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Step 1Theory
This is made possible because of the wasteful (some may say "spare") wires in cat-5 cable.
Cat 5 cable and RJ-45 jacks have eight wires.
Ethernet uses two pairs (four wires), one for send and one for receive.
Telephones use two wires.
Therefore, you can run both ethernet and telephone over the same wire, and still have two wires left over.
In fact, you could run two Ethernet jacks from a single cat-5 cable, or four telephone lines (though I don't know why you would run multiple phone lines.)
This Instructable will focus on changing wall plates from one RJ-45 (Ethernet) jack into one RJ-45 and one RJ-11 (phone) jack.
Note that I have not done extensive testing with cross-talk between phone and ethernet, though I have seen no degradation in the quality of either when both are in use.
Also note that this procedure will not work with PoE (Power over Ethernet) devices. Nothing bad will happen, it just won't transmit power. See step 13 for a possibly unsafe way to keep your PoE and add phone service. Also, it will not work with gigabit ethernet-- gigabit ethernet uses all four pairs. It will work fine at 10/100 Mbps which is sufficient for most people.
Cat 5 cable and RJ-45 jacks have eight wires.
Ethernet uses two pairs (four wires), one for send and one for receive.
Telephones use two wires.
Therefore, you can run both ethernet and telephone over the same wire, and still have two wires left over.
In fact, you could run two Ethernet jacks from a single cat-5 cable, or four telephone lines (though I don't know why you would run multiple phone lines.)
This Instructable will focus on changing wall plates from one RJ-45 (Ethernet) jack into one RJ-45 and one RJ-11 (phone) jack.
Note that I have not done extensive testing with cross-talk between phone and ethernet, though I have seen no degradation in the quality of either when both are in use.
Also note that this procedure will not work with PoE (Power over Ethernet) devices. Nothing bad will happen, it just won't transmit power. See step 13 for a possibly unsafe way to keep your PoE and add phone service. Also, it will not work with gigabit ethernet-- gigabit ethernet uses all four pairs. It will work fine at 10/100 Mbps which is sufficient for most people.
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Red Green Black Yellow (White Blue)
Pins as you look at them are for a 6 position jack
6,1 line three green
5,2 for line two Orange
4,3 for line one Blue (these are the center pins)
Brown spare
Pins as you look at them are for a 4 position jack
1,4 for line two Orange
2,3 for line one Blue (these are the center pins)
Green spare
Brown spare
Pins as you look at them are for a RARE 2 position jack
1,2 for line one Blue (these are the center pins)
Orange spare
Green spare
Brown spare
DATA
568B has 8 and 568A does as well the only difference between these are the green and orange pairs are flipped. 10/100 non duplex uses 2 pair, duplex mode depends on the wasted spares for ground. 1000M uses all 4 pairs. That being said your switch and network cards must all support 1000M in order to run that speed just because you have the best cable does not mandate that you can run the speed everything must have the highest capability.
B Term
1,2 are orange
3,6 are green
4,5 are blue
7,8 are brown
A Term is closer to the USOC standard, 568A and B are used together for a cross over cable. There used to be a Government mandate that all Government connections were A, that has been retired and is now on demand use only.
1,2 is Green
3,6 is Orange,
4,5 is Blue
7,8 is Brown
Usually if a cable is run we will split blue and orange out on to a jack and green and brown onto another. This way 2 line phones can be used on both jacks and in the back we cross connect the incoming line to that pair for that station cable.
From this snippet you can see there is a purpose to the extra wasteful cables.
Now just because you have 1Gig bit (1000Meg) in the network if your DSL is a whopping 748K/360K you have only managed to spend a lot of time on making your in house wiring the best of the entire network.
This will help in the case of older homes with old cable or offices that have lacking cable infrastructures.
The blue pair is line one of a phone 4,5
the next pairs out are line two 3,6
the next ones out are line three 2,7
and if you have someone make you a specialty cable the last ones would be 1,8.
Now that would be a hack.
If you follow spec then we need to know what you are doing 568a or B
Depending on what you are plugging in is what pairs are used. Most often it is B so that is what we would follow here. For a Voice line Blue is line one. Orange and Green are Ethernet data lines Brown is extra.
Oh you say thats what this is about. NO depending on what you are hooking up the Brown and Blue is ground for Data or POE for devices that need to be powered such as IP phones.
Depending on what you are hooking up is what each pair is used for. Somethings are more forgiving then others.