Cat5 masquerading as RJ11 phone lines?

mp3guy

The house we moved into last year was built in 2005. It appears to have Cat5 wired into 7 or 8 rooms in the house, but it's being used as phone line. See attached photos.

The sockets look like RJ11 with 6 pins, but you can see the wiring comes from four twisted pairs. These all run back to a splitter that comes off the phone line.

We don't have a land line and will never get one. However, I have an immediate need for a wired network in my home. Can I just remove the phone line splitter and isolate the phone line, rewire all the sockets to ethernet and then feed the end points into a router?

tech

as long as all the pairs are there, you can use these as CAT 5/ CAT 6 sockets,

if you terminate back to RJ45 at the panel end and plug into a switch / router you should be good to go

mp3guy

tech wrote: »

as long as all the pairs are there, you can use these as CAT 5/ CAT 6 sockets,

if you terminate back to RJ45 at the panel end and plug into a switch / router you should be good to go

Time to buy some connectors and spend some time practising before I try do the real thing, don't have much length on them!

just get adapters cheaper than your time.

mp3guy

Sir Liamalot wrote: »

just get adapters cheaper than your time.

The RJ11s only have 6 of 8 pins wired, so I'd be crippling my ethernet, no?

tech

hi

you need to get Rj45 wall plates

https://ie.rs-online.com/web/p/telephone-sockets/7918488?cm_mmc=IE-PLA-DS3A-_-google-_-PLA_IE_EN_Connectors_Whoop_ME-_-(IE:Whoop!)+Telephone+Sockets-_-7918488&matchtype=&pla-476902278648&gclid=CjwKCAjwiOv7BRBREiwAXHbv3HpePBmgHj9ioYq5LxpfUPTVidZjBZjH65Xbi837AIEl6u1cgeIj_RoCGeIQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

westyIrl

You'll have to terminate them in any event going from your post. For all intents and purposes, its better to do it right as any non standard setup can be a real pain down the line when you go to troubleshoot any issues. Gigabit needs 4 pairs.

This might suit https://www.amazon.co.uk/deleyCON-Network-Panel-8-Port-Distributor/dp/B01BGVAM40. Couple of patch leads, a network switch (if you're over 4 wired connections and have a power supply close by for it), a punch down tool and you're good to go.

Them faceplates look like there is probably an RJ45 module available for them although, if from 2005, it's probably just as easy to replace them all with fresh RJ45 wall plates.

Jim,

mp3guy

Way ahead of you. Already replaced all of the wall plates wired to T568B. Have a tester setup and crimped 9 ethernet cables to practice. Have this switch on the way to feed into my giant AC wifi router in the center of the house https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B076P9CTSD/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

astrofool

The cable will usually say what category it is, but any category cable will double for phone lines, certainly the way they were terminated implies a low bandwidth cable, but might be better than wireless (usually the exposed wire from cable to port is kept to a minimum to prevent losses).

bobbyy gee

from modem you go to router you can plug the ends into a router you get four places to plug into you need to make up each end to plug into router if you need more places add a switch to router


https://a.wholelottanothing.org/2019/04/13/converting-phone-lines-to-ethernet-in-newer-homes/

mp3guy

astrofool wrote: »

The cable will usually say what category it is, but any category cable will double for phone lines, certainly the way they were terminated implies a low bandwidth cable, but might be better than wireless (usually the exposed wire from cable to port is kept to a minimum to prevent losses).

Just finished crimping and testing, all 7 work! Cable actually says Cat5e, and bandwidth tests hit close to 1Gbps so I'm sorted.