cat5 for telco lines

[Brian Kelsay]

My original idea for my house way that I would run data and voice to each
room (I currently have neither in some rooms)and do it all in Cat to justify
buying a roll of the stuff.  Otherwise I end up with a great deal left over
and nothing to do with it.

Has anyone looked at the price of mod-taps for ethernet?  I looked at the
lumber yard and the stuff is high, like $5 per tap.  That makes the tap more
expensive than the wire to get to the room.  I'll need something like
fourteen of the little mod-tap plugs to do my house the way I want (that's
two plugs per wall plate, I'm probably using the wrong term, I just look at
the pictures in the books anyway. heheh).
Brian

-----Original Message-----
From: mike neuliep [mailto:mike at illiana.net]
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2000 10:24 AM
To: kclug at kclug.org
Subject: cat5 for telco lines

Just my two cents on this issue, no flames please

Cat5 works great for telco lines.  Because it has more twists than telco
wiring
it should provide more resistance to crosstalk.  Cat5 is 24 gauge wire,
telco
is 22 gauge.  Both should be able to handle a 90volt ring, considering the
small
amperage involved so I don't think the wire gauge here will make or break
the
quality of phone call.  The big difference between the two kinds of wires is
the signal speed that you can run on the wire.  Cat5e can handle 350Mhz
signals
while voice applications require no more than 400 kilohertz.  BIG difference
here.  Most telco guys recommend telco wiring for voice because it is WAY 
cheaper than cat5.  When you're deploying it by the mile like the telcos do,
the
cost differential gets real big real fast.  If you're doing this for home
use
I'd recommend what I did in my house:

48 port patch panel cat5e
4 cat5e jacks in each room

run all four pairs 568a (standard data wiring configuration) using solid
wire

The benefits will allow you to run just about any kind of data in your home
on
the same wiring without repunching down anything.  I use mine for ISDN,
token
ring, ethernet and telephone.  If I had T1s I could use that too.  When
voice
over ip equipment because a bit cheaper, I'll probably put one in my house
and get rid of my analog lines all together.  

	Mike Neuliep
	mike at illiana.net