Cable length for new extensions 2

[DrB0b]

Hey guys,
Glad I found this side of the forum, you guys are really knowledgeable on telephony stuffs. Coming from the PC side of the forums/life I have a basic question about cable length.

Throughout most of the plant we have Cat5e ran with our telco equipment positioned at the MPOE on the north wall. We have it running all the way to the south end of the plant which is prolly around 350 - 400ft away. We currently have one phone line working that distance but I am worried when we expand, what we should do. Not sure the farthest you are supposed to run Cat5e for phones unless it is the same as LAN being around 300ft. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Just some things about our phone system:
Nortel MICS 7.0 running with T7316E phones, max of 32 ports with only 4 extensions left unused.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[trvlr1]

I believe, under ideal conditions, you can run phones 1000' or more, so you should be well within specs at 400'.
There is a Nortel Norstar forum on this site too, which is what your system would fall under if you have more questions.

 

[donb01]

If it is TDM Voice then the distance can be just about anything, but for IP you should use the same standards you use for the computers. I can't say I don't have a few 400 foot data drops out there, but I don't do it as a regular process.

One other thing you might consider is that if you are TDM now you could possibly go to IP a few years down the road, and if you keep all your cable runs IP compliant now you won't have to redo (as) much of it down the road.

 

[DrB0b]

Thanks for the quick responses. We have some 25 pair "trunk" wire laying on a spool here as well. I was under the impression that it was able to go 1000' where as the Cat5e only 300'ish. Glad to hear I was wrong about the Cat5e cable tho.
What, if anything, do I need the 25 pair cable for?

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[trvlr1]

Usually TDM phones do not use CAT5 cable (but will work either way). To make it easier to install, from the phone system, you would install feeder cable to specific places, where the desktop phone cables would terminate. This way, you would not have to run cables all the way from the phones back to the phone system, just to the nearest demarc point. Putting in one feeder cable over longer distances is much easier than putting in multiple single cables.

 

[DrB0b]

Nothing is done to specs here unfortunately, lol. Thank you very much for the info and the good idea for the feeder cable!

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[SYQUEST]

Doing an installation to standards (TIA) is important for today, those after us, system performance, troubleshooting, and usability.

The CATEGORY rating of cable only applies to Ethernet transmission on a LAN. It has nothing to do with phones, or any other apparatus unless the manufacturer is designing a channel or transmission path using those specifications for their purposes, and specifies for use with the product. One example of this would be an HDMI converter.

Exceeding the length limit for LANs will have an effect on the Ethernet transmission to those locations. For phone use it depends on the system and equipment being used. You should probably mark, list, or keep track of the cables that exceed the standard length for data, if you are using it for phone service, then may be used for data at a later time. This would be especially true when you terminate everything on a patch panel.

....JIM....

 

[donb01]

When we built our new addition in 2004 I had all of the phone drops wired CAT5 (only 1 pair on the jack, but CAT 5 cable, and a different color than data) and they go to the same closets the data drops do. Logic behind that was if we ever go to IP Telephony all we have to do is change out the jack module, pull the cables off the 110 blocks and put them on RJ45 patch panels and we'd be good to go. I know the cable spec was excessive for phones right now, but who knows where we'll be 5 years from now!

 

[trvlr1]

You could have put in the cat 5 jack at the faceplate. Most TDM phone systems will operate through a correctly wired cat 5 jack. Leaving some extra cable at the closet end would have given you enough to be able to terminate on the correct patch panels later. There are lots of ways to do this, all depends on your comfort zone!

 

[donb01]

I chose to use Cat3 USOC jacks for one reason [rude] the retards were plugging their computers into the phone jacks even though they were the wrong color [/rude]. We use orange for data and white/almond for everything else. Since there is no way to plug an RJ45 into a phone jack there were less network ports being destroyed by the voltage for our digital phone sets! We do typically include a 10 foot service loop on all voice and data drops - sometimes we need to pull a line back up the wall and move it to the opposite diagonal corner of the room - that comes in handy and saves needing to run a whole new drop. It also comes in handy if we have to move a rack over in the closet to make room for another one, or other unanticipated things.....

 

[jeffmoss26]

In the infinite wisdom of my former University, all voice jacks are 8 pin white cat 3, and all data jacks are 8 pin blue cat 6. I made a lot of friends my freshman year by simply moving plugging their ethernet cable into the data jack instead of the phone jack!

jeff moss

 

[dalavar01]

Nortel's Technical Specifications

Taken from:

http://www.ntelimited.com/meridian-norstar/norstar modular ics tech spec.pdf

Loop resistance
64 Ohms (300 m of 0.5 mm wire or 1000 ft. of 24 AWG wire)

Loop length
300 m (1000 ft.) without SAPS 780 m (2600 ft.) with SAPS

 

[Sympology]

We've never had a problem running Option 11/51/81 over those sort of distances on Cat5e. Granted, not the ideal way to do it, but then again, when was anything done the "ideal" way
Besides, if (when) you run IP telephony, saves on recabling (so long as you switches are close enough).

As for people mis-patching, tsk, kids today.

Take Ethernet / Ballund.
Cut off small part of tab, leaving larger part intact.
Insert in socket.

Now try to remove

BTW, make sure you carry a small knife or bladed screwdriver if doing this technique.

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

http://alvechurchlounge.org.uk

 

[nessman]

I have one site where I have a 100-pair between buildings running for about a mile, and a 50-pair running another 500' between the last building in the chain. I've had no problems running M2000 series phones off an Option 11c over these distances.

In your case, you'll be more than fine.