cat 6 for phone line

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	Question by matthew henry posted 29 Jun 2004
	cat 6 for phone line
hello my name is matt and I am 16 and have been working with cat 5 and cat 5 e for a little while now. well here is the deal I need a phone jack in my room right now my house is not wired with star topology but the way where you just extend it(forgot what it is called). Anyway I am thinking of running cat 6 from the nic box trough the wall in my room and after I have terminated the jack than make a patch cord that goes from jack (rj-45) to computer modem (rj-11) Will this work. and also will it make a tiny difference in my dialup speeds. I have a 56k modem and i ususlly connect at 28.8. That is just getting a rj-11 jumper all the way to the modem.
	Answer by Joseph Golan posted 01 Jul 2004
Dear matthew, The cabling currently in your home is called daisy-chaining. What you are proposing is all fine except that I would not attempt to make up the patchcord unless you have all the proper materials (correct RJ heads, crimper, tester, etc). The last 7' or so that the patch cord will cover is very small compared to the overall length of the circuit. Your modem speed is dependant on a number of factors including the rate of pair twist in the cable, the lower the twist rate the more cross-talk [i.e. noise] that will get onto the telephone pair. Modem speeds decrease when the noise-to-signal ratio increases. While cat 6 is great for this, it will only solve the issue for the distance from the NIC to the modem. The balance of the cable from the Central Office to the NIC will play a bigger part as it is not unusual for this to be several miles. Sincerely, Joseph Golan, RCDD
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