Re: Second phone socket

galwaydude18

Does anyone know how to add a second phone socket using cat5 cable?

galwaydude18

Does any one know how to add a second phone socket at all?????

jayok

A delayed reply... maybe no good to you but here goes...

When you say "add a 2nd phone socket" what exactly do you mean?

I.e. if you have a POTS line and you wish to add a second socket to this then simply get some twisted pair cable (or indeed CAT5) and connect the cable in parallel with the point from eircom.

If you are referring to CAT5 patch panel, etc, carrying the signal then normally the phone cable uses lines 4+5 on the CAT5 cable, adding a second line to cable simply involves wiring other points, e.g. 1+2.

Anyhow, I'd need more info to be exact.

JayoK

Redshift

Asked and answered before M8, check here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=161499

lucernarian

Does cat5 cable need to be used? What about the flat telephone extension cables? Sure, the cable would be of better quality but does it need to be so for a maximum speed of 56kbps? It's an expensive way to wire the telephones and the twisting of the wires may not match the frequencies of a phone line. Also, there was a post once which debated whether to use radial or parallel wiring. I don't think there was a conclusive outcome. I have many more questions aswell and I can't find the answers to them. Could anyone please answer some of them if possible?
Thanks a million
MJT

jayok

TBC,

As you know CAT5 cabling is usually better quality and each pair is twisted to reduce a phenomenon known as "cross-talk" however in reality for phone systems this won't make a huge difference - as Eircom maybe carring the signal on standard copper anyway.

As for a telephone extension a simple extender kit normally suffices and you won't see much degradation anyway as the signal suffers most of the problems before it hits your house (unless you've a really old house).

With regard to 56K, it's really difficult to actually get 56k throughput, on the best lines you'll probably get 51 - 52k. So don't worry about trying to squeeze that extra 4k. Actually getting anything over 28.8k is a real bonus!

JayoK

lucernarian

I am indeed aware of the realistic limits of 56k- I have never achieved higher than 50.3k. Does the presence of plain extension wire harm the chances of getting broadband? I have a mixture of parallel and radial wiring in my home so could you tell me which is the best way to wire? Thanks for your help- much appreciated
MJT

jayok

Hi MJT,

Wiring the house with either radial or parallel cabling won't make a difference to you DSL connection unless you are planning on running it serious distances!! (i.e. 200m +). As I said before the biggest source of interference is normally between the socket on the wall (or Eircom's drop point outside the house) and the exchange. If you think of it for a second your cable has to leave your house, head for the estates / apartments patch box and then off to the exchange maybe via a number of other connections either under ground, over-ground, up a pole, past HT electic cables, and on and on. If it makes it ok to your home, then you'd really have to go out of your way to reduce the signal significantly.

If there's a real problem wiring the house for DSL why not go wirless? It's what I use.

JayoK.

lucernarian

I estimate that the wire has to travel around 5.5 km to get to the exchange. I live in the countryside but only 300m goes above ground because I live near a (former) main road which has buried cable.

As for wireless in my area I can get it for €199 as well as €35 per month and money's a bit tight at the mo so i'll be saving for that.

Btw do you know anything about Net1? I.E. reliability, ping speeds, quality etc.?

jayok

Well I assume you tested your line already at www.eircom.net. Just put in your number and see if your line qualifies. If it does then you are laughing!

When I mentioned wireless I actually meant from your phone socket to the rest of the house. i.e. a wireless DSL router and a wireless PCI / PCMCIA card. But of course wireless internet connections is also an option but as you said a little on the expensive side.

As for the Net1 as your said it's a wireless connection and is subjective to a line-of-sight connection to the source system. Although it's dependant on the weather, etc., it's not too bad. But if you could get DSL over the phone cable then this obvious be preferred.

The worst I've found is a satellite link. I'd install the system for a customer and the ping response times is 1.4s for a round trip. Then again the packet is travelling about 60k miles!! Not recommended as it's difficult to get anything above 9.6k bps. Don't care about the techno mumbo jumbo of compression or clever algorithms. It just doesn't work.

Any, back to hand, did you test your phone line for DSL?

JayoK

lucernarian

Oh I have checked my line for suitability many times in vain hope! Unless eircom try something like BT's experiment in Milton Keynes I never will get it.