call it a condo. That single Cat5 wire feeds into the house and some jacks have one Cat5 and others have two and one has 3 Cat5 lines. I thought the basement line was a straight shot but it seems it was daisy chained into the Cat5 connection out to the box. Where the connection is remains a mystery. All of the other connections were terminated to RJ11 wall plates. I simply cut all the wires to remove the terminations and re-terminated them to a Cat6 keystone.

The office upstairs has 3 lines. One feeds to the two bedrooms upstairs and one feeds the master bedroom downstairs. Another feeds the living room downstairs which has my basement line in the same gang box that I used a patch cable to connect to another set of stairs down to the dungeon where I am right now in the basement. On the other side of the wall is my workshop. I have a garage that is 2 deep on one side and two across. So I have a workshop in the unfinished portion deep into the garage. It's dry walled and has power outlets. I also wired it for Ethernet a few years ago.

All of the mysteries have been solved with the exception of the basement Cat5. Somewhere between the living room and the basement there is daisy chain connecting to the outside phone box. I need to remove the connection and connect the brown wires for a straight shot to the basement and then I am done with this project.

I do feel like giving up and accepting 100mbps for the basement.
 

DaaQ

Golden Member
Dec 8, 2018
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The bolded part is confusing.

It's a townhouse. But you can call it a condo. That single Cat5 wire feeds into the house and some jacks have one Cat5 and others have two and one has 3 Cat5 lines. I thought the basement line was a straight shot but it seems it was daisy chained into the Cat5 connection out to the box. Where the connection is remains a mystery. All of the other connections were terminated to RJ11 wall plates. I simply cut all the wires to remove the terminations and re-terminated them to a Cat6 keystone.

The office upstairs has 3 lines. One feeds to the two bedrooms upstairs and one feeds the master bedroom downstairs. Another feeds the living room downstairs which has my basement line in the same gang box that I used a patch cable to connect to another set of stairs down to the dungeon where I am right now in the basement. On the other side of the wall is my workshop. I have a garage that is 2 deep on one side and two across. So I have a workshop in the unfinished portion deep into the garage. It's dry walled and has power outlets. I also wired it for Ethernet a few years ago.

All of the mysteries have been solved with the exception of the basement Cat5. Somewhere between the living room and the basement there is daisy chain connecting to the outside phone box. I need to remove the connection and connect the brown wires for a straight shot to the basement and then I am done with this project.

I do feel like giving up and accepting 100mbps for the basement.

You are working your way backwards though.
You should be able to disconnect the line in the NID and lose no connectivity.

Maybe try diagraming it out starting from the NID, such as.



>upper BR1
>Master bed>Office
>upper BR2
NID>Living rm>
>downstairs>??

It's a rough guesstimate there but hopefully you get the idea.

There "shouldn't" be anything spliced in the walls. I think maybe its the patch cable portion. I can't remember the correct use of a crossover cable but leave it at that.

Find the other end of the feed line from the NID and disconnect it from the rest of the topology it doesn't bridge anything other than the Telco's NID.

Unless you can get a line run from the source jack back out to the NID you could then terminate it into the end that has the loose brown pair, and cut off the connection from "Voice","Data", and "blank"

Hope this helps. Wish I was better at trying to make the diagram point onscreen without having to resort to hand drawn picture and uploading an image.
edit, it also wont save it correctly and puts it on the left margin. sorry.
 
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Hans Gruber

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Dec 23, 2006
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The bolded part is confusing.



You are working your way backwards though.
You should be able to disconnect the line in the NID and lose no connectivity.

Maybe try diagraming it out starting from the NID, such as.



>upper BR1
>Master bed>Office
>upper BR2
NID>Living rm>
>downstairs>??

It's a rough guesstimate there but hopefully you get the idea.

There "shouldn't" be anything spliced in the walls. I think maybe its the patch cable portion. I can't remember the correct use of a crossover cable but leave it at that.

Find the other end of the feed line from the NID and disconnect it from the rest of the topology it doesn't bridge anything other than the Telco's NID.

Unless you can get a line run from the source jack back out to the NID you could then terminate it into the end that has the loose brown pair, and cut off the connection from "Voice","Data", and "blank"

Hope this helps. Wish I was better at trying to make the diagram point onscreen without having to resort to hand drawn picture and uploading an image.
I was thinking about disconnecting all the Cat5 wires from the box. Back when these were built they didn't view Cat5 as they do today. It was just fancy phone wire back then. Between the living room and phone box there is some internal termination point in the walls. They didn't connect all 8 wires because the lines were used as phone lines originally. I think I need a toner. That way I can trace back where the wires meet up and get them to 8 wires instead of 6 and disconnect from the phone box.

I hope you are right about the wire not being spliced or cut. If that is the case the dream is still alive for gigabit or close to it speeds.
 

DaaQ

Golden Member
Dec 8, 2018
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I was thinking about disconnecting all the Cat5 wires from the box. Back when these were built they didn't view Cat5 as they do today. It was just fancy phone wire back then. Between the living room and phone box there is some internal termination point in the walls. They didn't connect all 8 wires because the lines were used as phone lines originally. I think I need a toner. That way I can trace back where the wires meet up and get them to 8 wires instead of 6 and disconnect from the phone box.

I hope you are right about the wire not being spliced or cut. If that is the case the dream is still alive for gigabit or close to it speeds.
Regarding the internal termination point. Is there a panel, or plate covering the wall in the garage or basement near the circut panel? I've seen alot of those where the home owner didnt even know it was there. Otherwise it seems like it may go from NID to gang box to gang box ect.
 

Hans Gruber

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Dec 23, 2006
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1581664846368.png

Here is the Cat5 in my bedroom. This is a straight shot probably about 20 or 30ft worth of Cat5 to my wallplate. It's pretty crazy that this wire is from 1998. People assume that Cat5 can only do 100mbps. This is a good line.
 

mxnerd

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Jul 6, 2007
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View attachment 17073

Here is the Cat5 in my bedroom. This is a straight shot probably about 20 or 30ft worth of Cat5 to my wallplate. It's pretty crazy that this wire is from 1998. People assume that Cat5 can only do 100mbps. This is a good line.
It's because it's short, not because it's good. Cat5 has a lot less turns per foot than cat5e for the internal twisted wires and has much more noises. If the cable is much longer, there is no way it can run at gigabits.
 
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Hans Gruber

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It's because it's short, not because it's good. Cat5 has a lot less turns per foot than cat5e for the internal twisted wires and has much more noises. If the cable is much longer, there is no way it can run at gigabits.
If you read my previous posts, I said the speeds were not Cat5e. I said I was surprised the speeds that I was able to achieve. On longer run I was getting 600-800mbps. The burst speeds are good but the sustained speeds are not as good. I doubt I have any cable runs beyond 50ft.
 
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VirtualLarry

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If you read my previous posts, I said the speeds were not Cat5e. I said I was surprised the speeds that I was able to achieve. On longer run I was getting 600-800mbps. The burst speeds are good but the sustained speeds are not as good. I doubt I have any cable runs beyond 50ft.
You do realize that ethernet transceivers (PHY) run at (several) specific, fixed, rates. They are not variable-rate, such that one cable connection wiill reach 600Mbit/sec, one will reach 800Mbit/sec, etc. They are not like DSL lines.

If you are seeing that, then you are seeing dropouts, cable loss, due to interference, cross-talk, etc., and thus, ethernet frame or TCP packet re-transmission.
 

Hans Gruber

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You do realize that ethernet transceivers (PHY) run at (several) specific, fixed, rates. They are not variable-rate, such that one cable connection wiill reach 600Mbit/sec, one will reach 800Mbit/sec, etc. They are not like DSL lines.

If you are seeing that, then you are seeing dropouts, cable loss, due to interference, cross-talk, etc., and thus, ethernet frame or TCP packet re-transmission.
There are 2 of 3 different cat5 lines running from the same switch using the same modem. My internet speed is technically not a paid gigabit connection but the speeds are good up to a gigabit most of the time. Anything over 900mbps is considered gigabit. Some consider 800mbps gigabit. Category 5 wire not Cat5e lacks additional shielding that is present in Cat5e. The twists are the same. When you get to Cat6 there is additional shielding as well as different cable twists that provide higher speeds than Cat5e.

I am learning as I go here. My wiring predates Cat5e. It's simply Cat5 rated for 100mbps. Anything beyond that is considered gravy for speed. They say Cat5 can do 1000mbps but your performance will vary based on the quality of cable. Essentially you get what you get with standard Cat5. I have 2 of 3 Cat5 cable lines all running through the same switch.

For whatever reason the Cat5 running to the living room and down to the basement is of lesser quality than to the master bedroom. It's good for 500-800mbps. It's baseline is closer to half a gigabit. The two active Cat5 lines I have are pretty close in length. That is why I have concluded that the cable quality (shielding, crosstalk, other factors) is inferior but still good.

I have two separate Thinkpads that consistently reproduce similar speed test results. From all that I have read with standard Cat5 not Cat5e but Cat5. You get what you get with regards to speed because of the lack of shielding, interference and cross talk.

Here are the results of my basement which is connected to the line directly above that is good for 500mbps+. No packet loss and the line quality is A grade.

1581714092804.png
 

mxnerd

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When you see 500~800 Mbps, it's the data flow, not the rate. Like VL said, ethernet cable can only operate at fixed rates like 10, 100 Mbps, 1 & 10 Gbps. There is nothing in between. That's why you see different color LED light combinations on switches.

If you cut open cat5 and cat5e cables, you will see the twists difference between the two.

Untitled.png

Untitled.png
 
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DaaQ

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When you see 500~800 Mbps, it's the data flow, not the rate. Like VL said, ethernet cable can only operate at fixed rates like 10, 100 Mbps, 1 & 10 Gbps. There is nothing in between. That's why you see different color LED light combinations on switches.

If you cut open cat5 and cat5e cables, you will see the twists difference between the two.

View attachment 17107

View attachment 17108
I haven't looked into it for quite a while, but i I remember correctly, isn't cat7 still in the specification or draft phase, and there is no official specs for cat8 or even 9. Correct?
 

mxnerd

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I haven't looked into it for quite a while, but i I remember correctly, isn't cat7 still in the specification or draft phase, and there is no official specs for cat8 or even 9. Correct?

I'm no cable expert. But you are right, cat7 is not recognized by US (American) TIA/EIA. Cat7 is an ISO/IEC 11801 Class F standard however.

Class FA (Class F Augmented) channels and Category 7A cables, introduced by ISO 11801 Edition 2 Amendment 2 (2010) is also not recognized by TIA/EIA.

As you can see, one standard in an organization is not necessarily accepted by another organization.


No idea about cat8/cat9. cat8 is only used for short distance data center according to the wiki, however.
 
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Hans Gruber

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The cable toner/finder arrived today. I found a hot zone (tone) that is under the living room floor and probably in the wall but without a wall plate. The toner gives a signal out at the phone box. The other hot zone is directly under the living room wall plate. The easy part is cutting into the drywall from the garage.

My goal is the cut out the Cat5 to the phone box. Use a coupler to reroute everything down to the basement and connect the brown/brown white wires. I am new to this stuff. I error on the side of caution while trying to temper my desire to bring out the drywall saw and start cutting for sport. The garage is not painted but has been taped, spackled and has a primer but no finished coat of paint. So I can let it rip down there and patch any holes after.

I need expert advice now. Basically the Cat5 goes form the living room down to the garaged and meets up with both the laundry room box (connected works but 100mbps) and the Cat5 line that goes out to the phone box connecting the house but not connecting to the phone company. Whether the Cat5 is daisy chained or somehow over layed with two sets of Cat 5 wires spun together. Like some sort of T connection. Whatever the connection, it works for 100mbps downstairs. Upstairs nothing is connected to the Cat 5 that goes outside to the phone box. When they put in Cat5 it was ahead of its time and beyond what the phone box supported beyond a basic phone connection. The phone box was not Cat5 supported but the Cat5 is backward compatible as basic phone line.

Right now I am using tape and a rubber hammer to send signals upstairs to triangulate the exact location of the hot tones. Base tones meaning line tones are not as loud as connection points.
The hot zone connection point has no wall box. That could simply mean when the drywall was installed they put the drywall over the Cat5 because there was no termination point for a phone box but that a joining connection between the Cat5 heading outside met the Cat5 that went directly to the living room.
 

DaaQ

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Can you link the toner you got?

My experienced guess would be, they intended a patch panel or termination block in the garage, but the dry wallers covered it up because they are good for that. (based off info given)
The cat5 has been used by the telcos for quite awhile, because they can run 4 lines/numbers off one cable. Typically blue/blue white is voice and orange/orange white is DSL if they dedicated a DSL line for their modem. Indicated by the two blocks in the NID.

Back to your toner, does it generate tone along the wire run or just indicate end points?
 

Hans Gruber

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Can you link the toner you got?

My experienced guess would be, they intended a patch panel or termination block in the garage, but the dry wallers covered it up because they are good for that. (based off info given)
The cat5 has been used by the telcos for quite awhile, because they can run 4 lines/numbers off one cable. Typically blue/blue white is voice and orange/orange white is DSL if they dedicated a DSL line for their modem. Indicated by the two blocks in the NID.

Back to your toner, does it generate tone along the wire run or just indicate end points?
This is 1998 construction. The Cat5 wire could be from 1997 but most likely 1998. It was before they had server closets and before Cat5e. I bought the place when it was still in the stud stage. So I know what is behind every wall. DSL was available but very slow 256kb speeds vs 56k modems and it was very expensive. They put in the Cat5 to make it future proof. That is what the builder told me. The basement (phone) line was a late addition but still while in the stud stage. It seems instead of a dedicated straight shot to the basement from the living. They went for the Cat5 line leading out to the phone box. The tone meter beeps out at the phone box.

Below is the tone meter that I bought. The toner has a button that you hold down for a live tone. It beeps along the run of the wire and beeps very loud once you reach an end point. In the ceiling in the garage under the living room floor, possibly in the wall next to the stairs it beeps just like an end point where the toner is plugged into an ethernet port.
 

Fallen Kell

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They put in the Cat5 to make it future proof. That is what the builder told me. The basement (phone) line was a late addition but still while in the stud stage. It seems instead of a dedicated straight shot to the basement from the living. They went for the Cat5 line leading out to the phone box. The tone meter beeps out at the phone box.

Well the future proofing with the CAT5 for phones was due to what was happening in the business/office spaces. They would run CAT5 so that they could support phones which had multiple lines. The thinking being that people might want to have multiple lines at home as well for various family members and computer modems/fax machines and that the price was becoming more and more affordable as the computer and electronics boom that was occurring.

Obviously all of that became obsoleted before it even made it into the vast majority of the home market as cell phones and dedicated computer networks took over just a year or two after your house was built (heck wifi was out in 1999 and quickly became the go to computer network in the home once 802.11g was released a few years later). So again, that is why your home used CAT5 to wire for phone lines in the late 90's, only for all of it to be rendered obsolete in the early 2000's.
 

Hans Gruber

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Well the future proofing with the CAT5 for phones was due to what was happening in the business/office spaces. They would run CAT5 so that they could support phones which had multiple lines. The thinking being that people might want to have multiple lines at home as well for various family members and computer modems/fax machines and that the price was becoming more and more affordable as the computer and electronics boom that was occurring.

Obviously all of that became obsoleted before it even made it into the vast majority of the home market as cell phones and dedicated computer networks took over just a year or two after your house was built (heck wifi was out in 1999 and quickly became the go to computer network in the home once 802.11g was released a few years later). So again, that is why your home used CAT5 to wire for phone lines in the late 90's, only for all of it to be rendered obsolete in the early 2000's.
Actually it was to prepare for broadband internet. That was a known concept. But I agree with the many phone lines. Cat 5 could do 8 lines per Cat5 cable but you needed a $500 business phone for 8 lines. You couldn't run 8 lines with Cat5 on standard phones.

Project update. Feeling quite deflated. I may have to run a Cat6 line down to the basement. My exploration drywall cutting has been good. The tone meter is like a bloodhound for the hot Cat5 wire. The problem. The junction point where the wires meet is somewhat difficult. I get to practice my drywall repair skills but the $$$ for my project is starting to add up.

I can keep cutting 4"x8" holes in the ceiling. But I am starting to question the logic in it. The problem is the line in the laundry room goes up to the kitchen and then up another floor to another bedroom. That room has two runs. The tone meter says one goes down to the laundry room and the other line to the bedroom next door. That bedroom has a straight shot to one of the 3 runs in the office. So the room I want up to 1gigabit speeds is only good for 100mbps and every other room is good for up to 1GB.

I see the limits to Cat 5. The Cat6a cables running straight from the gigabit switch to my old 3570k holds gigabit download speeds with no droops. There is truth to they saying with the old Cat5. You get what you get for speed.

The good news. I have a patch cable with Cat5e wall plates connecting the garage to the laundry room through the walls. If I run a Cat6 through the walls and floors down to the garage. I can run ethernet in reverse order from the garage to the laundry room through a router with gigabit ports.

There is insulation in the ceiling in the garage. It's drywalled, taped and sanded but not painted. Even the cat5 is stapled to the studs.

I doubt that I could find the connection point and get the brown and brown white wires connected. I may cut one more hole just to see what's up there. The problem is that the laundry room runs upstairs and not out to the garage. Then connects to the living room somewhere. If drywall repair goes well. I may cut one more hole.

My home run in the office is color coded with a vertical 3 port keystone plate. So each room has a colored keystone that runs a Cat6a cable to the switch. The ethernet in the walls is only Cat5. I have a Cat7 2ft cable from the modem to the switch. Presentation is key. I am using the slimline Cat6a from monoprice. The Cat7 is super thick stuff.
 

VirtualLarry

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Even the cat5 is stapled to the studs.

That might prove difficult to replace.

But I agree with the many phone lines. Cat 5 could do 8 lines per Cat5 cable but you needed a $500 business phone for 8 lines. You couldn't run 8 lines with Cat5 on standard phones.

No, 4 phone lines per 8-conductor cable. Phone lines need a "Tip" and a "Ring" conductor, in telco terminology.
 
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Hans Gruber

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I am done doing exploratory drywall cutouts. Now I am going to invest in a fiber optic camera. I bought some fiberglass tape and have plenty of joint compound. I will drill holes and send in the camera to find where the cables connect. Also, I plan to run new Cat6 line down to the garage. There is a narrow channel in the walls and I error on the side of caution. Thus the fiber optic camera for an extra measure of safety.

It's starting to get expensive. If you are going to do something. You need to do it right.
 

Hans Gruber

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I looked over my last post. It's been 6 months. I threw caution to the wind and spent a good chunk of change. That narrow channel was up against laser measuring tools, all new Bosch cordless drills and a 4ft flexible drill bit. Cat 6 wiring (100ft). I forgot to mention I toned down the narrow channel with my tone meter. I cut a bunch of holes out on 3 different floors. When I am completely done. My lowest ethernet cable will be Cat6 and everything else will be Slimline Cat6e cables from the modem and switches.

I still have to terminate one ceiling connection with a Cat6 keystone. I will probably junk the Cat5e coupler wall plates that I have been using for years connecting my laundry room to the garage. I will swap it out with Cat6 cable and Cat6 keystones. The wire in the wall is 6" of Cat5e. Should be a 15 minute fix.

I have gone way overboard on this project. What is worse, I have taken up plumbing and sweating copper during Covid.

I almost forgot the 35Ft of fish sticks and various adapters. I will finish this project in the next day or two but I have gigabit now in the laundry room and garage. I will be adding a mesh network to the house including wired back haul at every mesh device on each floor.

When I am done. It will look as if the Ethernet (keystone and wall plate) that feeds the router in the upstairs office was original construction. No visible wires inside the house. In the garage, a wire running across the ceiling for 10ft and then hidden behind the wall. The keystone in the ceiling is 1ft from power in case I want to add a wired switch or need to upgrade my gear.

The power line that pushed 150MB down and 40MB up is going into the retired item box. The Cat5 in the laundry room is being disconnected so the living room will have gigabit speeds via Cat5. The Laundry room had 6 of 8 Cat5 wires connected. Six is the same as four wires, only 100mbps connection. Every other Cat5 connection in the house pushes speeds up to 1GB but they suffer drop off. The speeds on those connections stay above 400mbps.
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