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jerryk1234
Premium Member
join:2010-04-16

jerryk1234

Premium Member

House Wiring

Hello,

I have a newer house that was wired with cable coax to every room, and also CAT5. All the cables and CAT5's terminate in a "home run box" in one of the closets.
Life is sweet.... Or is it?

The CAT5's are mostly dedicated to (ick) POTS. In order to get both a telephone and a network connection in my office, I had to run a second CAT5 along the side of the house. It's a really nice house, and I don't want to festoon it with wires.

The coax cables.... Most of them are being used for DISH network, which AFAIK is incompatible with everything else, because DC power is fed to the antenna through the coax. I have in the past used MOCA stuff. I don't like it much - it seems power hungry ( gets hot ) and it's slow compared to gigabit Ethernet.

I could have real network heaven if I could just get rid of the POTS. VOIP phone in
each room... But I don't want each room to have its own phone number. Are there VOIP phones that work like multiple POTS phones connected to the same line?

And before someone else mentions it, yes I do have wifi in the house. But wireless is just not as good as a wire. Never is.
aguen
Premium Member
join:2003-07-16
Grants Pass, OR

aguen

Premium Member

A couple of things for your consideration; Are you sure your enet cable is actually cat5 and not cat6? How long ago did you move in? If, the enet cable is actually cat6 then you should be able to run phone and gigabit enet over that cable.

With regard to multiple voip phones/numbers, you would have the same problem with POTS for multi-line setup. Also, whats your ISP speed profile?
HELLFIRE
MVM
join:2009-11-25

HELLFIRE to jerryk1234

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to jerryk1234
said by jerryk1234:

Are there VOIP phones that work like multiple POTS phones connected to the same line?

IP PBX... just depends where you're getting your VOIP service from.

Otherwise I'm with aguen See Profile about confirming whether it's cat5, cat5e or cat6 cabling. I'm also curious what the
"home run box" is... is it an actual ethernet switch? Or something like a bix(?) block?

My 00000010bits

Regards

shdesigns
Powered By Infinite Improbabilty Drive
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join:2000-12-01
Stone Mountain, GA
(Software) pfSense
ARRIS SB6121

shdesigns to jerryk1234

Premium Member

to jerryk1234
said by jerryk1234:

Are there VOIP phones that work like multiple POTS phones connected to the same line?

I have Callcentric service. You can set up multiple extensions. I have an ATA adapter that connects to the house wiring. I also have a VOIP client app on my cell phone. Same # but different extension #s. Could be multiple #s if desired.

Have it set up to ring all extensions and even fall over to my cell phone if not connected.

You can get VOIP phones. A VOIP PBX would work but you can also do it with the VOIP service.
jerryk1234
Premium Member
join:2010-04-16

jerryk1234 to aguen

Premium Member

to aguen
It's definitely cat5. Doesn't have the plastic separator thing. And I'm not sure what CAT6 has to do with running POTS & enet over a single cable. For gigabit, you need all four pairs - two going one way, the other two going the other way. I did investigate using one pair for POTS and two other pairs for 100-megabit ethernet. What dissuaded me was that high-power ringing pulse. There would surely be some crosstalk when the phone rings, enough to disrupt the ethernet, maybe even enough to break the equipment?
jerryk1234

jerryk1234 to HELLFIRE

Premium Member

to HELLFIRE
The home run box is just that - a box. It's a metal box flush mounted in the closet wall. The cat5 cables come into the box and are connected together as necessary for POTS with wire nuts. The coax cables are in the same box, connected with barrels and splitters. I have gradually been labelling the cables as I find out where they go, and crimping RJ45's onto them.

tschmidt
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join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
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tschmidt to jerryk1234

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to jerryk1234
If you want to stay with POTS have you thought about using wireless telephones. That way you could convert the existing Cat wiring to Ethernet and run a new telephone drop to the wireless phone base station. Even if wiring is only Cat5 rather then Cat5e should work just fine for Gig in a residential setting.

As you have already figure out aguen See Profile is incorrect. 10 and 100 Mbps Ethernet use two pair (one for Tx, one for Rx) Gig uses all four in both directions simultaneously.

/tom

Hard Harry7
join:2010-10-19
Narragansett, RI

Hard Harry7

Member

POTS over ethernet sounds tempting, but I just think it would hinder you in the long run. You could go wireless like others have mentioned. DECT 6.0 works on 1.9Mhz band so shouldn't effect your Wifi. Or not sure if these guys are still around, but it looked like a interesting product

»www.plugpbx.org/
jerryk1234
Premium Member
join:2010-04-16

jerryk1234

Premium Member

Extremely interesting. Open source PBX? I have a couple raspberry pi's laying around, I wonder if it would run on them? In the meantime, I'm downloading an ISO of the freePBX distribution, and I'll be loading it into a VirtualBox to play with it.

Hard Harry7
join:2010-10-19
Narragansett, RI

Hard Harry7

Member

said by jerryk1234:

I wonder if it would run on them?

Yes
»www.raspberry-asterisk.org/faq/
resare
join:2012-11-07
Greenfield Park, QC

resare to jerryk1234

Member

to jerryk1234
POTS over wireless phone wins the draw ! I personnaly have the same setup at home. I have every room wired, but simply went with a 2-phone wireless set plugged into my ATA. You can then reclaim your cat5 wires ( stuck at 100 i think )
jerryk1234
Premium Member
join:2010-04-16

jerryk1234

Premium Member

Wireless loses for me. Do a google for "DECT insomnia".

Hard Harry7
join:2010-10-19
Narragansett, RI

Hard Harry7

Member

"Damn it Jim, Im a engineer not a Doctor" XD

I think VOIP is the way to go..just what kind of VOIP. Alot of that depends what features you need and what your price point is. Just PLEASE stay away from magicjack. Star FAAAR away.

nunya
LXI 483
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O Fallon, MO
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nunya to jerryk1234

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to jerryk1234
Almost any reputable VoIP provider allows you to set up "extensions" just as you would with a PBX. All of the extensions can share the same number (ring groups).
Look at VoIP.ms

I run raspbx on a BBB revC and it does just fine. I've actually been using asterisk for well over a decade though. Were it not for a few features like wake-up calls and easy blacklisting, I would simply use VoIP.ms as my "PBX". I still do a lot of "backend" on their server before the call ever hits my PBX system.

While I've always had astounding results with MoCA (real MoCA) since install #1, I understand DISH uses a proprietary "MoCA" system of their own.
fartness (banned)
Donald Trump 2016
join:2003-03-25
Look Outside

fartness (banned) to jerryk1234

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to jerryk1234
As it seems it's been mentioned, can't you get rid of POTS and convert the cat 5 in your house to be used for Ethernet connectivity? Might need a switch and probably a crimper. Then use VoIP and you're all set.

My house is wired in a similar way. A few rooms have cat 5 that was used for POTS by the previous residents. Because of wireless internet and no need for a home phone, I never got around to doing the same thing. I would just have to cut the ends off and put a wall plate there for Ethernet, rather than POTS.
jerryk1234
Premium Member
join:2010-04-16

jerryk1234

Premium Member

Yeah, that's what I'm leaning to. It's such a waste to use all that CAT5 for POTS. I already have
a couple of gigE switches stuck to the wall next to the homerun box. As a first step, I am in the process of ditching DSL in favor of cable Internet.
cramer
Premium Member
join:2007-04-10
Raleigh, NC
Westell 6100
Cisco PIX 501

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cramer to aguen

Premium Member

to aguen
said by aguen:

If, the enet cable is actually cat6 then you should be able to run phone and gigabit enet over that cable.

No, you cannot. No amount of quality can trump gig-e's use of all four pairs. Also, it is a VERY Bad Idea(tm) to run POTS and ethernet through the same cable. (POTS ring voltage is ~90V, and it's very prone to carrying lightning.)

I would also serious doubt anyone went to the trouble and expense of using Cat6. Cat5e is dirt cheap and very easy to work with.
jerryk1234
Premium Member
join:2010-04-16

jerryk1234

Premium Member

Yup. Hold that pair while it's ringing, and it'll talk to you!
Body Count
join:2010-09-11
Columbus, OH

1 recommendation

Body Count to jerryk1234

Member

to jerryk1234
I've been shocked before by a pots line while working with a 66 block punching down something else. It's not at bad at 110volt but it still makes you jump back.
jerryk1234
Premium Member
join:2010-04-16

jerryk1234

Premium Member

So I now have working cable internet in the garage. Need to get it up to the server room. Don't want to drill a lot of holes in my house. I had an idea - one part of the garage ceiling is right under the server room. I'm going to route a 100-foot CAT5 cable from the cable modem up to the ceiling. I will then mount a wifi access point up on the garage ceiling. In the server room, another identical access point. I will set them both up for WDS bridging. This should make the Linux server look like it's connected straight to the comcast modem - except that the throughput will be halved, because radio bridges are half-duplex. But half of 100megabits/second is 50, which is about the same as the cable.

My server does the routing for the home network. Also firewalling, fileserver, mySQL, webserver, mailserver, etc etc. I believe I might also set up an Asterisk PBX on that machine.

bdnhsv
join:2012-01-20
Huntsville, AL

bdnhsv

Member

Have you thought about or looked at any of the commercially available EOP (Ethernet over Power) adapters? It might be a better solution than what you're contemplating.
jerryk1234
Premium Member
join:2010-04-16

jerryk1234

Premium Member

No, I haven't. This is only a temporary thing. When I go total VOIP, I'll have CAT5 gigE to every room anyway. I agree, EOP is an interesting technology. I just went and looked at a few. One problem I see is that the cable modem is fussy about the MAC address of the device you hook it to. It needs to match the MAC address of the computer you originally used to get the modem working. Ick. Unfortunately, the powerline devices have their own MAC addresses. It might still work, if the FROM address of the originating station is preserved, and not replaced with the address of the first powerline station that the packet hits. It could also work if the unit supports MAC address cloning....

Hard Harry7
join:2010-10-19
Narragansett, RI

1 edit

Hard Harry7

Member

said by jerryk1234:

It needs to match the MAC address of the computer you originally used to get the modem working

POE would be to extend connection from router to access point, so the MAC Comcast sees would be the same. Also, do you have Comcast Residential? If so, when ever you want to change the device(MAC address) connected to the modem, you just need to power cycle the modem. It restarts the DHCP process with the new MAC attached. If it's Comcast Business with a static IP, then that's different.

::Edit:: Just fact checking myself on the power cycle thing. Here it is official
»customer.comcast.com/hel ··· r-router
jerryk1234
Premium Member
join:2010-04-16

jerryk1234

Premium Member

Excellent! Yes, it's Comcast Residential. If all I have to do is cycle the modem, it's a non-issue.
I do have a home server, and I will have to get dynamic DNS working. It will be a little complicated, because I have this paranoid firewall that uses the "external IP" in a lot of filters. So when the IP changes, I'll have to reload the firewall. I have till May 1st to get all this working - that's when my old internet goes away. For now, I'm going to be hooking the comcast up to my backup server, which at the moment does not have an Internet connection ( except through main server over the internal network ). That way, I can play with it while the main server cranks along on the "old" internet.
jerryk1234

jerryk1234 to bdnhsv

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to bdnhsv
I just ordered a pair. I think it is indeed a better solution.

JJ Johnson
Premium Member
join:2001-08-25
Fort Collins, CO

JJ Johnson to jerryk1234

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to jerryk1234
You may end up unable to achieve gigabit speeds over the existing ethernet cabling, in any case. Have you tried it yet on any of the longer runs?
jerryk1234
Premium Member
join:2010-04-16

jerryk1234

Premium Member

I'll accept whatever I get. I've got one run, from the wiring closet to my office, converted to Ethernet. Seems to be plenty fast, I haven't really measured it.
jerryk1234

jerryk1234

Premium Member

I just got a pair of the ethernet-over-powerline units. Plugged'em in, hooked'em up, they Just Worked. Supposedly, by pressing the button on one, and then on the other, they set up an encrypted link.
jerryk1234

jerryk1234

Premium Member

My backup server is now hooked up to Comcast.
fartness (banned)
Donald Trump 2016
join:2003-03-25
Look Outside

fartness (banned) to jerryk1234

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to jerryk1234
Yes, they're quite simple to use. Keep in mind that what you have plugged in anywhere in the same circuit can affect performance. I spent hours doing speed tests on mine to find the fastest speeds and best combinations. There would even be times that in the same outlet, I would get faster speeds from the top plug versus the bottom one.