dial-up wiring question

[Dave Gower]

I am in the middle of a complete house rewiring, including running phone
lines. Since my walls and ceilings are open, I have cart blanche about
running wires, so I'd like to get this right while wiring is easy.

Unfortunately since I live in the country I can only get dial-up :<( Worse,
the country phone lines are notoriously noisy, so anything I can do to
maximize line quality is important.

So my question is, which will degrade the phone signal more? Is it better to
"home-run" all the circuits to the point where the line first enters the
house, or to "daisy-chain" the wires from one jack to another? The former
means far more wire, but the latter involves more connections. If I
"home-run", does the wire in the unused circuits reduce the signal strength?
How much is lost in repeated connections between jacks? (I would hard-wire
the jacks together, using the internal screw attachments).

I hope I've explained my question properly. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[kony]

I am in the middle of a complete house rewiring, including running phone
lines. Since my walls and ceilings are open, I have cart blanche about
running wires, so I'd like to get this right while wiring is easy.

Unfortunately since I live in the country I can only get dial-up :<( Worse,
the country phone lines are notoriously noisy, so anything I can do to
maximize line quality is important.

So my question is, which will degrade the phone signal more? Is it better to
"home-run" all the circuits to the point where the line first enters the
house, or to "daisy-chain" the wires from one jack to another? The former
means far more wire, but the latter involves more connections. If I
"home-run", does the wire in the unused circuits reduce the signal strength?
How much is lost in repeated connections between jacks? (I would hard-wire
the jacks together, using the internal screw attachments).

I hope I've explained my question properly. Any advice would be appreciated.

i doubt that it's going to make much difference. Most homes
(including those that get fairly good, > 45Kb/s) have daisey-chained
wiring, as much as possible... of course there would be more than one
cable at a central point when that is more cost-effective/easier than
continuing the single cable to a distant location.

You might consider using higher quality cable. If it were me, I'd
string CAT5e or CAT6, then it can be used for data as well as analog
telephone, though where I wanted telephone I'd probably run a pair of
cables to keep each signal separate, not running the telephone over
the unused wires on a 100Mbit cable. Then again I don't know how much
wire is involved, how costly this would be. Given high enough cost
you might just string both, telephone and CAT5. I'm assuming that,
since you're rewiring, you plan to stay there a while, so sooner or
later you might be glad you had the networking cable installed.

 

[philo]

I am in the middle of a complete house rewiring, including running phone
lines. Since my walls and ceilings are open, I have cart blanche about
running wires, so I'd like to get this right while wiring is easy.

Unfortunately since I live in the country I can only get dial-up :<( Worse,
the country phone lines are notoriously noisy, so anything I can do to
maximize line quality is important.

So my question is, which will degrade the phone signal more? Is it better to
"home-run" all the circuits to the point where the line first enters the
house, or to "daisy-chain" the wires from one jack to another? The former
means far more wire, but the latter involves more connections. If I
"home-run", does the wire in the unused circuits reduce the signal strength?
How much is lost in repeated connections between jacks? (I would hard-wire
the jacks together, using the internal screw attachments).

I hope I've explained my question properly. Any advice would be appreciated.

The "daisy chain" method is fine.

As long as you have all the walls open...I'd run some additional wiring
though
you can never tell what you're going to need later.

 

[Stacey]

I am in the middle of a complete house rewiring, including running phone
lines.

So my question is, which will degrade the phone signal more? Is it better
to "home-run" all the circuits to the point where the line first enters
the house, or to "daisy-chain" the wires from one jack to another?

Daisy chain is fine. The noise in phone lines is almost always outside the
house. And while you have the walls open, I'd run CAT5 network cables as
well to simplify networking.

 

[Bennett Price]

For a dialup modem just about anything will do wired in any way. But
I'd plan for the future and assume you'll be doing networking in the
future, either locally for a LAN and/or broadband. Thus I'd use CAT5
cable and home run it, not daisy chain it. Another poster's caution
about putting POTS and 100MB Ethernet in the same cable is well advised.
I'd run cheap twisted pair for telephone (voice and modem) as well as
CAT 5, both home runned.

 

[bearman]

Is "home-run" the same as "star" meaning all the lines start from one
central point?

Bearman

 

[notritenotteri]

skip the wire go wireless for the phone too. You never get the drops
in the right place no matter how many you put in Did a brand new
building with 3000 drops for 700 seats adds moves and changes started
the week after the staff moved in.

 

[Norm]

Dave, just daisy chain but make the phone line run 1 continuous run. In
other words don't cut the wires but leave a loop at each drop. Then when
you install your phone jacks you just break into the wire bundle and punch
them down onto the connectors without ever making a break in the wire.

 

[CBFalconer]

*** top posting repaired ***

Dave Gower wrote:
.... snip ...

For a dialup modem just about anything will do wired in any way.
But I'd plan for the future and assume you'll be doing networking
in the future, either locally for a LAN and/or broadband. Thus
I'd use CAT5 cable and home run it, not daisy chain it. Another
poster's caution about putting POTS and 100MB Ethernet in the
same cable is well advised. I'd run cheap twisted pair for
telephone (voice and modem) as well as CAT 5, both home runned.

Please don't toppost. Answers belong below the material quoted,
after suitable snippage.

Considering ONLY the telephone quality, I would prefer the
daisy-chain methods. The various home runs leave a collection of
open ended, possibly quite long, stubs which can produce
reflections and various wierd electrical effects. It is much
harder for the modem equalizers to deal with these echo effects
than with frequency falloff and lack of phase linearity, which is
what you will get from longer lines.

I have never done any direct experiments with modern modems, but I
have driven high frequency signals down standard telephone
wiring. So the above is not purely theoretical. That twisted
pair wiring is about 600 ohms (complex) at audio, but is very
close to 100 ohms (resistive) impedance at 1 Mhz and up. So try
to wire everything on a single daisy chain for best performance.

Another advantage of the daisy chain is that you can cut off the
'upstream' phones when the line is in use. So you might want to
have two sockets per location, and normally have them jumpered
with a short cable. There are sockets that will do this
automatically for you.

 

[ChrisJ9876]

From: CBFalconer (e-mail address removed)

Date: 02/01/2004 6:40 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <[email protected]>

*** top posting repaired ***



Please don't toppost. Answers belong below the material quoted,
after suitable snippage.

Considering ONLY the telephone quality, I would prefer the
daisy-chain methods. The various home runs leave a collection of
open ended, possibly quite long, stubs which can produce
reflections and various wierd electrical effects. It is much
harder for the modem equalizers to deal with these echo effects
than with frequency falloff and lack of phase linearity, which is
what you will get from longer lines.

I have never done any direct experiments with modern modems, but I
have driven high frequency signals down standard telephone
wiring. So the above is not purely theoretical. That twisted
pair wiring is about 600 ohms (complex) at audio, but is very
close to 100 ohms (resistive) impedance at 1 Mhz and up. So try
to wire everything on a single daisy chain for best performance.

Another advantage of the daisy chain is that you can cut off the
'upstream' phones when the line is in use. So you might want to
have two sockets per location, and normally have them jumpered
with a short cable. There are sockets that will do this
automatically for you.

I would recomend that you use Cat5 cable, even if you're not going to use the
wiring for networking. My house was originally wired with jacks in every room,
using the standard, cheap, 4-wire station cable (with no internal twist) and
when I had the second phone line activated, I had serious crosstalk between the
2 circuits. I wound up rewiring all of it.
Chris

 

[Trent©]

I am in the middle of a complete house rewiring, including running phone
lines. Since my walls and ceilings are open, I have cart blanche about
running wires, so I'd like to get this right while wiring is easy.

Unfortunately since I live in the country I can only get dial-up :<( Worse,
the country phone lines are notoriously noisy, so anything I can do to
maximize line quality is important.

So my question is, which will degrade the phone signal more? Is it better to
"home-run" all the circuits to the point where the line first enters the
house, or to "daisy-chain" the wires from one jack to another?

Daisy chain should be fine. The way technology is going, even YOU
won't be using dial-up very long anyway.

BTW...you DO know that even YOU have faster options right
now...depending on how much you want to pay for access. Look into
satellite Internet.

The former
means far more wire, but the latter involves more connections. If I
"home-run", does the wire in the unused circuits reduce the signal strength?
How much is lost in repeated connections between jacks? (I would hard-wire
the jacks together, using the internal screw attachments).

I hope I've explained my question properly. Any advice would be appreciated.

As has been mentioned by a few folks. run some networking cable
now...while its convenient. You should have at least one jack in each
living area of the house. Don't forget the deck, the basement, the
kitchen, etc.

And DON'T use CAT5! Use CAT6.

Good luck.


Have a nice week...

Trent

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[CBFalconer]

From: CBFalconer (e-mail address removed)

I would recomend that you use Cat5 cable, even if you're not going
to use the wiring for networking. My house was originally wired
with jacks in every room, using the standard, cheap, 4-wire
station cable (with no internal twist) and when I had the second
phone line activated, I had serious crosstalk between the 2
circuits. I wound up rewiring all of it.

I am probably agreeing with you. The kind of telephone cable I am
talking about is always twisted pairs, possibly shielded.
Untwisted stuff has no redeeming virtues.

 

[Dave Gower]

BTW...you DO know that even YOU have faster options right
now...depending on how much you want to pay for access. Look into
satellite Internet.

Although I live in the country, with cows and horses for neighbours, I am
technically within the city boundaries of Ottawa, Ontario. There is a city
initiative called "smart city" to give high-speed access to all parts of the
city (part of our hi-tech/Federal Government image). But so far it's just in
the planning stage. One option is wireless, another is advanced DSL, which
means phone lines. So I'm just going to do the best job I can with phone
lines while the house is open and see what happens.

I've learned a lot from all your responses and can probably improve the
quality of my present connection. Thanks to you all.

Cheers.