Category 5/6 used for telephone, is radial permitted?

[AdamW]

Just a point of interest really. Whenever I have looked at phone installations in a house the sockets all seem to be daisy chained on from the master socket, each one wired into the last one. To me this leaves a lot to be desired both in terms of flexibility and design.

If I were starting from scratch I would lay several lengths of cat 5 or cat 6 twisted pair cable to each room, originating at a central point (cupboard under the stairs, perhaps. In other words, a star configuration where every one of these cat5 cables radiated from one central point. I could then use each cable for telephone or data as I see fit by changing the wall plate at the room end and connecting the cable either to my network equipment or to a phone master socket at the central point. Obviously sticking to the maximum REN for the phone socket.

Is this allowed? If so is there a special type of master socket which could be used for this (perhaps with several sets of screw down terminals, like a junction box)?

 

[jhauxwell]

Hi,

i've just renovated my house and have done just this - i've done everything with rj45 outlets (about 4 in each room) in modular frames from screwfix direct back to a 24 port 1u patch panel. i've then got a hub for my pc's and a number of parallelled outputs for the phones (i've actually got a 1 line 6 extension pbx now so each phones sperate) To plug ordinary phones in at the rj45 outlets you just use an rj45 pbx adaptor which is just an rj45 plug to bt type socket.

This approach is very practical and completely allowed - there isn't an office built or renovated that doesn't use this structured cabling approach as it is called so why shouldn't homes benefit as well!

 

[AdamW]

Good to hear someone else knows the benefits of "fully" wiring a house!

Where did you get the pbx from? I am guessing it has additional benefits built in such as intercom (ringing the living room from the bedroom to tell them to turn the telly down!). Is it also a rackmount item?

 

[jhauxwell]

I bought the pbx from CPC (cpc.co.uk) its a BT ultimate 106. Unfortunately its not rack mountable but its a great little system with all the bells and whistles including advanced call routing and a personal mailbox on each extension ans well as a jack input for music on hold. There are more basic ones available but i just like all the toys! As far as all your hardware, id stick with screwfix as they're about the cheapest for the home buyer!