Structured Wiring

[jackellis]

In the new house, we have cat 5 to each of 9 rooms for telephone, cat 5 to 9 rooms for data, and pairs of coax to each of 6 rooms for TV. I can terminate the cat 5, though it would be sorta messy and I am not familiar with terminating the coax. I'd hire this job out because we don't have time for me to fiddle around with this, but I'll only give someone the business if I think I'll get what I want at a reasonable price.

I received a bid yesterday from a firm recommended by the electrician in which they provided a labor estimate and a list of parts that included termination connectors and plates, and a 110 punchdown block but no patch panel and no hardware to distribute phone (3 incoming lines) or video. He also failed to include a clear description of what I wanted, which is the one thing I did ask him to include in his bid. I suspect the fellow who came by to do the site survey has not learned to ask the right questions.

Looking at a few web sites, it appears he could connect cat5 patch cables for data to the 110 block that would get rooms hooked up to a switch or router for wired machines (not in his bid), but that doesn't solve the phone and video pieces.

I've sent back a list of questions to be answered but I'd be interested in any other advice from subject matter experts on this forum.

[pelligrini]

In a lot of installs I've seen the coax wires just loose in an AV panel enclosure or, like our office, tied to the wall. The coax would then be connected to splitters or higher end connection devices at a later date. A lot of our high end residential projects will get fitted with whole house entertainment systems with all the amps, tuners, etc in a distribution closet. Some of the panels that will handle all of the data, telephone & video can get pretty pricy. I'm not sure if you really need one.

[TB Roye]

Who is the phone service provider up at Tahoe? If it is ATT you could get Att Uverse that has TV, Phone, Internet all in one package and they would come out a hook up all your wire and cabling. Terminating Cat 5 isn't hard. BIL and I wire both his and my house for Cat5 before getting Att Uverse. Check around up there with all the resorts there should be some that can do what you want.

Tom

[turkeywire]

I just finished doing a retro fit because the walls were open due to hurricane damage(IKE).
Some comments Leviton (sp) is one of the leaders in structured wiring and panels check out their web site. One word of caution if you plan to ever connect to ATT uverse be aware most if not all you have installed will not work with their system. After installing a leviton structured panel, two cat 5 and coax to several rooms ATT came in and said we can't use any of that and bypassed it. I recommend you find an installer that is familar with fiber opitics and voip which is what uverse is. Hope this helps.

[JR]

I'm not sure I fully undertood your scenario, but here are a couple of comments.

Phone wiring can be done in parallel. If you have only one phone line, all nine rooms can be wired to the punch block and connected together. You can use the spare pairs in Cat 5 to enable more than one phone line.

Data wiring should NOT be done in parallel. Both ends of each run shuld be terminated in a modular RJ-45 connector. Plan to connect those cables to a switch or router in the wiring closet. Connections can be done directly, through a purpose-built panel, or with crossover cables as required. Do not connect one end to the switch while leaving the other end unconnected.

HTH,
JR

[jackellis]

This is turning out to be harder to explain than I thought.

Phone wiring can be done in parallel. If you have only one phone line, all nine rooms can be wired to the punch block and connected together. You can use the spare pairs in Cat 5 to enable more than one phone line.

Ideally what I'd like to be able to do with phone is patch one or more individual rooms into one phone line. This way I can patch my wife's incoming phone line to her studio, the bedroom, the kitchen and guest rooms as necessary. I can patch my phone line to my office, the living room, our bedroom and my shop. If I decide to remove one or more rooms from the phone line, all it should take is disconnecting a cable somewhere rather than pulling wires out of the 110 block. I can't figure out which of the available telephone distribution panels allows this and the pictures don't help me understand how they work.

Data wiring should NOT be done in parallel. Both ends of each run shuld be terminated in a modular RJ-45 connector.

This is what I was thinking also. Run data cables to a patch panel and use patch cables to attach rooms to the switch, hub or router. I've seen some photos where one end of a patch cable is punched (not in parallel) onto the 110 block and the other is attached to a hub or router, which would also be fine if it doesn't cause other problems.

[JR]

I've seen some photos where one end of a patch cable is punched (not in parallel) onto the 110 block and the other is attached to a hub or router, which would also be fine if it doesn't cause other problems.

Ethernet can sometimes be a bit finicky when punch blocks are in the circuit. There's no specific technical obstacle to going that route, but as speeds go up (1Gbps is now common, 10 Gbps on copper is available) the cross-talk and chatter associated with punch blocks becomes more apparent.

It's been a long time since I studied phone wiring choices. Can't help you there!

JR

[avbclark]

Structured Wiring

One option for the phones is to run all of the Cat 5 to a patch panel, then jumper with a cat5 patch cable to the room you want to connect to, however that only allows you to connect one line at a time.
You could go an easier less techy way....go with 2 line phones which are inexpensive and save all the bother.
http://cordlessphonesdirect.com/item.GE-29484GE2.php

[Kristofor]

I have 23 jacks around my house wired to a patch pannel in my basement (not this one, but about the same) http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2 )

Today these are all for ethernet use, but for a short period of time after moving in a few were used for analog phone connections. You want to make sure that when you're cross-connecting for phone that you're not using a 4 or 6 position connector that may bend the pins in the jack.

Your phone needs are easy enough to accomodate but you'll need another part and there are a couple ways to handle it. If you want all of your lines sent to all of your jacks you can use a simple bridge (like: http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ibeCC...&section=11641) with one the incoming phone lines connected to one row, and one (or more) cross connects attached to the others). I don't like this approach as much as it's a pain whenever you want to change something and if you don't have 3-4 line phones/devices then you may need to make custom cables/punchdowns depending on which line(s) you want at a given jack.

Another option is something more like this ( http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ibcGe...BE&appName=IBE ) which has all of that done for you (you simply patch the wall connection a jack into whichever setup you need for that location (line1-4 primary with other combos for lines 2-3-4).

All of this work is easy to do yourself (if tedious). A couple tips, follow ONE wiring termination standard for your jacks (either 568A or 568B, not both, and don't roll your own unless you have a really good reason). If you haven't done many terminations before buy or borrow an inexpensive testing tool that checks for correct wire pairs, pair order, and polarity not just conductivity (you'll save time troubleshooting later). For the number of connections you have in your house you should be able to finish easily in under a day, and that's assuming you putz around for a couple hours figuring things out on the first one or two connections.

[jackellis]

Another option is something more like this ( http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ibcGe...BE&appName=IBE ) which has all of that done for you (you simply patch the wall connection a jack into whichever setup you need for that location (line1-4 primary with other combos for lines 2-3-4).

Perfect! Exactly what I need.

Thanks

[gerti]

They are up to Cat 7a wiring these days. If you want to stick with 5, at least look for 5e.

A fiber-optic run might even be advisable. But then again by the time some new technology comes around your wiring may not fit... So some channels to retrofit wires later are always the best choice, but rarely possible.