Eircom phone line / Cat5 cable

NickTellis

Hi,

After completing extensive renovations we just got our Eircom phone line / broadband reconnected into the bottom corner of our utility room. In readiness I ran a Cat5e cable from this phone point to a central hub along with the other Cat5e cables I've ran to most rooms in the house... the aim being to house everything in this "hub" and connect it all up to a gig switch and a NAS.

The phone point has a phone line-in (obviously) and the Eircom guy also wired up the Cat5 cable within the phone point (if this makes sense) so my question is how do I connect up the modem to this central hub using the CAT5 cable?

Any help appreciated

swampgas

NickTellis wrote: »

Hi,

After completing extensive renovations we just got our Eircom phone line / broadband reconnected into the bottom corner of our utility room. In readiness I ran a Cat5e cable from this phone point to a central hub along with the other Cat5e cables I've ran to most rooms in the house... the aim being to house everything in this "hub" and connect it all up to a gig switch and a NAS.

The phone point has a phone line-in (obviously) and the Eircom guy also wired up the Cat5 cable within the phone point (if this makes sense) so my question is how do I connect up the modem to this central hub using the CAT5 cable?

Any help appreciated

If the CAT-5 cable has been connected directly to the pair of wires coming into the house from Eircom, then you should be able to crimp an RJ11 plug at the other end (at the central hub) and connect the modem/router there. (In this case the Cat-5 cable is being used as a phone extension line.)

Otherwise, if you want the modem at the point of entry, you might have to disconnect the Cat5 cable again, and put an RJ45 plug on it, and use it to connect the modem back to the central hub. The phone line would go to the ADSL (or WAN) port, the Cat-5 to one of the switch ports.


Hope this makes sense ...

NickTellis

swampgas wrote: »

If the CAT-5 cable has been connected directly to the pair of wires coming into the house from Eircom, then you should be able to crimp an RJ11 plug at the other end (at the central hub) and connect the modem/router there. (In this case the Cat-5 cable is being used as a phone extension line.)

Otherwise, if you want the modem at the point of entry, you might have to disconnect the Cat5 cable again, and put an RJ45 plug on it, and use it to connect the modem back to the central hub. The phone line would go to the ADSL (or WAN) port, the Cat-5 to one of the switch ports.


Hope this makes sense ...

Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to know as I want the modem/router to be located at the "hub" and not at the master socket.

Any ideas what wires to use for the RJ11 plug? I guess I'll need to open up the master socket and see how it's wired up.

swampgas

NickTellis wrote: »

Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to know as I want the modem/router to be located at the "hub" and not at the master socket.

Any ideas what wires to use for the RJ11 plug? I guess I'll need to open up the master socket and see how it's wired up.

Best bet is to have a quick look. Or if you have a voltmeter, check each colour pair (Blue & Blue/White, Orange & Orange/White ...) until you find 50V DC.

The Eircom line needs to end up connected to the middle two connectors of the RJ11 plug.

NickTellis

swampgas wrote: »

Best bet is to have a quick look. Or if you have a voltmeter, check each colour pair (Blue & Blue/White, Orange & Orange/White ...) until you find 50V DC.

The Eircom line needs to end up connected to the middle two connectors of the RJ11 plug.

You sir are a legend. I'll give this a go in the next couple of days. Thanks.

NickTellis

swampgas wrote: »

If the CAT-5 cable has been connected directly to the pair of wires coming into the house from Eircom, then you should be able to crimp an RJ11 plug at the other end (at the central hub) and connect the modem/router there. (In this case the Cat-5 cable is being used as a phone extension line.)

Otherwise, if you want the modem at the point of entry, you might have to disconnect the Cat5 cable again, and put an RJ45 plug on it, and use it to connect the modem back to the central hub. The phone line would go to the ADSL (or WAN) port, the Cat-5 to one of the switch ports.


Hope this makes sense ...

OK, I opened up the master switch and the pair of "external" Eircom wires are connected to the L1 (via white wire) and L2 (via blue wire), the Cat 5 cable has been connected to the S2 (via blue wire) and S1 (via blue\white wire). Am I right in assuming that all I should have to do is connect up the other end of the Cat 5 blue & blue\white to the middle 2 connectors of the RJ11 plug?

swampgas

NickTellis wrote: »

OK, I opened up the master switch and the pair of "external" Eircom wires are connected to the L1 (via white wire) and L2 (via blue wire), the Cat 5 cable has been connected to the S2 (via blue wire) and S1 (via blue\white wire). Am I right in assuming that all I should have to do is connect up the other end of the Cat 5 blue & blue\white to the middle 2 connectors of the RJ11 plug?

That's correct. Have fun

NickTellis

Hi Swampgas (or anyone),

I'm still having trouble connecting up the RJ11/CAT5 cable.
See pic below showing how the master socket is curently connected.



Any ideas how the RJ11 needs to be connected up at the other end of the CAT 5 cable?
Been pulling what's left of my hair out over this and am loathe to call an Eircom "engineer" out.

NT

Tenshot

Hi Nick,

I presume the other end of the CAT5 cable is unconnected at the moment? If so, you can either wire a normal phone socket onto the end of it, if you have one handy, or just crimp an RJ11 plug directly onto it.

In both cases, the blue/blue-white pair on the CAT5 cable are carrying the phone signal. For an RJ11, these will go into the centre two slots on the plug. For a phone socket, these will connect to the two main pins (if it's a one of those cheap brown sockets, they'll connect to the red & green contacts in the socket). Order doesn't matter (not for this application anyway).

Is the socket you have fitted downstairs (where the first end of the CAT5 cable is connected) an Eircom ADSL socket, i.e. two sockets, one for phone and one for ADSL modem? If so, then you need to do things a little differently.

In that case, you should undo the CAT5 cable from the socket altogether, crimp on a standard RJ11 plug, and plug it into the modem socket on the front. Again, you can have a nomal socket or RJ11 plug at the far end to allow you to connect it to your router.

Whatever way you terminate the far end, you should be able to plug in a standard telephone and get a dial tone. If you do this, you're most of the way there.

NickTellis

Hi Tenshot,

Thanks for the response.

No, the socket doesn't appear to be an ADSL socket.
The plan was/is to move the Netopia router (currently on the floor beside the master socket) to a shelf on the other side of the room by using the unconnected end of the (in-wall) CAT 5.

I've connecting up the blue/blue-white pair to an RJ11 plug (using the middle 2 pins) but when I move the router and plug in the RJ11 the "Internet" light doesn't come on.

As you can tell I'm not very up-to-speed on this technology
NT

swampgas

NickTellis wrote: »

Hi Swampgas (or anyone),

I'm still having trouble connecting up the RJ11/CAT5 cable.
See pic below showing how the master socket is curently connected.



Any ideas how the RJ11 needs to be connected up at the other end of the CAT 5 cable?
Been pulling what's left of my hair out over this and am loathe to call an Eircom "engineer" out.

NT

Not too familiar with the master socket, but can you not just connect the two blue wires in one terminal, and the two white under the other? I.e. connect the blue from the CAT5 directly to the blue from Eircom, ditto for the white. Right now I suspect the Eircom line is not connected to the CAT-5 at all.

Should be easy to try - if the ADSL light on the router lights up, you know you're good.

Solair

Eircom's master sockets are designed to terminate up to two lines and to provide a demarkation point between the eircom network and your internal wiring. Absolutely nothing except the eircom lines should be connected to the back plate.

L1 / L2 terminals are for Line 1 (Main eircom incoming line)

S1 / S2 terminals are for Line 2 (should not be used unless you'd a second line!)

(Polarity doesn't really matter btw)

Your extension wiring should be wired to the back of removable faceplate with the eircom logo on it. There are screw-down terminals marked L1/L2 for this purpose. (Ignore R, it is not used at all) and ignore S1/S2 unless you've a second line.

From there on out, you can do what you like with the extension wiring. Normally it's looped in and out of each socket or, it can be run in a star formation from a central point. Only two wires should be used, and are connected to the central pair of terminals on any RJ11 socket. Nothing else should be connected.

Also, you need to reassemble the master socket and replace the faceplate to get a signal on those L1/L2 terminals.

If you have DSL, you need to fit DSL filters as normal, unless you've also got an eircom filter plate on the socket which has two sockets, one for DSL and one for phone. If you have one of these, it will also filter the extensions connected to the L1/L2 terminals on the back of the plate.

There may be other terminals on your faceplate, ignore all of these as they are used for ISDN and phonewatch installations only.