Patch Panel - 10 Jacks all looped -one line - possible?

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 09, 2006 Posts: 4

Hi there,

We have a community centre and just got Vonage. We have about 10 jacks but only need to use 5 or so. They are all on the same phone no.

We have a patch panel which brings in Cat5E cabling to all our offices around 5000 sq feet.

Is it as simple as taking the pair going to the Dmark point (bell canada) and splicing them and connecting with a RJ11 that goes to Vonage's gateway? More or less, taking the pair going to the dmark and putting it in the Vonage Gateway instead?

Or is is more complicated, or even doable?

I have been reading some posts but I'm not sure.

Please help experts!!!!

Anto

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

irlundee wrote:

We have a patch panel which brings in Cat5E cabling to all our offices around 5000 sq feet.

Is it as simple as taking the pair going to the Dmark point (bell canada) and splicing them and connecting with a RJ11 that goes to Vonage's gateway? More or less, taking the pair going to the dmark and putting it in the Vonage Gateway instead?

Or is is more complicated, or even doable?

This is very doable, with one strong caution. You must be sure that the pair coming from Bell Canada is disconnected from the patch panel that connects the rest of the wiring from the various jacks together. Failure to get that right can destroy your Vonage adapter. Once that's done, you can connect the Vonage adapter output to the point on the patch panel from which you removed the BC wiring. Alternately, you can simply plug the Vonage box into one of the wall jacks, making sure that you've wired a plug or used appropriate adapters to get the Vonage box hooked to the correct pair in the cat5 system.

Posts: 81 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 02, 2006 Posts: 81

Along with that, make sure that you don't exceed any length requirements. I know CAT 5 for ethernet is limited to 328 feet, not sure if that's still true if it's carrying phone.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 09, 2006 Posts: 4

"Alternately, you can simply plug the Vonage box into one of the wall jacks, making sure that you've wired a plug or used appropriate adapters to get the Vonage box hooked to the correct pair in the cat5 system."

Steve48 and Roiegat - I appreciate both your replies, very helpful.

One question Steve, before we were using DSL with Bell Canada, so we have a wall jack right in our server room connected to the punchboard (for the old DSL needs), I am thinking it will be easier to 'cut and cap' the line that was coming from the Demarc to the patch panel. Then simply plug in Vonage to the walljack in our server room which is a few inches above the patch.

However, will Vonage be activated on all wall jacks if I simply plug it in to any given walljack?

Thanks again.

Anto

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

irlundee wrote:

However, will Vonage be activated on all wall jacks if I simply plug it in to any given walljack?

Yes, all jacks should be active. Phones are wired in parallel and the service feed is in parallel with all of them. Plugging the service feed into a wall jack accomplishes the same as hooking it up at the patch panel.

Posts: 55 · Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 9:51 am Post subject:

I've run voice on >500 feet before. Data signals are much more succeptable to the interference at that length than plain 'ol voice. Also, I've run 100BaseT at ~400'. That 328' was a standard from inital spec that was just to keep the wiring newbies in line (imo). Cable quality should be much better than say 10 years ago. Of course, the longer the cable, the better it is as an antenna... no matter how often the pairs twist.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 09, 2006 Posts: 4

yea, the cat5e cabling was installed about 8 months ago, real clean job. I don't know if that helps.

I will let all you know how it goes! my friend wants to work from the demarc point instead of the patch so we don't have to splice any wires, I was thinking to cut the pair coming from the demarc to the patch and then just plug Vonage into a phone jack in our server room right beside the patch panel.

Thanks

Anto

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

irlundee wrote:

I will let all you know how it goes! my friend wants to work from the demarc point instead of the patch so we don't have to splice any wires, I was thinking to cut the pair coming from the demarc to the patch and then just plug Vonage into a phone jack in our server room right beside the patch panel.

Depending on the type of demarc, you may be able to simply unplug the wire going to your patch from the POTS service. Then plug the Vonage adapter into a wall jack. Just remember that if the wiring that used to hook to the POTS remains in place (but disconnected) you should tape it up and label it so no one re-connects it.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 09, 2006 Posts: 4

Thanks again for your help Steve,

Ok, here is an update

5 of the jacks are on the punchboard and 2 are not (this is because we had a contracter who screwed up and got fired, he thought he could share phone/networking on one cable, long story)

So, we found this out when I snipped the wire going to the Demarc today, 5 jacks died, 2 didn't - !!!!! That's when we noticec on the demarc, those wires coming in.

The Demarc has posts, with bolts on them, older, couldn't get hex driver to open it, seems not standard, gotta go to a telco store to find a hex dirver that fits these 'non standard' bolts. Spoke to a guy at Home Depot, he said they are non-standard so people don't mess with them!

Hope to find that tool, open it and go from there. Rats nest in that Demarc!

Anto