Home Improvement → Re: Just out of curiosity: Phone wiring in new construction

I totally agree with you. I have starting asking tenants if they plan to have a "house phone" just out of curiosity and no one has one anymore. My response was more to the OP in the original post "telling the few tenants who want a home phone to go with a cable company telephone offering or a VoIP offering". So while practically no one uses it anymore, as a landlord I don't feel that I can forbid the Telco from my rental. With that being the case, I would rather have it reasonably wired so nothing additional is needed, whether it is an old house, remodel, or new construction.

New construction "should" have cat5e/cat6 pairs, RG6Quad (pair)" bundle to every room (even bathroom). Although FO is nice (I have it as a backbone from basement to attic), I've not terminated it, nor have any need (it was a free bundle so why complain)...

Wifi is "not" a complete solution. Aside from the usual interference (kitchens, glass, steel, stone), there can be other factors that don't make it 100% nice. Still, it should be factored in if say, homeowner wants outside signal, signal in garage, or ubiquitous coverage on their property. Having Cat5e/Cat6 to allow for access points or to run PoE is forward thinking (albeit how forward as tech evolves rapidly).

Having spare pairs is wise but wasteful, and used up space. I agree with just planning LV to every room, with fishtape for future needs should be more than adequate.

No alarm systems? They still work better with POTS.

For the OP: Running a 22/4 or 24/4 cable during construction must be pretty cheap. Why not do it?

My alarm system works fine with Comcast Digital Voice. Several things to consider when getting Comcast is it is better to opt for a self install with Comcast and have the alarm contractor do the inside wiring as alarm contractors know how to properly wire a telephone line for line seizure and Comcast has been known to mess up phone wiring and not wire the RJ31X properly. In my case, I opted for a self install as I did the alarm wiring myself when I installed the alarm. I bought the alarm system from www.homesecuritystore.com and had a local alarm contractor take over the monitoring. It may be more expensive to have the alarm contractor do the VoIP wiring but it will be done properly and alarm installers in most jurisdictions (unless a homeowner/tenant is installing the system in their own home depending on jurisdiction) doing so for hire must be licensed and undergo a CORI (criminal background check).

And if there's a power failure?

The modem has a battery backup in it and I have it plugged into a UPS power supply.

How long will your batteries last? And what about Comcast's equipment? Do they have batteries? How long will they last? Alarm system batteries should last 24 hours and then be able to sound an alarm for 4 minutes.

These are all things you don't have to worry about with POTS, hence my statement that alarm systems work better with POTS.

Exactly. This is why I'm reluctant to move off DSL to cable. The cable company nodes are powered by the electric utility, and in theory, they have batteries in them. But I know how much maintenance Mediacom does (as little as possible), and even then, the batteries aren't going to last as long as the telco CO will. It has a generator, and my ADSL circuit is CO based, so it should stay up as long as any overhead wires are up.

Not necessarily, many new installations are now making notifications through Internet connections or cellular connections. Many are even using VOIP phone connections without any problems. The thought that alarm systems require POTS lines is very out of date.

that's fine i guess except that the last major power interruption we had here in jax the pots, cell and water all went down in less than 24hrs following the poco failure

The batteries are going to die for the alarm panel anyway at which point it doesn't matter if you have that a connection to the monitoring station or not. Besides in my installation we have a 20kw generator backup system for the entire house. Also companies that provide telephone service (either table or twisted pair) are required to have generators preinstalled on their nodes that, and automatically in the event of a power failure, problem solved!

your house generator powers the local communications grid?? Cool!

Read carefully: I didn't say alarm systems require POTS, said they work better with POTS. POTS has a better uptime (my cable company takes down their phone service at times for maintenance) and there are next to no power failure issues.

My cable company says their phone service is not supported for use with UL burglar or fire alarm systems.

Also, what do the UL standards say about alarm signalling?