ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Phone & CATV

Red/green/black/yellow has actually been gone for quite some time. Most electrical device manufacturers have their phone jacks made in China or Taiwan. There are so many millions and millions of them out there that this color standard will probably never go away. Not to mention that it's been the standard for over 75 years. In the grand scheme of things, is the color code really a big deal? Probably not if everything is wired correctly. The relationship between older and newer wire pairing has been the same since at least the 1950's, if not even earlier.

Some US manufacturers (the ones who still manufacture in the US) offer jacks with either color pattern you want. You just have to ask for it.

Rule of thumb: If it's screw-terminal terminations, then it's most likely the imported stuff and not rated for any category (ie: CAT1,2,3,4,5,5e, etc.). If it's quick connect (IDC), then it is possible that it can carry a category rating.

Now, I have a question: Why do people think that they need to run CAT5 cable for voice? That is the functional equivalent of running 8/3 Romex for a bathroom fan. Talk about overkill and wasted money. Voice (phone lines) arrive to the premises via "category nothing" cable that runs for miles and miles. Using CAT5 or better for the last 100 feet isn't going to do anything to improve the signal quality. It will certainly empty wallets a bit faster though.

Just to throw it out there. On Leviton and Pass&Seymour they have E-learning courses online for the people who want to expand or just wanting to learn. Low-voltage and line voltage products are on there. Pass&Seymour gives you points as you complete courses towards their store, for t-shirts and sweat shirts. They are all free and worth checking out.
http://ezlearn.leviton.com/el_front/

on pass&seymour website click on Knowlege center on homepage
http://www.passandseymour.com/

99% of the time, no. 1% of the time when it is a profitable extra, yes we go all the way and do the trim out & makeup and deal with all the issues and headaches involved with getting it right, which isnt very often. It really is a different skillset and most times an unprofitable diversion, but not every time..

Also, between the home theatre and alarm guys there's usually someone to scoop this work up so its just as well. My part extends to giving them a hot receptacle in their data or tv or alarm can and then I'm off the hook for the rest of it

Just out of curiousity what are the issues you run into with "getting it right"?

When you are talking about data there are lots of issues beyond simply getting continuity on the right leads. Most residential users might not reallky notice things like Near End Cross Talk and reduced data rates because they are not hitting the LAN that hard and don't really know what "good" is but if they do figure out they are having 50% packet loss because of a staple in the Cat 5 behind a wall or a poorly made up keystone, they won't be a happy customer.

Ohhh so true. And a whole lot prettier than when the cable guy shows up after the fact. I will add that it is also best (even though you may have run 1,000,000 RG-6Q HR's) only to use a splitter sized for the amount actually used. And for those on digital or HD to use quality 1000Mhz (1Ghz) splitters. They not as cheap - but still not expensive.

I usually shoot for selling as much cabling as I can per job - even if it will never be used. After all thats what we sell is it not? wire.... "Ever plan on having whole house audio, or a theater system - may as well throw some wire in now while the walls are open." Even if it is only speaker wire in the ceiling with no cut out for the speaker, people like the idea that they "can" down the line. Most of the time they opt to just do it then. Otherwise I shoot for all the ports the same - 2 Cat-5e, and 2 RG-6Q's per room at least. 6 RG-6Q's to a southern roof for SAT. One might thing it a waste but if it's there it often gets used. Terminate all the ends of the RG's and leave them, and all of the Cat-5's to 110 blocks - then a patch for the data, and loop the phones on the block. Leave your card on the panel for billable call backs to connect or swap things.

FYI another good use of cat 5e/sh/6 ...

I still come across people who are confused by the old British color coding here. Up until about 1980 the standard quad cable used by the G.P.O. for internal wiring was blue/orange/green/brown (not white/blue, white/orange etc. pairs, just the four plain colors).

Four-conductor cable as white/blue & white/orange pairs came into use about the same time as our new modular-style jacks, and since it was only then that DIY phone wiring was permitted, most people today know little if anything of the old code, since it was rarely used on the customer side of the demarcation point.

I still find the old cable in use from time to time though, particularly where BT has since installed a new drop and master jack, then just reconnected old extension wiring and effectively given the old G.P.O. wiring to the customer. This is particularly so where runs between old junction boxes have been left intact and new jacks run from there.

The problem is that the packaged instructions which come with all the modern accessories just assume that W/B, W/O pairs are in use and make no mention of the old scheme at all. Unfortunately, even some people actually working in telecoms today don't seem to realize that the current color coding scheme only goes back about 27 years!

There was a thread on the IEE forum a couple of months ago in which somebody clearly had the old cable. More than once I pointed out that the standard was for the line to be on blue (ring) and orange (tip), yet others kept insisting that I was wrong and that the line would be on the white/blue pair. I'm still not sure I convinced them.

Just to add to the fun, we had a completely different scheme on the cord to the phone itself which used red/blue/green/white, with the line on red (ring) and white (tip).



Or even for DSL. I can partly understand the non-technical people believing that, as they're just thinking "computer data," not realizing that DSL is not the same thing as Ethernet.

I don't think some of the ISP tech support departments help. I just ran some extension wiring for somebody a few days ago who had been through this with his ISP when the guy there kept insisting that the DSL modem must be plugged directly into the first jack in the house, no extensions permitted. As if another 20 ft. is going to make any difference when we're already at the end of 5 miles of wire from the C.O.

He's right, though. There is a filter has to go on the voice lines to prevent interference. If the house is daisy-chained, DSL has to be on the first outlet, so that the filter can protect all up-stream phones.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought you can plug the DSL modem directly into any jack in the house and then you get a package of multiple filters with the install package that go inline between the line cords and the jacks of other phones to filter out the DSL?

The way they usually do it with Sprint, now Embarq (SW Fla) is you get a new Dmark box with the filter in it. They run a dedicated (unfiltered) line to the DSL modem and everything else goes through the filter. If that can't be done you get a bag of filters for you phones. I had a spare pair in my CAT3 cable so I went with the filter in the Dmark