Telephone wiring

[Lisa Rodriguez]

hey, Ogre under my sister's name again.

Question about telephone wiring. I have done some minor research about how to put in a phone jack. My biggest problem is that our house has like 10 wires, a blue and white with blue stripes, red and white with red stripes, brown and white with brown stripes, grey and white with grey stripes, and green and white with green stripes. The phone line, i'm pretty sure, uses the blue and white with blue stripes. I took apart a working line and thats what it used, but when i hooked up my own, the whole line went dead.
On the current jack, the blue goes to two wires and the striped goes to two wires. I know it matters what wires they go to, but of the two that each uses, does it matter which end goes to where.
If thats hard to understand then try this:
currently
Blue wire == red wire
Blue wire == black wire
Striped wire == yellow wire
striped wire == green wire

would it matter if went like this.
Blue wire == black wire
Blue wire == red wire
Striped wire == green wire
striped wire == yellow wire


also, can the other wires, assuming they're not in use, be used as Cat5 wires, or are they not fast enough?

Any info you have would be great, thanks.

[AlbertW]

well, not cat5, maybe cat3...

depends on the quality of the wires and how they're arranged. the arrangement in a UTP CAT5 cable is in twisted pairs. if theyr'e arranged differently it could cause interference and quality degredation, slowing it down cause more packets are lost.

[Jnadke]

Usually telephone lines are the red and green wires for the signal. In older homes you'll find the black and yellow wires which were used as a power source from the central office. This system is no longer used anymore so you can do as you wish with them.

Check your telco box outdoors (usually there's a standard screw on the user-accessible section) and check which wires in your house are being used. It shouldn't hurt to use the unused wires for an ethernet connection. You'll need two of the twisted pairs for it to work though. Usually it's the green/green-striped and orange/orange-striped pairs.

Then, you'll need some connectors and a Cat5 crimping tool (these things cost $40 so borrow one if you can. Put the wires in the proper pins (guide: here). All the one's that say N/A don't hook up. You only need those four for an ethernet connection to work.


The negative side is, you're not going to be able to hook more than two computers up to such a network. In the page above, use the wiring diagram for B on one crimp, and A for the other crimp.

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Since not having each pairs twisted causes data loss, is it een worth attempting this project?
The wires in the house are not twisted on pairs, but more in a bunch. Would I lose alot of data this way?

[AlbertW]

well, its not that not having twisted pairs causes data loss, its just that having them in twisted pairs minimizes interference.