Request for Telephone/DSL Wiring advice
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:37 pm
Since my kid has started to crawl, he's found the phone cable between the wall jack and the DSL modem, and thinks it's a great toy. On the plus side, I have a basement under a good amount of the house, so cable access is relatively easy; on the minus side, there are a lot of options.
Existing phone wiring: several jacks throughout the home, home run (cat3) to the NID outside. Only two jacks are in use; one in the office (cordless phone and fax machine/wifi printer), other in the living room with dangly cable going behind the tv. Getting 6 mbps ADSL behind an RT.
Existing network wiring: patch panel and switch in the basement; two ethernet ports behind the entertainment center to a keystone plate with one spot unused. Linux PC in the entertainment center does routing/firewall/nat.
Option 1: pull a new home run (cat5 because I have a box of that) from the NID to the keystone plate, and terminate with a RJ-11 jack. (Option 1a: scavenge the run from an unused jack). DSL modem is still in the living room, but cable is secured from infant.
Option 2: pull a new home run from the NID to the RJ-45 patch panel; plug a RJ-11 cable in to go from the patch panel to the modem, and pull a new ethernet line to connect the modem back to the living room. (How bad is it to terminate a phone line on an RJ-45 patch panel?) Downside is I can't see the blinky lights without going into the basement and probably can't have my wife tell me which lights are blinking when things stop working.
Option 3: pull an ethernet (or two) to the fax machine/wifi printer (could be a wired printer), and move the modem there. (Would reduce to one jack in use, might count for something). Complication here is I do have to go into crawl space to access this jack.
Option 4: something I haven't thought of.
Thanks for your time and advice!
Existing phone wiring: several jacks throughout the home, home run (cat3) to the NID outside. Only two jacks are in use; one in the office (cordless phone and fax machine/wifi printer), other in the living room with dangly cable going behind the tv. Getting 6 mbps ADSL behind an RT.
Existing network wiring: patch panel and switch in the basement; two ethernet ports behind the entertainment center to a keystone plate with one spot unused. Linux PC in the entertainment center does routing/firewall/nat.
Option 1: pull a new home run (cat5 because I have a box of that) from the NID to the keystone plate, and terminate with a RJ-11 jack. (Option 1a: scavenge the run from an unused jack). DSL modem is still in the living room, but cable is secured from infant.
Option 2: pull a new home run from the NID to the RJ-45 patch panel; plug a RJ-11 cable in to go from the patch panel to the modem, and pull a new ethernet line to connect the modem back to the living room. (How bad is it to terminate a phone line on an RJ-45 patch panel?) Downside is I can't see the blinky lights without going into the basement and probably can't have my wife tell me which lights are blinking when things stop working.
Option 3: pull an ethernet (or two) to the fax machine/wifi printer (could be a wired printer), and move the modem there. (Would reduce to one jack in use, might count for something). Complication here is I do have to go into crawl space to access this jack.
Option 4: something I haven't thought of.
Thanks for your time and advice!