We are ready to drywall the building now, and I just realized we still need to run a telephone wire (cable??) from the outside of the building where the phone company will come mount their box, and run it through two walls inside the building to what I’m calling the phone distribution center. This phone distribution center right now is just a stud bay on an interior wall where half a dozen cat5 phone wires all originate and go to all the telephone outlets in the building. What I don’t know is, do I just use the same cat5 wire that I’ve already run? Or, do I need a different type of wire???? In the photo attached, you can see all my phone and cable tv / internet wires in the distribution center area.
Then, same question for the cable tv / highspeed internet connection, which has been distributed through the building with RG6 cable. Do I just use a piece of that to run to the outside of the building, and then the cable company (Comcast) hooks onto that?
I just want to install these wires/cables now so we can go ahead with the drywall, and leave the two wires dangling outside the building for the phone company and the cable company to come and hook up when we’re ready to move in. Can anyone help here? Thanks.
Replies
You should be able to use Cat5 for the connection from your demarcation point to your distribution center inside the house. Standard POTS (plain old telephone service) cable should work ok too.
As for the high speed internet - your cable company will install a cable modem inside the house, and you'll run your cat5 from there to a router, switch, etc...
Be sure to run two 4 pair cat 5 or 5e cables from the protector to your distrbution point and two catv cables as well.Also both will need a #6 ground wire to the exterior boxes.
What telephone guy said.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. --Mahatma Gandhi
Why 2?Tom
Douglasville, GA
Because they're not chronometers.The biggest reason is simply in case one gets spiked by the drywallers, but it's also a good idea (though less important than it used to be) to make it easy to add a second line.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. --Mahatma Gandhi
basically its just cheap and easy insurance in case one gets damaged during contruction.Your inside distribution point may be close to the prot but most of the time it will be under the stairs in the bsmt or upstairs in the mstr bed rm closet and the prot is probably on the garage wall.You'll have a major problem rerunning another later if damaged.
I would run 3/4" conduit in . then you can pull what you need , when you need it .
you can use cat 5 but there is no advantage in cat5 or over cat3 for thius aplication
'Cept you still have 50 feet left on that 500 foot roll of Cat 5. Might as well use it.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. --Mahatma Gandhi
No advantage other than an extra pair of wires and the fact that Cat 3 is rated to 10MB/s (with the possibility of 16MB/s, while Cat 5e is rated to 100MB/s throughput and 100MHz signal rate. Better to pull the Cat 5e instead, considering the minimal cost difference. If I was doing it for my house, I would go with a 1" conduit so just about any future needs would be a lot easier to implement. The Cat 5e should be fine for connecting the rooms for quite a while but regular Cat 5 is good to 350MB/s, not 100MB/s, which the enhanced version will carry.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
the POTS line will not take advantage of the bandwidth provided by the cat 3 , much less the higer bandwitdth of the cat 5 the POTS dialtone has travled for miles over cable that often dosn't evan rate as 3 but peaple fuss over 3 vs 5 for the last 50 feet. relaity is 3 is getting hard to find and there is no disadvantge to using 5 .we used 4 pair cat 3 for years , just finished my last box the other day so there is no estra pair advantage . 3 is a lot easier to terminate I agree with 1" conduit . it makes a lot more sense to me than multi runs of cat5 and rg6 . I would have run conduit to all inside postions also
Conduit or 1" smurf tube with no tight bends. What they have at the pole is a lot better than it used to be, otherwise DSL wouldn't work, would it? POTS is pretty weak, though. It's only a matter of time till they have FTC (Fiber To the Curb)." 3 is a lot easier to terminate"
You mean in a panel or wall plate/Keystone insert? I never cared how many I needed to do, they all have to get done. Punching down multiple panels sure is tedious, though.There may not be a big advantage now (especially phone use only) but Cat 5e will eliminate the need for an upgrade in a couple of years, in most cases.Why not just go to Cat 7?
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Last I looked there were no connectors for Cat 7 wire. But I recommend Cat 6 over 5e. I think the spline helps speed and keeps errors down.
They make them but they're expensive and for the vast majority of use, Cat 7 isn't needed. If I was considering it, I would use fiber instead. 3M makes crimp-on fiber terminals. Fiber isn't even affected by what Cat 7 is made for- interference, its throughput is higher and you can go ~20K' with it.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
"What they have at the pole is a lot better than it used to be, otherwise DSL wouldn't work, would it? "I would not bet on it.We have an old arial lead coverd cable. I suspect dating from the 60's. And it carries DSL fine.But when it rains a lot and tree rats have chewed a hole in it the POTS service goes to hell.It has been so bad that I have completely lost dailtone, but the DSL almost always keeps working.
Yeah, actually some of the older phone lines, with extra-thick insulation, probably handle DSL better than newer ones, due to less high-frequency rolloff.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. --Mahatma Gandhi
Tree rats chewed through one wire completely on mine and the phone/DSL went dead. Totally. The guy came out and replaced the drop and I picked his brain a bit . The wires a lot better than it was in the past. Phones only use one pair and ethernet uses two pairs, but the feed into the house is still just MUX with phone and data. I would bet that your DSL would be better if you had them come out and replace the drop.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
My "drop" is underground and fairly "new", 1979.The place bad places in the cable are all along the road.Before DSL and cable modems it used to be a real problem. They used up all of the pairs and where having to share lines. And at that time period lost of people where getting 2nd and 3rd lines for modems, fax, home office, etc.The house next to me was vaccant for a month or two and they assigned that pair to someone else. Then when the new people moved in they shared my first line with a digital slick. That was sensitive to any kind of line problems and it was dropping out all of the time.It was so bad that at one time a tech gave me his pager number so that I could get him back while it was still acting up.One time they started working on the lines about 8. At 12 they told me that everything was OK, but a could of measurements where a little suspect. I left about 7 pm and saw them still working down the street.Because of all of those problems I delayed getting DSL, but as I said it has been very solid.And now they have a few spare pairs, but when I have problems they often have to try several before they find a good one.
I've had DSL for over 2 years and it has worked fine, except when the little toothy bastidge gnawed on it. I saw the piece the guy removed- all of the insulation was gone for 3" and the wires were pulled out, with the blue one cut. I wonder how it liked the 100V it got. Once they have FTC, things will really be interesting. We'll all have more options, better speed (I wonder how fast is fast enough) and cable TV will finally have competition other than satellite. I recently switched to DirecTv and so far, its video is as good as cable and the audio is definitely better. Also, I have XM and I like it so much I bought an XM for my truck, too. With the XM subscription added, satellite is still cheaper than cable was, for the same services. Once the added competition is here, I expect prices to drop.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
the POTS dialtone has travled for miles over cable that often dosn't evan rate as 3 but peaple fuss over 3 vs 5 for the last 50 feet.
I run into this all the time. Installed a phone system a couple of weeks ago for a new restaurant. The electrician had pre-wired using Cat6, because he was concerned that runs were too long - the longest run was less than 100 feet!
relaity is 3 is getting hard to find and there is no disadvantge to using 5 .
Cat5 has a higher resistance per foot, due to the tighter twist. I actually had a customer where a previous vendor used Cat5 to supplement existing 25-pair (Cat1) cable. The runs were quite long (about 700'), and the phones on the Cat5 would periodically drop out, while the phones on the older 25-pair were fine. Turned out the loop resistance on the 25-pair was just within specs, while the Cat5 was quite a bit higher.
Bob
Home run the RG6 to where the cable company will mount their box. Any cable inside the house is your problem if there is a problem. If there is a problem and all the cable is home runned then its the cable company's problem.
Bing
The cable company's responsibility ends at the point of demarcation, which is outside of the building. I would recommend running at least one RG-6 Quad shield to that same location, though. That way, if broadband is needed from the cable provider, it's already in the house. Best to run the feed to the same location as the phone lines, so all of the cabling can be distributed from the same point. The coax needs to be grounded either to a stake outside of the house, to the main panel or to a cold water pipe near the main panel, per 2005 NEC updates.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Have you asked the phone and cable companies?
Here they use 6 pair wire for the phone connection (pole to building), and bring it to a punch down block.
I had something similar, but on the 3rd floor. I put a piece of threaded conduit through the eaves. Both the cable and phone companies just ran their cables all the way to the distribution box, but your's might not. You don't actually have to have a NIC outside, but the phone company might insist. For us, they just put the punchdown block in the distribution panel.
Yes, the first thing I did was call the phone company. First I called the repair dept because the menu choices were either repair, new service, or billing. I wanted to speak to a technician, but it was only people who scheduled service calls. They connected me to new service and said I needed to schedule a service call. Well I don't think so. I don't need a service call until I need them to come out and hook up their line to the demarcation point. I'm not thinking it's reasonable to pay $150 for a service call and just ask the technician what kind of wire to use for connecting the demarcation point to the distribution box. It just seems there's no way to speak to a technician.
What you need to do is ask the person who schedules the call to conference you in w/ the dispatcher at the CO (Central Office). Then, ask them to get a tech on the line or perhaps they may be able to answer your question.HTH,Ed
Cat 5e is more than fine for phone and most people don't need 100MB/s data speed but Cat 5e will do that as long as it's not going farther than 300 meters, isn't running parallel to noisy or current carrying wires or near a stronf RF source.Using Cat 5e from the demarc point to the panel will work fine and is what is usually done now unless many lines are coming into the building.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
My configuration is:
1. Co-ax cable from the pole to the cable modem inside.
2. Cat 5 from the cable modem to the router.
3. Cat 5 from router to hub or switch.
4. Cat 5 from switch with home runs to all tel/cat 5 jacks (there are about 60!).
I use two of the four pairs (green/green-white & orange/orange-white) to carry the internet signal, and the other two pairs (blue/blue-white & brown/brown-white) for 2 telephone lines.
At the 'distribution centre', I split the cat 5 into the two sets of twisted pairs mentioned above. The internet pairs are terminated in an RJ 45 plug while the telephone pairs are bixed into a block.
At the outlet side, use a 3-outlet cover plate with RJ-45 female plugs. For the 2 phone lines, connect to the blue/blue-white connections on 2 of the female plugs. Connect the two pairs for internet to their matching colour slots of the third RJ-45 female plug. Use the "A' or lower wiring schema on the female plugs.
Its useful to know that internet connections only use 2 pairs in a cat 5 cable, not all 4 pairs. Also, RJ-11 male phone plugs fit into RJ-45 female plugs, using only the two centre wires, which happen to be the blue/blue-white slots.
The trouble with relying on your RG-6 co-ax cables for internet is that, as far as I know, you will need a cable modem at the end of each run, and a separate account for each modem. Using the configuration I described, there is only one cable modem serving the router that in turn can theoretically connect 256 computers. The router also provides a reasonable level of security to all the computers behind it, which a cable modem may not. (Of course models and features change rapidly, so some cable modems may have some of the functionality of a router built in.)
The reason why I used a cat-5 cable for both phone lines as well as internet is because I had to: I ran only one cat-5 cable to each outlet. If I wire a house again I will run two cat-5 cables to each outlet, as well as an RG-6 for TV.
This configuration has worked well for several years, and I have an extreme high speed internet connection running at more than 10 Mbps.
My general rule: Wire is cheap, pulling is expensive (even if you do it yourself). I never run one cable when I can run two. Have often found a use for the second cable.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. --Mahatma Gandhi
I ran 4 Cat6 wires and 2 Coax to most boxes. It is amazing how fast I've used up the RJ45 connections. The coax, not so much. But even that may change if I add a few security cameras. Even though ethernet cameras exist, it still seems that coax is way cheaper.One cable modem, router plus a 24 port switch is what we use. Far cheaper to network the computers than to put a cable modem on each one. If you go wireless, you might even be able to join up with your neighbors to split the cost, though the cable company says you can't do that.
No one got back to the two quad shielded RG6 coax lines. With the growth of high def tv, it's common to want multiple feeds for cable, dish, internal security cameras and roof antenna for over-the-air high def. Even with the new digital interfaces (DVI and HDMI), these feeds use coax to get to the signal to the boxes. While it's possible to multiplex signals onto one coax, it's also complicated and expensive, so when you can, it's common practice to run at least two coax lines to each drop.
If you used RJ-45 jacks on the wall plates to terminate the ethernet and phones, there's a chnace that an ethernet cable could be plugged into the phone jack, which is a bad thing with 100V on it. If you used USOC RJ-11 jacks, this is moot. Technically, the chance of interference when using phone and ethernet sharing one Cat 5e/6 cable is higher than when they have their own cable. That 100V can really do weird things to the ethernet throughput (induced voltages and all of that). Your color code is TIA/EIA 568 standard- the wires with the stripes are transmit and the solid ones are receive. Phone uses pair1 (blue-white/blue) with the blue-white as the tip.With Coax, the modem and router can be located near the rest of the home runs. This way, you can reconfigure very easily and you don't need multiple routers. BTW- 10MB/s isn't extreme high speed. Routers also need at least one open port, depending on how they're designed. This makes it possible to daisy-chain them, whether there's a switch on it for making the crossover or using a crossover cable. If you wire a house again, use bundled cable. You can get it in different configurations, like 2 Coax/2 Cat 5e/6, 1 Coax /2 Cat 5e/6, coax/dual 18ga (for security cameras), etc. Saves a lot of time per run and if you place your boxes close together, you can feed two of them with one bundle (one Coax/Cat 5e/6 per box).Another thing I do is use extra large boxes so they're not crowded. A double box with a single mud ring makes life much easier. Same for a triple box and a double ring.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Edited 10/30/2006 12:18 pm by highfigh
"Your color code is TIA/EIA 568 standard- the wires with the stripes are transmit and the solid ones are receive."Uh!Transmit is on one pair. Receive is on another pair.The pair consists of white/color strip and one color (or color with a white strip). So you will have one color and striped color for xmit and a different color & stripped color for rec." Phone uses pair1 (blue-white/blue) with the blue-white as the tip."My reference show that the white/color is tip.
You're right- I meant to designate by color, with striped as + for TX or RX. Green is TX and orange is RX. Thanks."" Phone uses pair1 (blue-white/blue) with the blue-white as the tip."My reference show that the white/color is tip."With Cat5e, white/blue-blue are pair 1. Never seen any other colors accociated with pair 1.
I have heard too many people use a different designation for the striped wires. Blue/white- white/blue. I actually prefer to indicate the predominant color first, but didn't that time and I should have. I have seen mainly blue with a white tracer, too. I thought these were supposed to be standardized.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
"My reference show that the white/color is tip."With Cat5e, white/blue-blue are pair 1. Never seen any other colors accociated with pair 1."I said it that way because it is generic. We are talking about upto 4 pairs.But you said that the color (blue) was tip.I was correcting it that the (mostly) white was the tip.BTW, spent 4 frustrating hours Sat get a 3 line working.Friend of mine is in the used car buisness and with a "partner" (they work together, but have separate phone numbers) is renting this old filling station for there car lot.Office area, with small office and storage in the back. Two bays on the side. Then across the back in another bay that ends into the two side bays.Then there was an addon across the whole back of the station. Because the electric meter and the phone demarc was inside that last section. The landlord is using that for storage and normally locked so I know know how they handle the meter readings. But they got it unlocked for me.The office area was build inside the station and had dropped ceiling inside it. Some places it just 3" cleaance, others 24".It was a 6 line demarc. And it had 4 wire and 6 wire cables running off it it in every direction. And at sometime there was a bunch of security stuff and wires all over the place for that.I would have liked run a new cable and cut out most of the stuff that was there. But too much was not accessible without taller ladders and moving out cars and equipment. And I did not know what could be cut.Kept finding phone jacks in strange places, but could never find where they went.Finally found a 2 pair cable that when I toned it out showed up on a 2 pair of a 25 pair cable outside the office area in one of the bays. There where 1/2 dozen other cables in that area some connect, some not.But I was able to splice them to 2 pair that was going to a jack in the inner office where they wanted the phone.They also had a 3 line for fax/DSL. That one showed up in the outer office and was working. But as I started tracing things I see that it was splice above the droppped ceiling. Just a spider of 4 wires and 3 cable with the bare ends twsited together.
Actually, I said blue-white is tip. Either way, we know it's the lighter one with the stripe that matches the solid color, and it's got blue in it. Don't you just love working on wiring that was done by someone who just let-'er'rip? In cases like that, I like to find the place where the wires go into the walls and trace back to the jacks.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
One nasty problem is that there are two different "standards" for wiring RJ45s for Ethernet. They differ only in that colors are swapped in one case -- the way pairs are assigned to pins remains the same -- so it doesn't matter which standard is used SO LONG AS THE SAME STANDARD IS USED AT BOTH ENDS OF A GIVEN CABLE.But there is a slight danger of getting, on opposite ends of a given cable, color coded punchdown blocks or some such that are made to the different standards, and ending up with wires crossed.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. --Mahatma Gandhi
Pairs 2 and 3 are swapped, 568A has pairs 3 and 4 on the outside while 568B has pairs 2 and 4 on the outside. The colors still correspond with the same pair numbers, though. Pair 1 is blue, pair2 is green, pair 3 is orange and pair 4 is brown. One thing that really sucks is that some companies make cable with no stripe on the white wires. Total waste of time. Typically, residential is punched down as 568A and industrial/commercial is punched down as B. TIA 570B recommends 8 pin output jacks only (RJ-45 jacks) to be terminated as 568A. Also, use of patch blocks or panels and individual jacks, blocks or panels terminated with 568A wiring. The chances of cross-wiring is greater for someone who doesn't do this a lot. In a company, they will usually have their standards in place and the installers are instructed to do it one way or another. In some cases (like where I worked), the instructions weren't clear and there were some instances where a Channel Vision panel was A and the jacks were terminated B, based on the instructions that "We do everything in B". It's easy enough to reconfigure but it wastes time and can make the company look bad. Any company standards should be in writing.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
One problem I have is that the catalogs often don't specify which standard a given part is coded for, so you can't decide what to order. And often it's not on the packaging either. In addition, often the actual parts (such as a punch-down terminated jack) have ONLY the colors on the punch-down block (no pin numbers), and you have to buzz them out to be sure of what you've got.I don't see why the industry can't get together and settle on one standard or the other.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. --Mahatma Gandhi
If you are referring to Leviton or Pass & Seymour plugs, they have both codes on them. It's just a matter of whether the label stays in place. If the punch-down block is color-coded and uses jumpers for connecting to the hub, router(s), etc, it's easy enough to test with a tone generator (Fox & Hound or actual phone/ethernet tester). Standards seem more like suggestions than actual mandates. I agree that they should be less flexible.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Haven't bought any for about five years, but back then it was one code or the other. And, to make matters worse (well, not that much worse), the color "orange" and the color "green" on the labels were indistinguishable in poor light.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. --Mahatma Gandhi
"the color "orange" and the color "green" on the labels were indistinguishable in poor light."I have had problems with that too but I usually wear a headlamp in low light. The ones I really hated were the times in low light where there was no stripe on the white wire. That was a total PITA.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."