atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Telco cable vs Cat5e for voice

Hi Guys

I would like to know if it is recommended to use Cat5e cable for analogue voice.I am wiring up a hotel and was thinking of using each of the 4 pairs per cable to go into a room.

Thanks
Kimmy

Two questions, and two answers:

"Recommended"? no, but Cat5 will work fine.

"Using each of the four pairs..." Do you mean use one, 4-pair to serve 4 individual rooms? Not recommended. Too many splices to go wrong. Use a home-run 4-pair per room. Or better yet, two 4-pair home runs per room.

I can remember letting the "electrician" do a prewire in a motel. How inventive was that? He ran a 25-pair cable and split ONE pair per room. I was never so happy to cut that one over and get outta Dodge.

We only got one shot at it, since the pit in the old lobby was being covered up and the front desk moved about 30 feet. I spliced all the pairs, potted the splice case and ran fast.

Miracle of miracles, it still works to this day

Thanks for the replies,there are some guys that are not recommending it as the twist on the CAT5 is much greater.

I will give it a try though.

Thanks again.
Kimmy

The twist in Cat-5 is going to do nothing advantageous for voice.

Arthur: I did a double take at the advice you offered here in the 2nd and 3rd posts, but now you say run 2 4-pair cables per room. Which one has failed my sarcasm filter?

I always use Cat5E cable for voice. You never know when you change it over to data.

I see no reason to not use it for the home run from each room back to the telco closet or wherever the have it go.

Every building is different, and every job can be run in a bunch of different ways. He asked about Cat5, so I answered with advice using Cat5.

Would I wire a hotel this way? Absolutely not. But I'm a professional who is out of work because non-professionals do wonky and cheap work such as suggested in this thread.

Fight with customer, fight with competition, fight with sparky, fight with unlicensed "experts", fight with licensing board who are impotent, fight with ILEC...too old to fight.

Doesn't twisting offer an advantage over non-twisted pairs for longer cable runs even for analog and digital voice applications? The 4 pair CAT3 cable I've used has had conductor pairs twisted to varying degrees. Even 25 pair count has loose twisted conductors.
For analog and digital voice, my thought is CAT3. For data, CAT 5E would seem to be good for a hotel/motel.

Glad I'm not the only one who feels the way you do. And some people get mad when I criticize those people who have taken work away from me.

-Hal

Arthur and Hal make exceptional sense. Cat 3 four pair is fine for voice, however, try and find it at a reasonable price will be a challenge. Practically, it will probably be better to run one or two Cat 5 cables, per room, utilizing one pair for each telephone in the room.

In this area, the newer hotels have, at least, two phones in each room, hence the need for two cable runs per room. Many have more in a "suite" and some offer multiple conferencing for those in a group doing video and voice conferencing.

The rule of thumb, run four pair Cat 3 or 5 cables, one or more per room and terminate them in an area on each floor or every other floor on a Intermediate Distribution Frame (IDF) consisting of a 25 pair or greater conductor count feeder cable which terminates at the Main Distribution Frame (MDF) at the switch.

If it's a really small property, just run 4 pair home runs from each room back to the MDF. Splitting pairs and sharing pairs is the WRONG way to do a good wiring job. As Carl wrote, you may do a job like this, but you want to NEVER be called back to service it.

Rcaman