We're building a new house, and the electrical guy is pushing us to use Cat5e for all of the phones. Just wanted to know: are there any advantages to using Cat5e just for phones? I can understand using it for computers, but is it really worth it to use it for phones?
TIA, Pete
Pete,
Your electrician should be wiring your house to the ANSI/TIA/EIA-570B standard (Residential Telecommunications Infrastructure) which recommends Cat5e as a minimum.
I think some local codes even require it.
The price difference between Cat3 and Cat5e is small (the labor cost is the same), so you might as well install the current standard and future-proof your new home. Probably the only advantage at the moment for the average consumer is it is better for DSL and Home Phoneline Networking.
(While not the greatest comparison, I would compare this to people who had RG-59 coax cabling instead of RG-6 and now want digital cable, cable modems, satellite, etc.)
Of course it is not worth doing for POTS phones. But 99% of the cost is dragging the wire, so the difference between CAT3 and CAT5e is trivial.
And maybe you will want to stop using POTS and use some nice VoIP, or digital phones or replace your phones with computers. Or any of a dozen other ideas. And then you really, really will wish you had spent the extra $10 for CAT5e
At a cost difference of only about 2 cents per foot it doesn't pay to use Cat3. Most houses use less than one 1000' box so you'll only save $20. Even in a very large home (say 8000sf) the cost difference will be less than $100.
This was just discussed here at length
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