sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Here's one I never heard before.

To answer the question of why sparkie used CAT5 for the phone wiring I give you something I just saw over at the sparkie forum:

My irrigaton wiring consists of a cat5 cable coming out from under the house, spliced to another cat5 cable...

My reply was "Hey, good work. You never know when someone may want to use that wiring for a computer".

-Hal

Cat5e cable, which provides UV resistance and low temperature flexibility, is widely available. This cable typically carries a CMX rating and is intended for short runs between the NID and the house.

I cannot say the same about cat3. The last time I saw a CMX-rated cat3 cable intended for short runs between the NID and the house is ????. Probably never. Your standard CMR/CMP cat3 falls apart outside just as fast as your standard CMR/CMP cat5.

That being said, I have some CMR cat3 outside between the NID and the house. Total exposed length is about a foot. It's been there for at least 7 years. It has not fallen apart.

CMX listed CAT3 is widely available also. Just not from ebay, Home Depot, computer supply or electrical supply houses.

-Hal

Wait, here you go:

https://www.homedepot.com/Electrica...-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

I do believe that is the exact, ahem, garbage that an office space I'm working on was pre-wired with.

They even daisy-chained it from outlet to outlet.

Verizon used to use a REALLY NICE outdoor wire that had a black shiny PVC jacket the same as overhead service wire. I believe it came in both 4 pair and 6 pair. I tracked it down but I would have to have bought about 100,000 feet.

-Hal

Verizon's been using the outdoor-rated cat5e in the FIOS installs. It's the beige General Cable stuff.

Why is it that the harder it is to track a product down, the more of you have to buy (if you want it) when you finally find it?

Garbage? Not if it us used in the application that it is designed for.
Daisy chained? :nono:

Why is it that the harder it is to track a product down, the more of you have to buy (if you want it) when you finally find it?

I'm familiar with the beige stuff. Probably because nobody knows about it so distributors don't stock it and if you want it they have to place a minimum order.

I believe the black stuff was made for Verizon and they would be happy to make some for me- if I bought as much as Verizon.

-Hal

It's quality is suspect, mainly because I know that GE does not make their own cable. I expect that if I ran the UL file number on the cable, it would come back to some company in China that I've never heard of. My main concern would be the durability of the cable jacket over time.

Yes, it was daisy-chained. They installed this in the wall and closed it up. The business that made this decision folded (can't say that I'm surprised), and a new business is in the space.