phoneline nics and 2 lines

[Tonec]

I need to connects two pcs using the asante friendlynet partyline 1mbps nics. The gateway pc is win2000 ics via external serial modem. The problem is that the modem is connected to a second line that only has one physical port in the entire house. All the other ports are for the first line. Will I still be able to network with this setup or should I just use the router + cat5 approach.

If the phoneline nics won't work will I be able to pull this off with 1 nic/ics + 2 wiressless nics?

 

[Tsaico]

I do not have any experience, but I think that it wouldn't work, since the physical lines are not connected until the utility phone box. I do know that it is relatively easy to add another jack. When you pull the face off the phone jack, you should see a sereis of wires, just compare the ones for your multiple outleted line and look for that set in the single jack. You can find a how to do book on line, or at your local home depot, as well as the hardware for it. Good luck to you...
P.S. I personally like the cat5e, switch/router and nic's better, since you get a better bandwidth for your sharing files (even if you do not plan on sharing files, trust me, once you connect everyone together, you will share files) and the ease of setting up networks of this type.

 

[Eug]

???

Not sure what your setup is, but it sounds like all you would have to do is network with the first line and dial out with the second line. Hopefully the computer with the jack near the second line has a jack for the first line nearby.

 

[Workin']

To clarify a little - in order for phoneline networking to work, all the computers need to be connected to the same phone line; all must have the same phone number.

 

[CTR]

Tonec:
Interesting problem. The answer depends on how that jack is wired. Open it up, look at the insides and see if all 4 wires from the phone cable are connected to the jack. If they are, then the middle pair is your 2nd line and the 2 wires immediately outside the middle pair are most likely the 1st line. Get a 2-line splitter from walmart or radioshack or whatever. "Line 1" on the splitter will correspond to the middle pair, which is your house's 2nd line. "Line 2" on the splitter will be your 1st line, which you need to hook to your phoneline nic.

Now of course this won't work if that jack has its own cable running directly to the secondary line at your NID (network interface device on the side of your house). But in the worst case you will be out $2 and have a nifty splitter for your collection of junk. Or if you fell lucky you could open up the NID and connect the outside pair from the dedicated cable to the primary line posts.

If you feel like tinkering with the phone jack you can reverse it so that the middle pair and the outside pair are flipped, making it a "normal" jack for your house. For an RJ-11 jack, pair 1 is pins 2 and 3, pair 2 is pins 1 and 4. To reverse your jack, swap pins 1 and 2, and swap pins 3 and 4.

Does any of that information help? If you decide to do ANY of this be sure to record the original pinout of the jack and everything so you can get it back to square one if you have trouble.