Standard Modems to Cat5

[littlebitofnc]

Can you connect a standard PCI V.90 modem to a Cat5 jack/cable?

We would like to rewire our home with Cat5 cable in prep. for cable or DSL being available in our area sometime within the next year or so, as well as to hopefully give us a better dial-up connection in the meantime. The current wiring in our home is approx. 40 years old and needs to be replaced anyway.

We currently have two phone lines, and try to use Line1 for phone calls and Line2 for dialing up to the internet. Sometimes we use both lines at the same time when we both need/want to be online at the same time. We would like to be able to use the same phone line for dial-up on both computers, but when we have tried this in the past the connection speed is horrible because the connection is split and the highest connection speed we can get is 38k at present.

We do not have the need to network our PC's, and would like to utilize our existing 56K PCI modems with the Cat5 cable. Can we do this? What is the best way?

Any comments would be much appreciated.

 

[vaoldschl]

You can use CAT5 to run voice, in fact it's my standard at present because it's only a buck or two more expensive than CAT3. If you wire to the standard your dial tone will come through on the wh/bl (pairs 4&5). If you are looking at going to a shared connection over cable later you definitely want to do four cable runs, one for each phone line and each location. That way you will have available pairs on the second line to split out the voice should you decide to keep both POTS lines. You also want to think about where the cable run terminates in your house and be sure that your wiring is accessible to it for the upgrade you are planning. If I haven't answered your question fully, feel free to elaborate on any issues you have.

 

[DSADOG]

This is what I recommend. I would run at least 1 drop to every room). In my house I have 1 drop on every wall consisting of 2 cat5(1) for voice and (1) for data, (2)coax for cable on 2 walls, and (1)62.5/125MM Duplex SC/SC Fibers for future use. Maybe in your case each drop would consist of at least (2)Cat5 cables terminted RJ45 jacks. You always want to kep all of the pairs together unless yo have to split a cable 2 or 3 or even 4 ways for voice. Why? This will give you an over better conenction that can be used later for a data connection if need be. Always install mud rings in the sheetrock to hold your faceplates secure. When you go to install a linecord from your modem to your RJ45, make sure that you arefully insert the RJ11 slowly, if not you can ruin your new jacks. My recommendation is to make your own RJ45 patchcords to RJ11. This way your RJ45 plug will go into your jack w/o any problems. If you have the money ideally you want to terminate everything on patch panels. Your voice has to be on patch panels for sure. This will make changes easier for you later. Always run plenum rated cable as well. GR

 

[littlebitofnc]

Are you saying that I can create my own patch cable that has a RJ-45 on one end and a RJ-11 on the other to use for my dial-up modem connection and still utilize the cat5 cable?

 

[littlebitofnc]

I'm confused as to if I should still run the cat5 cable? If I can not use the cat5 cable right now to connect to the internet via a dial-up connection, I can't see spending the time and money running it right now since it will be approx. 2 years before I can get DSL or Cable in my neighborhood.

Can I run the cat5 cable and use it for both the phones and dial-up internet in my home?

In my home office, I wanted to utlizie a modular face plate with 3 RJ-45 jacks and 1 coax jack. I wanted to use one of the 3 RJ-45s for strictly my 2 line phone, and the other two for my PC dial-up connections. I wanted for one of the 2 RJ-45s to be wired for just line 2, and the other one to be wired for both lines so that I could use an adaptor and two modems in my desktop so that I could use line 1 for my dial-up connection when my husband was using line 2 for dial-up connection.

 

[vaoldschl]

You can use CAT5, it's copper like almost any phone line, it's just better copper and has to meet certain specs for data transmission. I don't understand why you need the coax connection unless you're putting TV in at the location as well. The installation scheme I do for cable modems includes a hub that terminates the coax and shares the connection over the CAT5, I also typically include some sort of firewall, whether it be hardware or software.

Now, for your phone line configuration. I would still put two wire drops in each location but I can only see a need for two terminations. Each termination will have both lines, one for your two line phone and one with a splitter on it for your two modems. Also, I use RJ45 jacks for all my phone line as some of the digitals I install require it and have no problem using an RJ11 plug in an RJ45 jack, I don't see a need to go into building custom cables besides the problems that can come if you do it wrong. So, the end result of this would be, two jacks each with both your dial tones run on two seperate wires. Later, change one of the termination points to data run through a NIC to your hub which shares your cable modem. The other connection remains as two phone lines.

Don't make the future more complicated than it needs to be.

 

[MasterRacker]

Cable is cable as far as POTS is concerned. Run CAT5. Connect your phone signals to Pair 1 (the middle wires) in the RJ-45 jacks (Blue/WhtBlue). What nobody has mentioned is that a RJ-11 plug will fit into a RJ-45 jack perfectly well.
Jeff

I haven't lost my mind - I know it's backed up on tape somewhere ....

 

[littlebitofnc]

Thanks guys. Everyone I was asking who was suppose to be network gurus were telling a me I couldn't use Cat5 and RJ-45 jacks with a dial-up connection. That just didn't make sense to me since (like you said)Cat5 cable is vertually the same as Cat3 (which my neighbor uses for her phone and data lines and who also has no other choice but dial-up connections). The only difference I could see was the difference in the coating and the number of wires. I also couldn't see why a RJ-11 would not work in an RJ-45 either.

It's a sad thing when someone like me with almost networking knowledge can challenge the knowledge of someone who is suppose to be a guru and negate his knowledge with just a little bit of effort. That just goes to show that some people will believe anything anyone tells them and not challenge it.

The reason we were wanting to put in 3 RJ-45 runs is so my husband could have his own dedicated run for his computer. It is hard to get him to belief that running his modem cord through a splitter or adaptor or any kind will not slow down his connection speed and performance for his online Nascar 4 racing. So, rather than hearing him complain forever, I felt it was better to give him his own dedicated cable and jack. Besides, he's the one that is going to be crawing under the house to run the cable.


Oh yeah, I will only be putting the coax connector into the modular face plates, not running the coax cable. I'd like to do this while I am running the Cat5 cable and putting in the new face plates so it will be there already when the cable does reach my neighborhood. Actually, I may run coax to one of the coax connectors from my rotary roof antenna so that my TV reception will be better in all the rooms. I have a newer TV in my bedroom which pickes up well with just the rabit ears, but having the antenna connection would certainly make the snow go away on the older TV we have in the office room of the house. The TV in the living room is already hooked up to the antenna.

Again, thanks guys --- I'll be running the cat5 to both my dedicated phone and data line jack throughout my home.
Cindy
Little_Bit@fmtc.net

 

[MasterRacker]

Don't get me wrong. There certainly is a difference in cabling. The issue here is that you will have no problem running low bandwidth phone over high bandwidth CAT5 cabling. If you were to try and reverse that and run 100Mb data over phone wire or even CAT3 you would certainly have problems.

Don't split pairs. Run a discrete CAT5 wire from a common point to each and every jack you plan to install. This is called "home running". As long as you're going to the trouble, this is certainly the time to run coax as well. Home run the coax also (no splitters except at the home point) and use a good grade of RG6u cable. (RG6u Quad shield) would be the best. On the twisted pair use only CAT5e components to maximally future-proof your installation. Good Luck.
Jeff

I haven't lost my mind - I know it's backed up on tape somewhere ....

 

[DRGL]

Sounds like you are trying to do what we do:-

http://www.run-it-direct.co.uk/RJ45Voice.htm

We have a BT plug where you have RJ11,we simply make up patch systems that convert the BT plug to RJ45 and then back-RJ45>BT.It works fine and is very versatile-you have ports that can be voice or data!!

 

[ANFPS26]

This thread is three years old!

Jim

 

[TouchToneTommy]

This thread is three years old, and what he really needed to do is NETWORK his computers with the Cat-5 and a router, and then use something like a "Web-Ramp" to use a single dial-up connection to get to the router. Then when DSL became available, dump the Web-Ramp and connect to the DSL.

 

[DRGL]

opps,sorry!! I was trawling through threads looking for something and replied to this!!! oops