Cat5e, 2 phone lines

[rudy68]

Hey all!

New here, but would really appreciate any insight. I'm about at the limit of my own knowledge, and am utterly and truly stuck.

Here's my situation. I had the builder home run a bunch of cat5e home runs to various rooms. One room is my home office, which has two cat5e cables, one for data, and one for phone. Both terminate with individual jacks in my office.

The challenge is that I use VOIP (Vonage) for both phone and fax lines in my office. In the office, I have an RJ45 jack for the phone. Downstairs, however, the Vonage router utilizes TWO ports (Line 1, Line 2). I'm trying to figure out how to pinout the cat5e to two separate RJ11 Jacks.

My hope is that I'll be able to use two RJ11 connectors to the Line 1 and 2 jacks on the Vonage Router, and then just use a line splitter in the office to run individual phone cords to phone and fax. Configuration of the office is such that I really don't want to rewire the RJ45 in the office if at all possible.

Does anyone know how I should pinout RJ11 connector 1 & 2? Currently I use orange, blue/white, blue, & orange/white for connector/line 1, but can easily re-pin if needed.

Let me know if I'm not being clear, and again truly appreciate any help!

 

[misseditbythatmuch]

This is not a "purist" solution, but if you are of the school to just get-er-dun, then I suggest at the kitchen, install one of these :

http://www.blackbox.com/Store/Detail.aspx/RJ-45-Modular-Splitters-B-Pinning/FM835-R2

Using "B" pinning, each of the 4 pair in the cable is split out to its own indidual jack. Plug jack one into Vonage 1, Plug jack two into Vonage two. You will use rj11 cords for these hookups (6p2c connectors).

In your office, use the same adapter, and attach your phone and your fax to the respective jacks. Jacks 3 and 4 will remain as open spares.

In the basement, assuming your home runs terminate on a patch panel, use a network (4pr) straight-thru patch cable to jump your kitchen jack to your office jack.

You will have used one ethernet cable for both phone lines (leaving your other ethernet jacks available for data use).

This way, all of your house wiring remains intact, and your adapter components are what modify the use of the ethernet jack.

This allows you to simply unplug your adapters when you no longer need such a configuration and your jacks are ready for data.

This assumes that your cable installer punched 4 pairs to each jack and no pairs have already been robbed for other uses.

 

[rudy68]

Sorry - I should also clarify:

The Vonage routers are both located in the structured wiring enclosure, which is located in the laundry room.

From the structured wiring enclosure, I have two home runs of Cat5e to the office. As mentioned, one for data, one for (ideally both) phone lines. I need to split the single Cat5e cable on the enclosure side and attach two RJ11 jacks to plug into the respective VOIP router ports (one line for phone, one for fax). On the office side, I'd like to just use an old-style plug-in splitter to attach phone cord to the fax & phone.

Am I being clear? Kinda close to it at this point, so let me know if not.

Thanks guys for everything - really really appreciate your collective assistance!

Rudy

 

[misseditbythatmuch]

Sorry, I misconstrued your topology.

At the Vonage ATA, attach the breakout splitter, but use jacks 2 and 3 and go from jack 2 to vonage port 1 and jack 3 to vonage port 2. I am assuming port 1 is you phone and port 2 is your fax on the vonage unit.

If you have a patch panel, it will plug in directly. If you have only a cable terminated with a plug, you will need an rj45 coupler.

In the office, the phone/fax ethernet jack will now be pinned out as:

1 Nothing
2 Nothing
3 T2 (one lead to phone line 2) Jack 2
4 R1 (one lead to phone line 1) Jack 3
5 T2 (2nd lead to phone line 1) Jack 3
6 R2 (2nd lead to phone line 2) Jack 2
7 Nothing
8 Nothing


So in the office you can plug in something like this:

http://www.trianglecables.com/tellinsplitl.html

Then plug your fax into "L1" and your phone into "L2" in your office.

 

[rudy68]

Definitely agree with the solution in the office - already have a line splitter like this.

With regard to the cabinet, for the office I have the Cat5e cables, currently with a single RJ11 jack connector plugged in to the Vonage Router, Line 1.

My question is, why can't I just take the single Cat5e cable and crimp two RJ11 connectors? I have already done this for one line, using orange, blue/white, blue, & orange/white. Because we have 8 conductors, I should be able to accomplish the same thing the RJ45 modular splitter you recommended does, all I need is the pinout guidance. I can re-crimp a new RJ11 for Line 1, if needed as well.

Do you see a reason this can't be done? Does anyone perhaps have some thoughts on the pinout for taking one Cat5e into two phone lines? I really don't want to clutter my cabinet any further - it's pretty tight in there already.

Thanks for your help!!!!!

Rudy

 

[misseditbythatmuch]

If you have a crimp tool, and are comfortable making a dedicated specialty cable termination, then that will do fine. On one RJ-11, you will put the blu/wht pair in the center two pins (using the 6p2c standard) and then if your house is wired 568B standard, you will take the grn/wht pair and put them into the center two pins on another rj-11 and plug both rj-11 plugs into the Vonage ATA. In the office, your center two pins will be blu/wht (line 1) and the next pin out on each side (pins 3 and 6) will be grn/wht (Line 2).

If your house is 568A standard wiring, you will use the blu/wht per above, but then use ong/wht instead of grn/wht.

http://webpages.charter.net/ttworld/Tech/Lan/lan_pinouts.htm

If you are not sure which standard you have 568A or 568B, use the above link to see a color code / pin chart and compare one of your current plugs to the chart, matching pins and color codes.

Just remember that you are making a custom change to your panel, so put a label in place to document what you have done so that in the future whoever works on it knows about the customization.

 

[Lostpbx]

Why can't you just go to the end you want to split and take the white/blue pair and term it to a rj11 and white orange pair and term it to another rj11. If you don't get DT on white /orange the try white/green. I do it all the time splitt rj45 to rj11 there is always some office that wants more lines and we can't pull new drops in.

 

[rudy68]

Hey all!

Just thought I'd take a moment to follow-up.

I did just take the Cat5e at the VOIP/Vonage Router end and terminate it into two separate jacks. I found out that on mine, I terminated the first line into an RJ11 with the white/blue pair, and the second line with the white/orange pair.

In the office, I just used the old school l1/l2 splitter from the existing rj45 jack, as I wanted to be able to leave the existing office jack configuration untouched.

Hope this helps anyone else, and again thanks very much for your time & assistance! I can now get faxes!!!

Rudy

 

[AWGoodson]

It looks like your RJ45 jack is wired 568B

Allan Goodson
Estimator
3D Datacom, Inc.

http://www.3ddatacom.com