Category 5 workings

Snake

I was under the impression that Cat 5 cable/wiring/etc. required all 4 pairs to properly function. I recently saw a product that could provide a Cat 5 data connection as well as up to two lines of phone along one Cat 5 run. I spoke with tech support for this product's company and they informed me that Cat 5 only required two pair.

I realize that they are probably right, but I have had no luck on the internet finding anything that explains what the various pairs of properly-terminated Cat 5 are used for during the operation of the cable.

Can anyone direct me somewhere on this? Or provide feedback based on what you know? At this point it's 100% curiosity.

Thanks.

Ruckus

100Mbit ethernet uses 2 pairs, the others are used for grounding/maintaining a clean signal. The grounding pairs become more important the longer the run (Ethernet officially supports 100 meters between devices). While you could theoretically use the grounding wires for phone signal, maintaining a stable ethernet connection through the crosstalk generated by analog or digital telephone may become a challenge at certain distances.

PirateJon

Snake wrote: »

Can anyone direct me somewhere on this? Or provide feedback based on what you know? At this point it's 100% curiosity.

1st google hit for "cat 5 pinout"

http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ethernetcables.html

Sarcastro

Ruckus wrote: »

100Mbit ethernet uses 2 pairs, the others are used for grounding/maintaining a clean signal. The grounding pairs become more important the longer the run (Ethernet officially supports 100 meters between devices). While you could theoretically use the grounding wires for phone signal, maintaining a stable ethernet connection through the crosstalk generated by analog or digital telephone may become a challenge at certain distances.

Yup.

You can terminate whatever you want as long as it matches, but network installers typically use white/blue and white/orange in a pinch, leaving white/green as the first pair to the second jack/line. In an IBDN networking termination jack, that would be pinning down the first two pair (lighting up 4,5,3,6, the middle four pins on an eight pin head/jack).

As was mentioned, and for those reasons, you don't want to stretch much past 20-30 ft in this way. Handy if you you need to turn a double jack into network on the top and dialtone on the bottom with a single CAT 5 run though. If one was truly creative, you could pin down #2 with 22 gauge, and ground it manually instead- it doesn't really matter how its grounded, as long as it is.