network specialists - in here please a wee Q for you...
 

So, here's the situation - I cabled the entire house in Cat5e a while ago while I building it but tbh in this day and age, pretty much all the sockets are never used cos of the roaming wifi I set up. What I'd like to use a few of the socets for though is for telephone - lounge, 3 bedrooms and office (2 lines)

Q1 - I'm pretty sure, but would like confirmation, is Cat5e fine and dandy for telephone? My telephones have RJ45 plugs, but maybe wired differently than internet?

Q2 - The telephone arrival lines (2 lines) arrive in my data cupboard in the hall. ATM, I have a telephone junction box splitting the telphone to lounge and office. I also have a router for the internet going into 8 wall sockets (RJ45), which are cabled to feed each required room. This is my main Q and problem - exiting the ADSL box is the telephone OUT line (RJ45) that I want to use to feed each of RJ45 wall sockets that got to the various rooms - can a router or hub handle telephone?

If a router or hub can't handle telephone, then I gues the solution is to take the RJ45 telephone OUT, enter to a junction box, then from that feed the RJ45 sockets, but a hub/router would be much cleaner. I'm guessing if anything a hub would work, as a router works on data to channel only down the line that asked for the data, whereas a hub sends the data down all lines (like a telephone), if I'm not mistaken?

Input would be very much appreciated if you know for sure.... :winkwink:

CAT5 is fine for telephone

You do not "need" all 4 pairs for your network, you should be able to use 2 pairs for your two lines and the other 2 pair for the network.

As I have gotten out of the biz I have tossed all my notes on how to do the network with just 4 conductors, but pretty sure it is Tip2/Tip1/Ring1/Ring2

Q1 - It depends on the model phone you're using. Is this a home VoIP setup, or traditional phones? Most VoIP phones use standard patch cable (568B-568B), and thus will work fine with your jacks.

Q2 - Well, if you're using VoIP phones that are working with an in-house asterisk server, you'll want a router to assign DHCP addresses to each phone, thus enabling them to have their own extensions, etc.

If these are just standard phones and this is a setup using your normal telco, a hub will effectively make all phones ring at once when someone calls.

Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm 99% sure this is correct.

Your phones are all going to ring at the same time . . . hub or not. Although, to be honest, with over 30 years of telephony experience I have never heard of using a hub for telephones.

No, a router/hub cannot handle POTS lines (Plain Old Telephone Service). Think of phone lines as electrical lines, as they essentially are. They carry voltage - bad idea to connect them to computer/networking equipment!

cat5e is just fine for carrying POTS. I doubt your telephones have rj45 jacks on them, unless they are for a PBX system. Your ADSL modem should have a RJ11 "out" jack that is meant to plug a normal phone into. I suggest not using the out of the modem, but to take in your service directly off the demarc into your wiring closet, and doing your voice/adsl splitting right there.

From your wiring closet/board, connect the rooms/walljacks you want to the phone line. There are a number of patching methods to use to do this. Most common is likely a "66 block" that looks like: http://therub.org/howtopunch/images/66_block.jpg

Basically at the top you connect the phone line coming from your demarc (the phone company) then at the bottom the wires that run to the various walljacks in your home.

Be sure to label the jacks in each room for which are data, and which are voice. Standard rj11 jacks generally work in rj45 sockets, so it should "just work" if punched down correctly and you use the right wire pairs. However, you may want to simply create some custom rj45 -> rj11 cables if you have the capability for a better fix.

In short.. what you want is fairly easy once you understand how it works :) A bit tough to describe on a message board though.

This is of course assuming standard phone service which I presume is true. Otherwise the questions wouldn't make any sense :)

-Phil

Thanks guys - interesting and useful info - Phil, yeah the phones have RJ45, which became the norm 2 yrs back in Europe (RJ11 on the phone side, rJ45 the other end, (but delivered with RJ11/RJ11 cable too). RJ45 came the standard in the country I'm in a few years ago for phone.

Cyandin - yeah this is a VoIP setup - line arrives for to the ADSL modem then splits for ADSL (WiFi) and Phone - the Phone OUT line that I want to split to RJ45. -edit the second line is not VoIP - that's regular phone compaany, cos the fax and alarm system doesn't work over my VoIP setup, so I keep a regular second line open.

Baddog - so you're saying I can use the same CAT5 for voice and internet if needs be? Phone, yeah two cables (for me for telelhpne cable its grey and white, but hey, what's a colour! - but internet on the same line???

In the CAT5 should be 8 conductors.

2 - Line 1
2 - Line 2
4 - Network

Since it's a voip setup, correct. You won't have to mess with any regular telecom shit. Just connect up your phones (more or less) and you're good to go.