wireless signal through trees (what does line of sight" mean)

10base-T twisted pair requires about a 100 ohm wire impedance. Common telephone wiring is close enough for 10mbits/sec, but doesn't work well at 100Mbits/sec. The few times I've tried it resulted in too many errors. It also requires that each pair be individually twisted. Little or the round station wire (red/grn, blk/yel) comes in pairs. Certainly not the flat wire, which is also not twisted in pairs. You can try running HDX (half-duplex) with the old wiring, but even that is problematic. No twist, no play.

Thanks, no biggie since i use powerline now and a 2nd wap/router for wireless to the shop/garage... just wondering if an older house (with no coax, but phone wire) could essentially do the same as powerline - albeit a lot slower.... as an aside, older boat and RV has power and phone lines in the walls, just wondering ifi could updat to 100 baset.... Sounds like not....

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I don't think red/green/black/yellow phone wiring (we used to call that "quad" although "quad cable" nowadays seems to denote something utterly different) will work even for 10baseT. ISTR trying to use about 2' of the stuff for a T1 cable and it wouldn't even sync.

Now, Tut Systems used to make baluns that would repeat 10base2 (as I recall it) over quad. Come to think of it, so did we (our "LRE" product line), for in-room Ethernet for hotels. (Our stuff is still too expensive, even on eBay, for home use though.)

I used to call it "station wire" but that's also depricated and antiquated.

I've used it successfully for 10baseT but only if I force half duplex. There's far too much crosstalk between pairs to be usable for any manner of FDX data comm. I even had trouble using the stuff for Appletalk at 230Kbits/sec. My favorite is to use a managed switch, set the port to 10baseT-HDX, and watch for errors using SNMP or the internal diagnostics. If there are no errors, it will work.

I've also had problems using CAT3 (CMR/CMX) cable for anything faster than 10baseT-HDX. Same problem... too much crosstalk because of insufficient twist, and the use of the same twist for all pairs. However, I've had really good luck with 25 pair telco bundles up to about 75ft.

10base2 (CheaperNet) is by definition half duplex, so that probably why such adapters work. The balun is nothing more than an impedance converter from 50 ohm 10base2, to about 200 ohms (my guess) for station wire. Also, there's a 10base2 50 ohm terminator inside. Everything runs on a single pair or wires.

While not fast, it might work using phone line networking, HomePNA v3.

These days, 'quad' could be referring to "quad shield", as in quad shield RG-6 coax cable, for example.