Cat 6 point and telephone point

Hi,

Can some one tell me if a phone can be be use at a cat 6 point or is this solely for computer use, is there a different connector from a phone point? If a phone can run on this cable would it be better to run cat 6 through out the house instead of normal phone wire?

Cheers

Cat 6 cable and telphone cable are not cross-compatible and have different connectors, so could you explain what it is you are trying to achieve?

You can run either or both around the house but they will serve different purposes, unless you use a bridge / router / converter box.

Hi Mathepac,

I thought cat 6 can be used for broadband, or is this connection from the modem to the computer?
If it was compatable i was going to replace the phone points with cat 6 points as there was only a 10 euro difference offered by the electrician.
What exactly can cat 6 be used for?

Cheers

in basic speak.... cat 6 or cat 5 is used as a network.
What you need to do is ask yourself

(a) where you are going to plug in your phones, and get phone sockets (RJ11) there, connected to the main entry point for eircom or bt.

(b) where are you going to have your computers, media centres, media devices, ip cameras, audio points etc, and have data sockets there, connected to where your router is going to be (increasingly out of sight nowadays, and more often than not beside the phone entry point.) Data points are then networked to this central point with CAT5 or CAT6 cable.

hope this helps

hi johnnyg

CAT6 is a (theoretically higher throughput) version of what is colloquially called "network cable". It is used to distribute a home network around your house. By using a router or switch you can connect to the internet, stream music, CCTV, control lights etc. It's rumoured that some people even use it for work!

You can run a phone over CAT6 - you'll either need to terminate that particular cable to an RJ11 phone port - or get a converter cable to convert the RJ11 phone port to a RJ45 network port. Or, if you're adventurous, you can run a voice-over-IP service over your broadband.

CAT6 is more expensive than the lower-performance CAT5e (which is what is installed in most offices etc.) but you might want to specify it for future-proofing. Bear in mind though that you'll need to get CAT6-rated patch panels, wallplates etc.

If you go down the network route make sure all your cables are brought back to a single point (near where your bband and/or phone will come in) - you'll put your network equipment in here.

There's quite a few guides on Google which it would be worthwhile reading.

Good luck
SSE

cheers seapoint and sse, that makes sense

If going down the network route have a look at irishhomenet.One wall termination can carry 4-8 services using various adaptors.It is the size of a single wall plate so you can have tv, phone , internet all of the one plate at the same time. It uses a central com with patch cables to enable change of service.Curentally installing in my new build.

johnnyg said:

Can some one tell me if a phone can be be use at a cat 6 point

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Yes, you can run analogue phone signals over Cat-5. You can plug a standard RJ-11 phone plug into the RJ-45 networking wall jack, but only the middle wires will be used (or needed) for the phone.

If a phone can run on this cable would it be better to run cat 6 through out the house instead of normal phone wire?

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There's no harm running Cat-6 data cable instead of phone wire, but it won't be a huge amount of use if you don't have a plan for how you will use it. For data or flexible use you'd normally wire all the wall points and your incoming lines (phone, TV) up to a central point where you can patch the various lines together to distribute the services you require.