Cat 5e telephone cable?

[John Carlyle-Clarke]

I need to remake my internal phone wiring - the wiring I have is old and damaged, and also very byzantine with redundant junction boxen and sockets (I think there used to be two or more lines incoming) and extension cables running over almost every architrave in the house.

What I want to do in this age of ADSL and DECT is simplify to a single master socket by the PC with the phone base station & ADSL modem/router plugged in.

I understand the connections well enough - I'm going to tear everything out from the initial junction box onwards and start again. My question is this: is there any reason I shouldn't use Cat5e cable for this?

I'm not going for structured cabling (tempting but I can't really justify the effort and cost of retrofitting it), but I just happen to have a lot of Cat5e cable. AFAIK it's far superior to bell wire, but is there any problem I haven't thought of?

[Dave H.]

No problems apart from it being slightly thicker over all than 'phone wire, and a bit lumpier in appearance - if it's going to be out of sight, no problem. I think the purple LSF variant's quite pretty, too... for fixed wiring, make sure it's solid core, IDCs don't take stranded reliably.

Dave H. (The engineer formerly known as Homeless)

[John Carlyle-Clarke]

"Dave H." >Cat5e cable for this?

Thanks Dave. I do have some phone wire I bought some time ago, but it's very, very thin. I've heard mention of "ADSL compatible phone wire". Do you know if it really makes a difference?

I can't imagine that it would be that significant compared to the 4 miles of copper between my house and the exchange, but I could be wrong.

The existing wiring is surface, and I think my new stuff will be too, and I had considered that Cat5 is a bit more visible.

[Owain]

I would put the master socket (Linebox) as near to where the external cable converts to internal, given BT's approach of charging for internal faults. Then run separate filtered (for phone, 2 pairs) and unfiltered (for ADSL, 1 pair) connections to where you want your PC and DECT. Cat5 has 4 pairs so one cable will do nicely.

Better to do 'star' wiring back to a central point as it does offer more flexibility and easier faultfinding.

Owain

[Peter Crosland]

The proper cable to use is to the BT CW13308 specification. Cat5E is usually OK because they are both twisted pair cables which is the crucial thing. You need to start at the BT socket. Is the master socket an NTE5 or the older Plan 1?

Peter Crosland

[John Rumm]

Only to your pocket!

Precicely...

It does not make that much difference really. If needs be you can get four lines down one cat5, so you also won't need another cable if you ever added a line.

[David Hansen]

On 13 Jun 2006 09:15:03 GMT someone who may be "John Carlyle-Clarke" wrote this:-

Assuming you have an NTE5 master socket...

Do remember that only BT are supposed to touch the bottom half of the master socket (and the external wiring that connects to it). As a result it is likely to remain where it is at the moment.

From that point you can do what you like. Personally I would get a filter from

put that on the master socket. From there I would wire the filtered terminals to the telephone extension sockets and take an unfiltered pair to a suitable socket for the ADSL router.

If I didn't have any cable I would probably get a reel of telephone cable and use that for the extensions. If I was putting a telephone socket beside the ADSL socket this needs two and a half pairs, say three pairs. If my telephone cable was only two pair then I might use Cat 5, simply for the extra pairs. Alternatively three pair telephone cable should be fine. Avoid sharp bends and don't staple the cable.

It all depends on what cable you have in and what is available to you. As you have a lot of Cat 5 I would use that. Do stick to the standard telephone colour scheme. I would use the brown pair for the unfiltered ADSL signal, as it is not in the standard one line telephone wiring scheme.

and have further information.

[Peter Crosland]

CW 1308!

Peter Crosland

[bof]

In message , Peter Crosland writes

CW1308 ??

Are they? I have a reel of CW1308 that's not twisted, and when I looked a few years back was unable to find a spec that said it should be twisted.

[John Rumm]

Its not *as* twisted as cat5, but it is still twisted.

[Peter Crosland]

See my correction!

Assuming it really is genuine CW1308 specification and not somebody passing something else off as CW1308, it is what BT use and therefore one has to assume it is fit for purpose! Likewise if the cable you have is genuine Cat5e specification that will do as well. Using anything but a proper twisted pair cable can potentially cause problems. Bell wire is definitely a no no.

Peter Crosland

[jeff.mowatt]

John,

Something I've done which might be interesting for you too, is to have the adsl cable only connected to BT using the device described below in place of your current modem/router

master DECT station plugs into the back of the Zoom device and you have no telephone cable at all, but you do have VOIP on every handset in your home and garden.

The handsets switch into VOIP mode at the press of a key and should the router power fail or be switched off, then the telephone reverts to standard BT connection mode.

It comes ready configured for a VOIP service called Global Village, which is SIP compliant and able to talk to other SIP compliant services at no charge, though you can reconfigure for another supplier. I use Sipgate.

What it won't do is get you connected to non SIP compliant services such as Skype.

Jeff

John Carlyle-Clarke wrote:

[bof]

The reel of CW108 I have has no twists (or at least the were none present in the 1m and then 2m sections I stripped back to check).

Is there a spec that says CW1308 must be twisted? When I looked some years back I couldn't find one, lots of other specs for CW1308, but couldn't find anything about twists.

[Michael Chare]

If you intend moving your master socket, you might want to think twice about using cable that was obviously not provided by BT.

uk.telecom might be a better ng.

[John Carlyle-Clarke]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Thanks Jeff -

I work from home, and use Skype for all business calls - Skype to Skype where possible, or Skype Out where not, to make it easier to itemise. I also use Skype In to keep business calls separate completely.

I use one of these at the moment:

DECT base station is connected to this device. Works pretty well, and the same deal.. press "*" to switch to Skype.

Nice thinking though - thanks for the suggestion.

[Andy Wade]

Yes, CW 1308 _is_ the BT specification.

Go to the RS web site

and do a simple search for "cw1308", which will bring up a list of all the '1308 cables they sell. Click on the PDF icon against any product and you can download a copy of the actual BT spec. - CW 1308 Issue 8. Note the requirements for lay length (section 4.2) and reference to twists in section 5.

[The Natural Philosopher]

[bof]

Thanks, looks like I've got a non conforming spool then, if there is any twisting it's in many metres lay length no way it's 100mm or less. It works fine for phone, but I found the problem when I used it to wire some short (

[meow2222]

Do you mean all these pairs are needed just for the phone, or something else? The UK phone system uses 3 wires, with a lot of equipment working on only 2 wires. If desired its elementary to run a 2 wire system and add a capacitor at the end to give a standard 3 wire outlet.

NT

[David Hansen]

On 14 Jun 2006 03:15:47 -0700 someone who may be [e-mail] wrote this:-

My mistake, one and a half pairs.