Cat5 converter

Spectral Swallow

So at my work we have a phone that uses the cat5 line, but my boss has bought a cordless phone, but it takes the standard phone line, so basically I was wondering if a converter exists to reduce it down. I called bestbuy, circuit city, and radio shack to no avail. I don't know if maybe they're all just ignorant(all of them were teenage sounding) about what they had, or if what I'm looking for even exists. Any help is appreciated.

Silmaril

are you in the US?

Edit, Best Buy, Circuit city...the clues were right there...






I don't know what your standard phone jacks are over there, but I know we have them here in the UK, converters that do that I mean. Our companies entire phone system uses phone to RJ45 converters.

CailYoung

Don't most 8P8C (i.e., cat 5) sockets also accept 4P4C cables (i.e. standard phone cables)?

Ruckus

If the phone uses a Cat5 cable it's quite possibly a VOIP extension. I'd need more information about your phone system to help you further.

MKR

When you say it uses cat 5, do you mean it has been modified in to what is essentially Cat 1 (phone line), or you have some sort of system that uses Cat5 for voice?

embrik

Yeah, if you're on a PBX or a VOIP system, you likely won't be able to use a standard, analog phone. However, some PBX systems can change a particular line to analog. Just don't go plugging it in until you're sure it will take it, otherwise, you could potentially break the new phone. If, however, you're not on a PBX, then you may be able to just plug the 4 pin connector into the 8 pin socket without an issue.

Barrakketh

MKR wrote: »

When you say it uses cat 5, do you mean it has been modified in to what is essentially Cat 1 (phone line)

I thought it was RJ11?

bombardier

You can plug a phone line into a RJ45 connector, but depends on what the actual phone system is. I have a couple phone lines in my house that I setup with Cat5 and RJ45, but that's because I just wired the right pins. Who knows how they have it done.

blincoln

Yeah, you'll need to talk to the person/people who handle the telecom gear to find out if it's possible. Like other people have said, it depends on if the system is set up for digital, analogue, or both. They should also be able to tell you what you need in terms of an adapter if it is possible on the system that's there.

Ruckus

The industry standard among phone guys and network techs is to wire all wallports using RJ45-F to the T568A or T568B straight ethernet standard using Cat5 or Cat5e cable.

In this configuration, pins 4 and 5 are the whiteblue and blue wires at both ends, and plugging a standard two wire analog or digital phone line using RJ11 connectors system utilizes only the 4 and 5 wires.

Additionally, in this configuration, since RJ45 connectors and Cat5 cabling has 4 pairs of wires, splitting devices can be built to give each cable run up to four analog or four digital telephone connections.

And finally, by wiring using this standard, the ports in the future can be patched to Ethernet switches, allowing VoIP phones to be used.

Thanatos

You need to talk to the guy who does your phone system, because plugging the wrong thing into there can fry the jack (I know we've done it at my office before).

MKR

Barrakketh wrote: »

MKR wrote: »

When you say it uses cat 5, do you mean it has been modified in to what is essentially Cat 1 (phone line)

I thought it was RJ11?

RJ11 is the little plastic connector. RJ11 is the small phone line one; RJ45 is the big digital network one. It's all the same kind of cable, just different configurations.

Spectral Swallow

I gotta say I didn't understand about half the stuff in this thread.
As for what we have, I work for a large corporation, and we have probably 75-100 phones. So we need the cat 5 line to I guess seal in the sound or something. But we can't plug the cat 5 into the normal phone as the cat 5 line is far too large.
Any additional information you need I can provide, but I'm not real familiar with phones, unfortunately.

Feral

Spectral, we need to know what kind of phone system you have. A really easy way for us to figure that out is for you to give us the brand and model number of one of your desk phones.

Ruckus

What Spectral needs to know is that he nor his boss should be dicking with the phone system. Call your IT Department, or whichever department admins the phones (creates extensions, resets passwords, etc).

redimpulse

Willing to bet you're running a PBX system. Contact your telecom department (helpdesk probably has the number) and speak to them about getting the PBX in his office switched to analog if he absolutely has to have that cordless.

There are also companies that make PBX compatible cordless handsets - you may consider looking into those to retain the PBX functionality and features.

Sarcastro

Spectral Swallow wrote: »

So at my work we have a phone that uses the cat5 line,

This is saying you have a phone with a big jack (RJ45) plugged into a big hole.

Spectral Swallow wrote:

my boss has bought a cordless phone, but it takes the standard phone line,

This is saying you have a device with a small head (RJ 11), and would like to put it in a big hole.

The answer to this is part is that you can plug it in, but it probably wont work. Networked phones (VOIP) are not the same as analog phones (RJ11).

This would be like using a phone cord to plug your network card into a phone line and trying to dial up with it. Not gonna happen. Two completely different technologies.

Spectral Swallow wrote:

As for what we have, I work for a large corporation, and we have probably 75-100 phones. So we need the cat 5 line to I guess seal in the sound or something. But we can't plug the cat 5 into the normal phone as the cat 5 line is far too large.

One uses the cat5 line to connect to a business phone because that kind of phone has a network card inside of it.

Essentially, you are trying to plug a phone into a router. No werky. To the power of deargod y.

You need a networked phone. You can call your telephone line provider, and ask them to ship one out to you. They are substantially more expensive than an ordinary phone, and generally need to be requisitioned through the IT guys because its part of the computer network.

AtomBomb

We had a similar situation at work, and it was/is a pain in the ass. There is ONE cordless phone, and one phone only, that will work with our system (12 line Panasonic). It is $400. It doesn't get along with our wifi, so that kind of sucks. I had to buy 3 of these fucking things.

You can use an analog phone if you get the line set to analog. However, you (your boss) will lose almost all the advanced features. Being able to access multiple lines will probably be the biggest one. You won't be able to tell your boss he has a call on line 5. You'd have to transfer the call to whatever his extension is, and if he's on the phone at the time, I guess the call gets dumped to voicemail.

Also, our analog lines (fax, credit card and alarm) all have to dial 9 to get out, whereas the digital ones don't. Can be confusing for people not familiar with the system.