Telephone extension wiring, Cat5 through switch?

[michaelprowe]

Hi, I'm planning to build a network in my home for my broadband, this will involve Cat5 cable going from downstairs router, up to loft, connecting to a switch then having cables go down into 3 bedrooms and into RJ45 wall sockets, I have no problem with this.

Whilst installing this network I am planning to install a telephone extension that will follow the above system, using Cat5 cabling, going through telephone socket downstairs (near broadband), upstairs to the loft, then down into the three bedrooms.

So my question is, with 2 Cat5 cables going from downstairs to the loft (1 for data, 1 for telephone) what could the telephone cabling run through to extend to three extra wires? e.g. I'm using a switch for data, what would i use for telephone?

 

[OwainDIYer]

row of sockets on a patch panel and parallel connect the required number of sockets to one cable and take that to the master socket.

 

[twixx]

I have done exactly as you describe.

The phone line comes in from the outside to an BT NTE-2000 box, the 'internet' side of this, connects to my Infinity Modem via RJ11. The Infinity Modem then hooks up to the router via standard RJ45. A pair CAT6 then runs from two of the 4 ports on the router upstairs into the loft and terminates at a 24 Port gig switch.

I have a 24 port patch panel also in the loft, which hooks into the switch. The patch panel relates to wall sockets scattered around the house (at least one in every room)

For the 'telephone' side of things, I run a standard BT Phone Cable to RJ11 from the NTE-2000. The RJ11 end of this just drops into a standard RJ45 wall socket 1m away. For all intents and purposes this is just another 'dumb' wall socket, connecting to the patch panel up in the loft. It can be used for phone/internet/anything that fits!

This terminates into my patch panel. Ports 20-24 on my patch panel are dedicated to phone.

By terminating in a patch panel, I can 'move' the phone line to any CAT wall socket I have around the house!

Theoretically, by having ports 20-24 for phone, I could have 5 phones around the house, if I wanted.

 

[kbdiy]

As suggested above I would use standard CW1308 cable for telephony and keep Cat 5 purely for data. It can still be terminated on a patch panel to give flexibilty.

 

[jabuzzard]

The better solution is to filter the signal at the NTE5 into xDSL and POTS and then run that to the patch panel. There is also no reason not to run them in the same cable, just make sure you use some decent Cat6 or even better Cat6a.

Had my broadband done like that for years, and works just as well with FTTC, and truth be told I am running the filtered xDSL and POTS in some three pair twisted pair cable provided by BT for the Home Highway installation many years ago that runs about 4m from the NTE5 to under the stairs.

Admittedly the BT engineer would not hook that up to the back of the face plate when I upgrade to FTTC so left it with the modem next to the socket and as soon as he left the house popped the faceplate off hooked up the patch panel on the old Home Highway cable and moved the Infinity modem to under the stairs, and there is no reduction of the sync speed. Admittedly I had some Cat6 ready in case the sync speed dropped, but for the short run I have it appears not to be necessary.

 

[SimonH2]

The RJ11 end of this just drops into a standard RJ45 wall socket 1m away.

It's considered a bad idea by many to put an RJ11* plug into an RJ45* socket. It doesn't have grooves where pins 1 & 8 of the RJ45* are, so these pins get bent more than they are designed to. Some sockets will cope, others will be damaged.
I prefer to replace the RJ11* with an RJ45*.

* RJ is not the correct terminology for the connector, although we all use it that way !