Telephone cable for data

[oddballodd]

Hello, all help appreciated here !!!

I am trying to find a way of getting a data network throughout my house, most of the planning is complete, I just have one room where it is a real pain to get cabling in. One thought I had was that when I originally put telephone cable in to that room, I used this stuff:

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Cable_Index/Telephone_Cable_External/index.html

Which is 5 pair external grade. What I was wondering is though obviously not ideal, would it work if I used some of the spare pairs in this cable to complete a data connection to an Ethernet switch ?

 

[kjacko]

It may be possible, 3 pairs would give you cat3 at 10mbps iirc.
Not sure if you'll be able to get to 100mbps though even by using 4 pairs due to the gauge and grade of the overall cable.
Try it and see!

 

[oddballodd]

Thanks for the reply, I should have 4 pairs left as if I remember correctly the telephone only uses one of the 5 pairs. Will give it a try and see what happens, its only a short length so I might get away with it.

 

[disinfo]

Thanks for the reply, I should have 4 pairs left as if I remember correctly the telephone only uses one of the 5 pairs. Will give it a try and see what happens, its only a short length so I might get away with it.

I wouldn't do it, its a total bodge.

The twists arn't tight enough for data cabling use, and even on short runs it will suffer from near end cross talk.

Also, running the telephone services down the other pair will put noise onto the data pairs.

 

[Lectrician]

You will connect it and it will work, but it will suffer from huge packet loss, and as such will be inherently slow.

 

[XtraRaptor]

Hi,

Strip back the end of the cable you are planning to use (about 150mm) then strip back 150mm of a piece of CAT5 cable, if you compare them you will see that the pairs in the CAT5 are twisted at different rates, if your cable has the same type of twisting it may work for you, but if the pairs are twisted evenly it definately won't work.

 

[disinfo]

Hi,

Strip back the end of the cable you are planning to use (about 150mm) then strip back 150mm of a piece of CAT5 cable, if you compare them you will see that the pairs in the CAT5 are twisted at different rates, if your cable has the same type of twisting it may work for you, but if the pairs are twisted evenly it definately won't work.

Its CW1128, it is definitely it not suitable for data.

 

[oddballodd]

Thanks for all the advice, I thought I might be pushing my luck, might as well do a proper job rather than bodging it.

Thanks again (slowly moves back to the drawing board)

 

[drgl]

Why not use external grade CAT5e? You can happily put voice & data down one CAT5e cable.

 

[disinfo]

Why not use external grade CAT5e? You can happily put voice & data down one CAT5e cable.

You can, but its one of the primary causes of NEXT so im not sure why you'd want to

 

[drgl]

Why not use external grade CAT5e? You can happily put voice & data down one CAT5e cable.

You can, but its one of the primary causes of NEXT so im not sure why you'd want to

I fail to see how the type of cable used(as it's CAT4 certified same as internal grade) would induce Near End Cross Talk so long as it is installed correctly???

 

[disinfo]

Why not use external grade CAT5e? You can happily put voice & data down one CAT5e cable.

You can, but its one of the primary causes of NEXT so im not sure why you'd want to

I fail to see how the type of cable used(as it's CAT4 certified same as internal grade) would induce Near End Cross Talk so long as it is installed correctly???

The OP currently has a 5 pair cable.

If he used one of the pairs for telephony, one of those pairs would have 50v on it, and cause crosstalk.

If he installed external cat5 as an addition to the existing cable, that would obviously be fine.

What you seem to suggesting

You can happily put voice & data down one CAT5e cable.

is that he uses 4 pair cat5e for the telephony and networking. Putting telephony down a data cable will cause next. He may also want / need to use all 4 pairs for 1000Base-T in the future.

He may as well just run one cable for data and one for voice, like he has everywhere else.

Have you ever used a cable certifier such as the DTX-1800? The results are alarming.

 

[drgl]

Plenty of customers use these without any issues:-

http://www.lanshack.com/VoiceData-Splitter-Pair-P1564C56.aspx

PoE causes no problems which can be up to 48v DC.

Of course if running new cables then you may as well run 2-4 runs to future proof.

 

[oddballodd]

Yep, this can all be put down to poor planning, I should have put some cat 6 in at the time or at least a conduit so that I could run other cables. I am now investigating other options, including running a conduit or perhaps just trying out those ethernet over power links, not ideal, but then neither is ripping off plasterboard !

 

[drgl]

Could you use the cable you do have as a pull cord??