home networking using cat5e

[FaBCarnation]

Hi

Can someone give some guidance... My house phone lines are pre- wired with cat 5e for all the telephone plates throughout the house, there is one drop in the basement that had went to the phone connection however we've decided not to have a home phone anymore. Are all the other lines that goes to the rooms on a switch? If so, if I were to hook that one wire into the router would I be able to get connection in the rooms?

Thank you

[Mark & Lynda]

Originally Posted by FaBCarnation

Hi

Are all the other lines that goes to the rooms on a switch? If so, if I were to hook that one wire into the router would I be able to get connection in the rooms?

Thank you

No. They are not on a switch. If only one drop to the basement then all the jacks are wired in series.

[FaBCarnation]

Hi Thanks for the reply,

So if i were to crimp one line upstairs and hook the basement line to the router (router in the basement), will that work?

Thank you,

[icecube]

Don't think anyone can answer that question over the internet without knowing what the topology is.

If it is a straight wire from 1 room upstairs down to the basement, then yes.

I doubt phone jacks can be wired in series, if they are wired in parallel you need to find out where they all aggregate.

[Mark & Lynda]

Originally Posted by icecube

I doubt phone jacks can be wired in series, if they are wired in parallel you need to find out where they all aggregate.

I used the term incorrectly. When I said series, I meant the wiring is run from one jack to the next to the next and so on, then one dropped to the basement. Although it's unlikely an entire house would be wired that way in which case there would be multiple drops. Because the OP said there is only one drop, it could be there are very few jacks (1 first floor, 1 second floor)and both are in the same end of the house the installer could of very well wired them together with one drop to the basement.

[oakvillehomeowner]

Originally Posted by Mark & Lynda

Although it's unlikely an entire house would be wired that way

My phone jacks were run with one cat3 cable pulled to all locations. Call it series or daisy chain, until the jacks were installed, it was one long uncut piece of cable.

[FaBCarnation]

Thanks for the response... In the basement there was only one drop for the phone line, and I had another drop for a cat6 line i had asked for that went to the 2nd floor. I am assuming it is either series or theres a switch between the lines on the 1st and 2nd floor that joins to the drop in the basement. GOing to try to put a cat5e jack and test if it works over the weekend...

[GregS]

If you only have a single cable in the basement to support multiple phone jacks around the home, then I can probably guarantee you that you have daisy chained jacks and there is going to be a break in them somewhere. It will not be continuous as it is a giant pain in the ass to run them continuous.

[Frankie]

This may be a really dumb question, but I'm not particularly technologically-minded, so any insights you may have would be appreciated!

I recently had my design appointment, and there was an option to upgrade to cat5 or cat6 wiring, and I got to pick the point where there was a wall jack for it. My question to the design centre rep, which she confirmed, was "this is the wire that brings the internet into the house, to which I attach my modem?"

After speaking to a more tech-savvy family member, it seems that the cat wires are more for networking. Internet comes in on a phone jack or cable jack, and then the cat wires are for networking through the house.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this, and think I'm missing a big piece of this puzzle. It doesn't make any sense to me that if this were for home networking that there would be only one plug. I'm planning on running everything off a wireless router, so hard-lined networking is of no value to me.

So, what do cat wires do?

[FaBCarnation]

Hi guys,

If the cabling is daisy chain would hooking up the line to a router work?

Frankie,
You may want to consider having your builder or a cat6 drop on your main floor if you are planning to put the internet modem in your basement with a router... Because sometimes you might get dead spots with your router and not be able to get a stable internet wireless connection.

The cat 5e/cat6 cabling is used to hookup your PC/TV/media box devices to your home network (router, hard wired which ensure a stable connection and throughput of at least 100mbps)... On Wi-Fi you may not get the full throughput because the connection can drop..