Cat 5e telephone cable?

[John Carlyle-Clarke]

"John Carlyle-Clarke" wrote in news:Xns97E16866E32F6discombobulation@84.92.1.10:

Thanks for all the feedback. I wanted to post a diagram of my wiring for comment, but I can't find a decent free program to draw one, so I'll describe it briefly if I may.

The drop wire comes down to the house, into an old GPO 4 terminal junction box. The incoming cable is four core (Black + Brown are the current A and B, and White and Orange used to be the second line). From there a 4 core cable goes immediately out of the house, round through the porch, back in and then over some walls to an 8-terminal GPO junction. This cable is badly damaged.

From this, standard BT extension wires take the current line to two old style sockets, one of which is the old style master (Plan 1).

Another standard cable carries the current line plus the now disconnected second line around the room to another set of wallboxes. Here there is a double new style socket for the current line, plus a defunct NTE5 for the second line.

From there, one of those customer fitted plug-in extensions goes round to the PC. This is the only socket in use.

What I'd like to end up with is just the new NTE5, plus the Solwise ADSL faceplace I have to go on it, next to the PC. As I say, I know how to wire this up. All other cables and junctions (apart from the first GPO one) can come out.

Am I likely to get in trouble with BT for moving and changing the master socket? Would I be better to use the correct BT cable instead of Cat5e to make it look proper, as it were?

[Dave Liquorice]

Probably not but BT do have records of lines that have not been converted to NTE5. Of course you could just say they have their records crossed between the defunct line and the current one.

Yes, CW1308 is cheap and if strip all the old crap out back to that first box and put CW1308 in neatly it'll probably do wonders for your ADSL speed... (mainly due to the removal of the crap rather than cable type). It'll also look genuine to any BT bod that visits.

[John Rumm]

As long as you staple it to the wall and don't use cable clips ;-)

[Dave Liquorice]

True enough, I have a proper cable stapler so tend to forget that. Clips look ugly and are slow.

[ChrisJ]

I put an adaptor on our master socket and patched it into my cat5e structured cabling. I can patch the phone through to any room. I've currently got it patched through to the loft where my PC is and I use a splitter to connect the phone and the broadband router. Both are wireless so I can use other phones /PCs throughout the house with no extra wiring required.

ChrisJ

[John Carlyle-Clarke]

ChrisJ wrote in news:4495261e$0$22110$ [e-mail]:

Structured cabling is the ideal solution, I agree, but I can't really justify the expense of retrofitting it to a house when I don't need audio/video distribution, and I have DECT phones and wireless networking is cheap.

I *love* structured cabling, and I'd fit it to any new house or renovation.

[John Carlyle-Clarke]

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Where can I buy it? B&Q ? What about the staples?

[The Natural Philosopher]

No. Not really. The situations is roughly

- BT reserve the right to charge you to do it properly (and for consequential damage if e.g. you stuff 5KV up their phone wires and wreck the exchange), if there is a fault and its due to non standard stuff having been bodged in.

- On the ground, the average BT engineer is a nice bloke, and, if supplied with coffee tea and biscuits and intelligent discussion of the World Cup, won't bat an eyelid at any installation that palpably works and is well put together.

I had an incoming overhead, rewired by ME, to a 4 screw junction box and some cat 5 going from there to a pair of masters and thence to a PABX and router.

When a tipper lorry took out the overhead, they replaced it more or less as was, apart from using a BT proper junction box to connect into my CAT

5..;-)

[John Rumm]

The cable, anywhere... CPC will do you a 100m roll for about £11.

For the stapler (and I agree with Dave, *much* faster and neater than cable clips), try toolstation:

(that will do cat5 and telephone style cable)

[Dave Liquorice]

Yep. Shouldn't pay more than =A315 for 100m of 3 pair and even that woul= d be expensive.

They might be harder to get hold of, though any decent electrical wholesaler should have something suitable and the gun of course.

[John Carlyle-Clarke]

The Natural Philosopher wrote in news: [e-mail]:

That has been my experience too, with them even bending the rules about what is internal and what is external so as not to have BT charge me. Most of them are ex-BT people working on a contract anyway, it seems, so it's all the same to them.