[KAT5] Off-the-Wall Question...

[Tom Bishop <tpbishop@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Keith (and others),
I have a wierd Ethernet/telephony wiring question, and don't know who else
to ask, so thought there might be enough expertise on this mailing list to
get a basic sense of an answer.

I have a house that was pre-wired for cable, Ethernet (Cat-6), and
telephone
to many of the rooms in the house back to a structured wiring closet in the
attic - so far, so good.  But I'm finishing the basement, but for some
reason
only an Ethernet line was run to the basement, but no telephone line, and I
need both wired Ethernet and wired telephone lines in the basement.

Now, I know that only four of the eight leads in a standard Ethernet cable
are actually used (1,2,3,and 6), that is, carry signal, so I was
wondering if I
could use the other four wires configured into one or two lead pairs for
one
or two telephone lines.  If it matters, the actual cable run from the attic
to
the basement is about 20 meters.

From what I've been able to read, the expectation is that the 4 unused
leads in a standard Ethernet cable are supposed to be grounded, so it
wouldn't surprise me if I get some cross-talk or loss of signal strength,
but I wanted to know if anyone on this e-mail alias could either tell me
that
my risks are low so go ahead, or that I'm a complete idiot and trying to
run
the two different signal types through one cable is a fool's errand.

I would even be interested to hear that, since pairs in an Ethernet cable
are twisted, if I run the Ethernet signal through two twisted pairs, and
the
phone signal through one or two of the other two twisted pairs
(admitting that,
for the length of the run between the two cabinets, my cabling is
completely
non-standard), I reduce the chances of cross-talk and/or signal loss.

I'll also be interested in hearing that I could get away with this if
I stick to
10/100, but all bets are off for 1G.
Thanks,
Tom


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