Using old phone lines for Ethernet

[mike.moll10]

I found a few threads on this, but didn't see my exact question addressed. All my phone lines are run in a loop using Cat5 cabling. I understand that without homeruns I can't put them all to a single switch. My idea is to put RJ45 heads on both cables at each existing phone jack, which create the loop, and run them into a 4-port dummy switch. So, each room in my house with a phone jack will now have a 4-port switch with 2 open ports. Then, I just plug my router into the loop and voila...a home network with internet. Will this work? What simple thing am I missing? Seems too easy. Is daisy-chaining dumb switches even possible?

 

[jsmithepa]

All questions of this type have failed. I don't remember any recent post with DIY wiring came back with pic and go "ta-da I did it!" It seems real life is a lot harder than theory.

 

[punkncat]

I can't really think of a reason that you couldn't stack hubs that way. IP camera systems do much the same thing. The issue I see is actual bandwidth after all was said and done. I would think you would have much better speed results with a wireless web network (pucks) and a few adapters.

 

[Alabalcho]

Many moons ago (when 3Com was a thing) they had an application guide saying that there should be no more that four (or five, don't remember, this was 20+ years ago) hops between the end points.

I would rather suggest something similar, yet not the same. In each room, terminate the runs with RJ45 keystone, and put them on a nice faceplate. In rooms where no wired Ethernet is needed, just use 2" Ethernet cable to close the loop.

 

[bill001g]

It will likely work but lots of failure points if some random switch or cable would go bad....but when you have few other options I guess you just live with this.

 

[failboat]

are the cables in the walls tied down well? if they are loose you might be able to use them to pull through new cables and run extra so that each jack has more than one.