Reusing a phone extension for network

[Max5476]

This morning my powerline adapter blew up, so I'm relying on the WiFi in my study, which is naturally in a black spot.

Rather than replacing the powerline adapter, I want to hard wire from the router to the study.

The study already has a phone line (or at least a face plate) and there is similar in the lounge. Will it be possible to use the phone line for a hardwired network? Presuming they are connected.

[megaphone]

Running ethernet over phone cable is possible, but not recommended. You'll get slow speeds, maybe 10mb/s. 'Maybe' they have used proper CAT5e for the phone points, you'll need to check.

Why not relocate the router to the office and use the phone line for the BB?

[CharlesElliott]

What cable is running to your phone socket? It is not uncommon for CAT 5 to be used.

[sjg]

You can do 100mbit over 2 pairs (4 wires), assuming they're all OK.

[anonymous-user]

sjg said:

You can do 100mbit over 2 pairs (4 wires), assuming they're all OK.

Not over CW1308 cable you can't.

OP take the faceplate off and post a picture that shows the wiring.

[Max5476]

No wording on the cable, but there are 8 wires, 1 green, 1 brown, 1 orange, 1 white and 4 white. Currently only 4 are wired in.

There is a phone port in the lounge, and another bedroom as well, is there an easy way to check how they are all connected?

House is a redrow new build from 2017, but we are the second owners so not sure what the original owner asked for.

Internet is with Virgin, so not easy to relocate the main router, I think house has previously had BT internet, but not sure if that is connected to these phone ports.

Edited by Max5476 on Wednesday 17th March 13:51

[anonymous-user]

That's a CAT5 cable. Easiest thing to do is swap the phone plate for an RJ45 CAT5 faceplate. What's at the other end? If it's hard wired to your master socket you'll need to do the same at that end too. Then just use patch leads.

[anonymous-user]

Looking on a monitor (was on phone) it may be a CA6 cable, is there a plastic spline separating the pairs? If there is it's CAT6.

[megaphone]

Yes that is CAT5/6 cable, so if you terminate it properly in an ethernet RJ45 socket, then it can be used , you'll need to do both ends.

[bimsb6]

Only doable if the cable goes a to b if it goes elsewhere first you are screwed , easiest way to check is to check for continuity on the brown pair .

[Max5476]

A bit more time after work, so done some further investigation,

It is CAT 6, there is a plastic divider in the cable.

There is a phone socket in the master bedroom, which has two wires coming in



I will put in a double RJ45 plate here, and run a short ethernet cable in between. I could then add a switch in the future if required.

The lounge phone socket has then got a single cable. I am fairly confident it goes Lounge > Master Bedroom > Study. Any recommendations on how to test continuity over this distance as a start?




I am now very confused by the CoAx cable. The terrestrial TV antenna is currently wired into the Sat 2 socket, and a separate satellite cable is then just passed through the wall. The box the TV goes into has only one wire going into it, another wire has previously been cut off, and no longer enters the back box. Not sure what is going on here, but would like to tidy it up if possible.

There is also an ethernet cable just drilled through the plasterboard for CCTV, I would like to take the opportunity to tidy this up with a proper faceplate as well, if I can route the cable into the back box.

[Mr Pointy]

You can test continuity with a cheap multimeter:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=multimeter&ref=nb...

Strip the ends of the green & brown cores that aren't being used & twist them together in the study: then go back to the master bedroom & you should be able to meaure connectivity between the green & brown of one cable. The other one will go off down to the lounge.

The coax module is a quadplexer that combines (up in the loft probably) 2 satellite signal, terrestrial TV & radio down 2 cables & then splits them apart again on the wall socket. It may be that they couldn't get the Sky connections working or they went over to Sky Q & so put in a new shotgun cable & just poked it out of the hole in a spare euromodule. If you can find the combiner in the loft & take a picture we might be able to work out what is going on. You may need to trace that shotgun Sky cable but it probably goes up & joins on to the cable from the dish. At a wild guess the other coax that is cut off was used as a pull wire to get the shotgun cable up.

[bimsb6]

You don’t seem to have found the master (nte5) socket yet ?

[CharlesElliott]

For co-ax it is normal to have feed from the aerial into the 'main' room. There is a second co-ax in the main room that would take the output from your VHS / Sky HD box / whatever back to a distributor somewhere. All the other rooms would then be fed from that distribution box so not only can you watch TV in the other rooms, you can also watch what is playing on your VHS.

[Mr Pointy]

bimsb6 said:

You don’t seem to have found the master (nte5) socket yet ?

It's not a BT install - look at the Virgin outlet plate.

[bimsb6]

Mr Pointy said:

bimsb6 said:

You don’t seem to have found the master (nte5) socket yet ?

It's not a BT install - look at the Virgin outlet plate.

Internal wiring normally goes back to an nte though , ive not seen a virgin face plate like that one before though , is that a replacement for an nte ?

[megaphone]

I suspect there is a BT master socket somewhere, likely the CAT6 cables are connected to it somewhere. OP will have to check. Look under the stairs or in a utility cupboard or similar, they may have wired everything back to a central hub.

[anonymous-user]

Max5476 said:

A bit more time after work, so done some further investigation,

It is CAT 6, there is a plastic divider in the cable.

There is a phone socket in the master bedroom, which has two wires coming in



I will put in a double RJ45 plate here, and run a short ethernet cable in between. I could then add a switch in the future if required.

The lounge phone socket has then got a single cable. I am fairly confident it goes Lounge > Master Bedroom > Study. Any recommendations on how to test continuity over this distance as a start?

The fact that are two cables on that one could be bad news, rather than star wire out to every socket it looks like they have daisy chained from one to the next.

Before you do anything you need to find where the other end of the cable(s) are. If they are daisy chained you can still use the cabling but you'd need to use CAT6 junction boxes to bypass any sockets that have an in/out (assuming one end is actually where you need it, ie, next to your router/network switch).

[Mr Pointy]

There aren't half some mountains being made out of this.

[bimsb6]

Dave_ST220 said:

Max5476 said:

A bit more time after work, so done some further investigation,

It is CAT 6, there is a plastic divider in the cable.

There is a phone socket in the master bedroom, which has two wires coming in



I will put in a double RJ45 plate here, and run a short ethernet cable in between. I could then add a switch in the future if required.

The lounge phone socket has then got a single cable. I am fairly confident it goes Lounge > Master Bedroom > Study. Any recommendations on how to test continuity over this distance as a start?

The fact that are two cables on that one could be bad news, rather than star wire out to every socket it looks like they have daisy chained from one to the next.

Before you do anything you need to find where the other end of the cable(s) are. If they are daisy chained you can still use the cabling but you'd need to use CAT6 junction boxes to bypass any sockets that have an in/out (assuming one end is actually where you need it, ie, next to your router/network switch).

In most cases star wiring is a bad idea for broadband.