Creating a home Ethernet out of installed but unused Cat 5

Bruno · 2006-01-29T16:22:52+00:00

The phone company has installed, throughout the house, shielded Cat 5cable with 4 sets of wires. One is used for phone service, while eachof the other three is terminated with what looks like a plastic sleeveimprinted Dolphin (just in case it makes a difference...).I have a wi-fi broadband router on the second floor (physicallyconnected to two computers); I also have another computer in the groundfloor den which is currently wirelessly networked with the others. Thephone company's breakout box is in the basement, naturally.For various reasons, I would like to physically network the first floorcomputer. Ideally, I would like to install in the router room a wallplate with an RJ45 jack, with a patch cord connecting to the router.Currently, the Cat 5 terminates in a standard RJ11 jack. The samewould go for the ground floor den; there, however, the Cat 5 terminatesin a wall plate with a coax F-type jack at the top and a standard RJ11at the bottom.So that's the question - how do I approach a project like this? Inparticular, how do I go about making sure that, while I go two floorsdown and then one floor up, I am still connecting the same set ofwires to the appropriate terminals in the router room, the breakout boxand the den? What type of tools would I need to accomplish this?Thanks.

Jan 29, 2006 25 Replies

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Keith Williams 20 years ago

If it runs from each jack to a central terminal you can replace the terminal with a switch. If it's daisy-chained you can't.

Quoting what your replying to is nice. It gives context to your question.

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none 20 years ago

It is probably 3 pair screened CAT5, this is pretty common in newer residentlial installations (for telephone).

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George 20 years ago

The last place you want to save a few bucks by buying mickey mouse stuff is on a network.

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BruceR 20 years ago

How do you define "Mickey Mouse" stuff? By price? Just because a vendor decides to sell at reasonable prices rather than take the full markup on the stuff doesn't mean it's any worse. By all means know what you're buying but don't equate price only to quality.

From:George snipped-for-privacy@nospam.invalid

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