Ok, the stupid contractor put in Cat5E cable in the new room I am building and I wanted 'regular' telephone wire. To make matters worse, they connected the Cat5E cable to a standard telephone jack leaving about 3 or 4 other wires disconnected because, of course, Cat5E has more wires then a telephone. DUH!

Anyway, if I hook up the Cat5E cable to the telephone wire, using the same exact color wires that they hooked up on the other end, will the Cat5E cable carry a telephone 'signal'?

I was just going to yank the Cat5E cable out from the wall and tie a telephone cable to it before I started pulling but I think the contractor stapled the Cat5E cable to the stud. (Not Bull, the regular wall stud! )

It will work for the phone but not a comp. No worries

Ya when doing so if you look on the end where they wires connect there are colored parts that should match where the wire is supposed to go.

any two wires will make a phone work , any size or type

Cool, thanks all. I shuddered at the thought of tearing down the sheet rock to get at the cable after I just painted and sanded the sheet rock!

Idiots. The contractor, not you guys.

Yeah, but not if you want to run internet too.

not only is it fine, it's better. The "stupid contractor" isn't stupid at all.

Depending on what type of network you're running, and where all your wires go, you could even run a network drop AND a phone off of that one cable. Or even two network drops and two phone lines (all different lines- -seperate phone lines, seperate data lines). Depends on what speed and technology you're running.

Sorry, your "stupid", "idiot", contractor... isn't. He's sharp, knows his shit and knows it well.

The only way you might have a problem (I am rusty, I can look it up if you like) is if you're running 100MB/Full Duplex. But IIRC, it only uses 4 wires of the cable- leaving you 4 more for phone (hey, you can actually even run two phone lines as well!). You will lose the ability to have a ready set of spare wires should you experience problems with the line in future, though. Not a worry, though. You don't have to "rip out the sheetrock" to run new wire. Crawl in the attic, drill a hole in the top of the header plate (2X4, typically, that makes the top of the wall structure) and drop the wire in. REAL easy, and tools to do so are cheap at Lowes.

I used to do plenty of existing construction network and alarm installations in houses/buildings with sheetrock walls, solid wood, plaster-and-lathing, and masonry walls. NEVER ever had to do physical damage to the wall more than a 5/16" hole and a couple screws to mount the device/switchplate/panel.

(spent many a year as a wirepuller/field tech before I got into the sysadmin side of things)

That's good info, bk. Thank-you.

I meant stupid contractor as in I told him to run phone line and he ran Cat5E and then hooked it up to a regular phone jack.

Why would someone run Cat5E, then try to hook it up to a regular phone jack instead of a Cat5E plug? It makes really no sense. It's like they realized when they were done that I said phone line and tried to hide the fact that they ran Cat5E.

Didn't mean to get your panties in a bunch "defender of all contractors far and wide Burnkat"

I'm sorry you can't understand this-- but Cat5E *IS* a commonly used phone wire.

That you're bitching about it makes absolutely no sense. They gave you a better product, used common construction practices, common wiring practices, and gave you a product that is in every way *better* than what you asked for. And to boot, didn't cost you anything more than using the old Cat3 wire (what you're thinking when you think "phone wire") because they stock the one cable- cat5E- for phone and data installations over copper. This keeps their costs to stock their truck lower and saves room on the truck to boot.

Cat5E has better Crosstalk, Inductance, Capacitance, RF propagation, and overall signal integrity traits than what you are thinking when you think of phone cable. It is just flat-out a better product, overall, period. End of story.

I'm not a "defender of contractors". Don't know where you got that shit from, but it's complete bollux. However, I happen to be an expert on the subject. I better be, I've been in the telecom industry in several capacities for 16 years.

Real sorry to spoil your little rant here, but the simple fact is- you're wrong. Maybe you can find something else to bitch about- will that make you happy?

Look- I don't tell you how to write traffic tickets, or investigate crimes. Don't tell me how to network or install phones. ;P

Don't believe me? Check out this then:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat5e

From the first paragraph:

"Category 5 cable, commonly known as Cat 5, is a twisted pair cable type designed for high signal integrity. Many such cables are unshielded but some are shielded. Category 5 has been superseded by the Category 5e specification. This type of cable is often used in structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet, and is also used to carry many other signals such as basic voice services, token ring, and ATM (at up to 155 Mbit/s, over short distances)."

"Basic Voice Services"- that's "phone" to the layman.

additionally:
Telephone wiring over Cat5 cables.

There's some UK info in there, so if that confuses you:
Modern Cat5 phone wiring

extract:
"In most residential phone wiring, the cable contains four individual wires. Most phone wire installed in the U.S. during the second half of the 20th century is of the following kind:

Four-strand wire:


The kind of wire shown above has recently become obsolete. For all new telephone wiring projects, you should use Cat 5 cable. All of the Cat 5 wire I've seen uses the following color coding:
"

As I said-- a common industry practice. Now put it back like the installer had it, and leave it the hell alone.

BTW-- unless you are running a PBX system (if you don't know what that is, you aren't), you want to follow the directions for POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) phones- aka analog phones.

You man enough to admit you're wrong? Hope you apologize to the contractor, as I suspect you've already called him bitching about this- and he's laughing at you for not knowing WTF you're on about..

Ummmmm... wow!

Come here burnkat, let me give you a hug, you need one.

Run, bk. He's a cop and when cops want a hug, shit is going to happen. LOL. Just kidding, Coz.

Good info! Thanks BK.

oh don't go on like that. ;P

LOL!
BK it wouldnt be the first time one of us didnt know WTF he was talkin about...me included
Go easy on the man...this is Coz were talkin about here.

BK, how about posting some diagrams of exactly how to wire cat5e cable? I bought a crimper and some wire so I could make my own network cables but I've never actually done it before.

the crimpers to get the pins of the jack into the cable itself are expensive...decent ones for what $70-80?...
have to make COs and S-Ts for shop somtimes...made a 40 footer not to long ago...

Good idea, tb. Please and thank-you, bk.

Thanks Ace!

me included as well...

remember that whole thing about "Base 2" numbering? "There's no "2" in Base 2 numbers!!" :eyeroll:

Whatta friggin' dumbass

I would, but someone already beat me to it:

http://www.lanshack.com/make-cat5e.aspx

decent ones can be had from Radio Shack for $15. But if you're going to do a lot of them, the better ones are the ones with the changeable dies.

Best to get the one with the changeable dies if you're doing this professionally- then you can term RF cable, phone wires, CAT5 cables, etc.....

I'd check Ebay for used crimpers.

Thanks for the great link, bk.