Ethernet over internal telephone wiring

[jezuk1]

Hi all,

Question for the experts - I've connected my router to the BT master socket and I've hatched a plan to convert the internal telephone wiring into Fast Ethernet. There's about 20m of internal wiring which runs around to 3 extension sockets in the appartment. I've got the technology and knowledge to crimp/create the connectors and sockets, but the question is will it work? The internal phone wiring is 2 Pair/4 Core (although I haven't actually confirmed whether or not they are twisted pairs). Assuming they are NOT twisted pairs, is this hairbrained idea of mine likely to succeed?

Cheers

[jezuk1]

Edit: I think the internal wiring is CW1308 with 6 wires (blue/blue-white, orange/orange-white, green/green-white)

[Steve]

Although 10BASE and 100BASE only requires 2 twisted pairs, my reading suggests you may struggle to get any sensible data rate except over a very short run.I have seen suggestions that CW1308 is equivalent to cat1 or even cat3??

[Glenn]

Voice cabling is Cat 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_1_cable
http://www.binarycse.com/network-technology/network-cables?showall=1

[Steve]

I was wondering Glenn whether that classification also included flat cables which are obviously untwisted whereas the CW1308 is twisted and if your lucky over a short run you might achieve somewhere between 1 and 10Mbps

[Glenn]

According to the 2nd link, Cat 1 is for voice grade unshielded twisted pair. It will support data, but it may well be slow as you say.

I would just use a pair or more of these http://www.ebuyer.com/179960-extra-value-200mbps-pass-through-powerline-adapter-twin-pack-price-ends-friday-pi699e2-4u84-3 mine work just fine.

[esh]

Another vote for powerline adapters.

I also looked at the phone cabling route and it was a bit too iffy for my requirements. You can pretty much guarantee 30Mbps with powerline adapters, just don't expect more... though you may get it.

[jezuk1]

Thanks for the info, I'll look into wiring some CAT5 cable.

I do have a pair of Devolo 200AV Powerline adaptors and they run quite comfortably at 185Mbps. The only problem is they add a bit of latency (5-10ms) which matters for gaming believe it or not   I spoke to Devolo and they suggested their newer products add less so I might try them. They also do a new 500Mbps version out of interest.

[Lance]

Could you replace the telephone wiring with cat5e?

[jezuk1]

Could you replace the telephone wiring with cat5e?

I'll see if it's possible to use the existing telephone wiring to pull through some cat5e. If they wired it through some kind of ducting it might be quite easy. All to be discovered soon 

[Lance]

Thinking about it, maybe go to cat6 and future proof

[jezuk1]

Yes very good suggestion 

[esh]

Yes, powerline *always* adds approx 10ms to the ping times, but it is a fairly steady 10ms as opposed to the wild fluctuations of wireless and packet loss along with it. Of course ethernet is the ideal solution. Good quality cat5e will do if you are on a budget as that should get you 30-40Mbps quite happily. Cat6 if money is no object

[jezuk1]

Cat5e cable supports 1000BASE-T up to 100metres. Apparently even standard Cat5 will do the job too (according to Wikipedia). It wasn't too expensive to run Cat6 so I had that installed between the two rooms. It's great now! Powerline has been moved to the spare room now 

[Lance]

Good stuff!