atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information what demarcation type used in new homes?

I see a lot of people knocking CAT5 for telephone here, my question is what is the harm?

Ever terminate CAT5 on a 66 block? If you do it properly how long does it take and how much extra effort does it take to untwist each pair and straighten out each wire so that you can cut it down compared to CAT nothing or CAT3?

We actually advise any new install customer where the premises has been prewired that if we have to work with CAT5 for our voice there will be an additional $5 charge for each cable termination.

This should go into a fund for the carpal tunnel surgery that I expect to need from working with the damn stuff.

-Hal

If you know you wont be doing IP Phones then Cat5 is a waste like hal said.

If you think you might want IP phones then you will need Cat5.

If it was a commercial building I would probably quote Cat5 for station cables just because it could be IP. For residential it'd all be 2-pair Cat3 unless it was a mansion or something special.

Cat5 won't hurt anything, but it is more of a pain to terminate and more expensive then 2-pair Cat3.

I don't believe they make two pair cat 3 any more and why would you use it for residential if they did 3 residential lines is not unheard of


we use primarily cat 3 for voice and 5 for data

unless its specked otherwise

(I do pull cat 5 for voice sometimes if it makes the pull easier ie:more boxs of cat 5 than 3 )

I've seen General Cable 2-pair CAT 3 for sale at Home Depot.

They make it alright, even quad. I have thousands of feet of it that we use for making patch cables, short surface runs and for wiring SNAPS cash register networks.

My local supplier sells cat 5, $6.00 cheaper than cat 3 guess where I don't buy wire as long as I have 3 days for shipping it is still cheaper that way. I think supply houses are thinking it is cheaper to stock fewer items. In the last couple of years I've run across brand new houses being wired with quad, I told the electrician that if the home owner got a second line it would be a party line

If you think you might want IP phones then you will need Cat5.

Well kinda. If you are going to have IP phones why would you need additional wiring? Unless of course you are installing another parallel network just for the phones. Then you have to think about more than just the wiring, like terminating on a patch panel and CAT5 jacks just like the data.

If you just punch down CAT5 on a 66 block the way us telecom guys do it, it's useless for data so why bother with CAT5?

Kjwiewall, show me some CAT5e plenum that is cheaper than CAT3. Plenum is all we use.

In the last couple of years I've run across brand new houses being wired with quad, I told the electrician that if the home owner got a second line it would be a party line.

There is a thread both here and over at a sparkie board about that. The sparkie thread went for 12 pages and we watched it here in our thread. It was real fun to see them spin and wiggle out of why they have no idea how it install voice and data wiring.

-Hal

There's no argument there, I agree 100% and do prefer CAT3 when I can get it but my local suppliers don't carry it anymore, only Graybar. You're the first person I've seen mention the installation as the reason versus "It arrives on cat nothing, why upgrade it?" I personally see no technical/electrical problem with using cat5 for voice, so I was wondering if someone had a technical reason for not using it.

Actually, there is an easier way to do it on CAT5 and maintain it's cat 5 rating on a 66 block. Most if not all new 66 Block are Cat 5 and 5e rated. Take the pair through the center of the 2 pins go up with one and down on the other. Of course you have to reverse your punch for the top punch but its a TON easier than untwisting the pair.

That's true, I have done it that way. On Siemon's website, their instruction guide for the S66-MI50 blocks shows it with Cat 5e cable. But I always use Cat 3 for voice and have never had a problem getting it from a supplier.