Buying MediaMVP

[HarryH3]

Now thats what I call dedicated. I would consider doing that but I'm currently finishing my basement....my wife would be pi**ed if I started two projects as such....

I will have to keep that one in mind though, our townhome is brand new and it wouldn't be too hard to get that going...

Got a price estimate for how much that was doing it yourself?

I would run some cable in the basement before you put up the drywall. That will save you a LOT of future headaches, plus it's easier to fish wire into the upstairs if you do it while there is easy access from below.

I spent $105 for the wall plates, tools, jacks, etc. There was another $120 or so for cable, $50 for the switch, and another $50 for a neat wall mounted network rack with a 24-port punch down block and patch cables (got that one off of e-bay).

I used a lot of cable because I routed the cables about 7 feet off of the attic floor to keep them away from AC current and so they wouldn't impede access to the attic. That alone added an extra 14 feet per run.

I was unable to use the existing phone wiring as it is daisy-chained through the house instead of using home runs to each room from a single spot.

[jpete1019]

wait a second...is there a way to either run ethernet along the phone wiring, or using the phone wiring? I have this in every room, and I would be tickled if I could use it for this cause...(I don't have a land line)

[jpete1019]

Or better yet, what is the typical wire that the phone uses? CAT5? Can't this be used for home networking....?

[FuzzyPapaBear]

Typical phone wiring uses Cat3 and depending on the age of your home the jacks could be daisy chained one after the other. This makes phone cabling unsuitable for network use. Your best bet is to run Cat5e to each room from a central location like Harry did. Other wise you could use the Phone- or Power-line ethernet converters but the network throughput might not be able to keep up with the demands of streaming video.

[soccerdad]

Ok, I have Cat5, not 5e for my phone lines. Will this work for ethernet as well combined with a single line phone? If so, what wires do you need for ethernet, since some are used for the phone?

Oops, I guess this cat 5 stuff is a major thread hijack. Sorry. I am still interested in the question though.....

[zaphod7501]

Ok, I have Cat5, not 5e for my phone lines. Will this work for ethernet as well combined with a single line phone? If so, what wires do you need for ethernet, since some are used for the phone?

Oops, I guess this cat 5 stuff is a major thread hijack. Sorry. I am still interested in the question though.....

They actually make adapters to break out the phone lines from the data lines and some to split the cable into two sets of data lines. Blue (4&5) and Brown (7&8) are the phone wires, Orange and Green are Data. This actually allows you to plug a standard phone plug into a RJ-45 jack to connect to the center pair (Blue).

I would suggest the breakout adapters for most people because Hubs generally pass through the phone pairs and 10baseT NICs leave them disconnected, but, (Warning) 10/100 NICs and Switches ground those wires. (This may not be universal but all of mine behave this way) My solution was to mount a phone plate next to the RJ-45 wallplate and disconnect the blue and brown from the Cat5 and run them to the phone jack wallplate.

[wtg]

I think Cat5 has fewer twists than Cat5e and so is not as good for high speed or long runs. I've never tried it before to know whether you would get acceptable performance or not. And as FuzzyPapaBear pointed out, if they're daisy chained from room to room instead of being a dedicated wire to each room, then that's a problem too. In my 4 year old home the phone installer ran a dedicated 5e line to each room, so it was ideal.

Re: the wiring though, 10/100Mb ethernet uses wires 1, 2, 3 and 6, while phone line #1 in the home is usually wired to wire 4 and 5, so you really can share both a phone and network drop.

One other potential problem is drop-outs when the line rings, as in theory you can have up to 70V coming down the wire, much higher than the 5V used by the network and potentially creating disturbance on the other wires. I've not experienced this at all though, and the 70V potential was more likely in the old days when people had real, large bell ringers on their phones. These took a lot more juice to fire up than today's small and mostly electronic ringers. I've never bothered to measure the voltage on the line when the phone rings at my house, but it doesn't disturb my network.

[wtg]

They actually make adapters to break out the phone lines from the data lines and some to split the cable into two sets of data lines. Blue (4&5) and Brown (7&8) are the phone wires, Orange and Green are Data. This actually allows you to plug a standard phone plug into a RJ-45 jack to connect to the center pair (Blue).

I would suggest the breakout adapters for most people because Hubs generally pass through the phone pairs and 10baseT NICs leave them disconnected, but, (Warning) 10/100 NICs and Switches ground those wires. (This may not be universal but all of mine behave this way) My solution was to mount a phone plate next to the RJ-45 wallplate and disconnect the blue and brown from the Cat5 and run them to the phone jack wallplate.

I used a smaller version of this: http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stor...=100396465 I think mine cost me $50-$60.

The 3 smaller panels on it are where you plug the network/phone wires in and then split the network from the phone. From there you take the network lines into your switch or router, and the phone lines plug into the center panel.

[FuzzyPapaBear]

Cat5 cable has 8 wires and like wtg said ethernet only uses four of those wires and phone uses two. So, If (and only IF) you have dedicated Cat5 lines in each room going to a central location then I would use ethernet splitters like Zaphod describes. If your phone installer terminated the lines to RJ11 jacks then you'll have to change them to RJ45 jacks and punch down all 8 wires in order to use the splitters. You can buy ethernet splitters like these:

http://www.amazon.com/Network-Pair-Split...49&sr=1-10

or build your own using these instructions:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-m...litter%22/

The only difference between Cat5 and Cat5e is that Cat5e is rated to handle 1,000mbps vs Cat5's 100mbps. If your cabling is Cat5 you should be able to get a 100mbps on a short run. If the run goes to the other end of your house then you might only be able to get a 10mbps link. (YMMV) Also keep in mind that the total "cable" distance between your hub/switch and the MVP should not exceed 328ft (100m). Good Luck!

[soccerdad]

Thanks to all, This may save me from spending a lot of time in the attic.