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

In the CAT3 vs CAT5 argument.

I have a customer who just bought a house. House was wired by a typical sparkie- CAT5 home runs from telephone jacks dumped out through a hole in the wall to the telco demarc. House was occupied before so all the drops are connected in the demarc for two lines. Then the previous owner had FiOS installed. Verizon just runs two pair from the ONT, located inside the house next to the electrical panel in the basement, out to the demarc and cuts the BSW. I was called to install a couple of new jacks which I start to do with my CAT3 of course. I tell the homeowner that I have to return with a helper to fish the walls from the attic for the remainder. That was last Thursday.

I get a call today from the homeowner that I should hold off because over the weekend he met another friend of his that does AV work and wired his own house. This guy tells the homeowner that he should be using all CAT5 and CAT5 jacks. (Even sparkie didn't use CAT5 jacks, matter of fact they are combo cable and 6P/6C jack plates.) And of course this guy is willing to do this for a small fee.

So in talking with the homeowner about this, his friend is going to pull all those drops from outside and punch them down on a patch panel. Then he is going to replace all the jacks. I ask the homeowner why he would want to do this. "So he can plug his computers in." My reply is "but you have a wireless router that you are already using from FiOS and all you have is laptops. Why would you want to do that?"

His reply is that his wife may want to take her laptop and sit with it on her lap in another room so she will have to plug it in.

I don't make these things up.

-Hal

I...I...I got nothing

How does Ron White say it....."You can't fix stupid!"

This project will bite them someday.

x2
:shhh:

Yeah...hope they call you back when sparky can't make it work!

Has anyone ever figured out the rationale for running CAT5 home runs outside to the network interface? That seems to be the norm, as in Hal's situation. What do these people think? A signal delivered over "CAT Zero" cable will suddenly jump to life when split out into several CAT5 runs?

I don't care if the cable runs are CAT Twenty, they cannot possibly do anything to improve signal quality or deliver it better. PERIOD!

Again, what are people thinking?

Now Ed, incase you didn't know... CAT Twenty is not officially recognized yet. It is still only class ZZZZZZZZZZX666 cable. Don't you know the correct terminology?

I can see a use for ONE cat5 run to the NID:

The Verizon ONT has an Ethernet port on it, so if you had CAT5 to the network interface you could have Verizon use that instead of coax and the Actiontec MOCA router.

Multiple home runs with cat5 to the NID is just plain stupid. At least, hopefully, they aren't behind a finished wall so you can pull them inside and terminate them on a proper block so you can use them for voice or data as needed.

Incidentally, I have a laptop and wireless..but I plug it in if I have to transfer a lot of data from the laptop to my server (wireless is slower) or if the wireless is having problems (which is known to happen--there are many things that can interfere).

Bottom line is, wireless is slower and less reliable than a wired network (also less secure).

Bottom line is, wireless is slower and less reliable than a wired network (also less secure).

True enough for some businesses and power users. But consider this guy is only surfing the net, no kids and nothing is networked. (That's an internet jack on the wall you know.) I have wireless and wired here and regularly transfer large files over the network through an access point to and from our wireless laptops and never had a problem. Might be a bit slower but I have no problem waiting that extra few seconds in some cases. And don't hold your breath for everybody to get better than 50Mb/s internet. We are lucky to get 15 here.

The Verizon ONT has an Ethernet port on it, so if you had CAT5 to the network interface you could have Verizon use that instead of coax and the Actiontec MOCA router.

I can't understand why they use an EMTA/wireless router and tie up a splitter port when they have an ethernet port on the ONT. Maybe Verizon techs are more comfortable running coax than CAT5. At any rate, that Actiontec has four ethernet ports on it also.

-Hal

I’m not sure if the purpose of the new drops was clear but were these for data? If so then why would you want to run CAT3? In a home its even more important to have the best cable you can afford to go in because of the difficulty in recabling. That way you can designate a cable run for voice or data just by changing a jack and making a cross connection of some kind. The minimum required cabling in residential is CAT5e so why would any cabling professional even try to argue about using Cat3 instead? I think your just shooting yourself in the foot especially if you’re bidding against anyone else who can easily just say “This guy is using the wrong cable”. The cost between CAT5e and CAT3 is not a factor. What is Cat5e around 10-15 dollars higher? Is that really a big deal in the grand scheme of things? I believe that’s an extra 2 cents per foot for CAT5e. Am I really the only person in this sea of cabling professionals who sees something wrong with trying to push CAT3 cable??? If sparky ran CAT5 then they were actually doing the right thing. Wireless is not the end all be all in home networking. There are lots of devices like home media servers that demand a hard wired connection in order to stream well.