Ethernet Conversion

[Weston.w]

Alright, I just had a question about setting up a wired internet connection for all devices in a older household. I'm VERY new to this sort of stuff and have no idea what I am talking about, so please be understanding. I just got done watching the video where linus set up that storage system for iJustine and got to thinking. 

My house was built in 1995 and doesn't support really anything interesting. We recently converted to a fiber optic internet company (Utopia) and I was wondering if there was a way to convert all the old phone jacks into a port for internet as all of our devices are using wireless (Except the one computer next to the modem). Do you know of any way to set that up? It seems we already have a network switch installed, which is receiving signal from the modem and then sending a signal into a converter(?) for our phone lines.

Any advice or help is greatly appreciated, Thanks!

[beersykins]

Not really, a lot of old phone wiring isn't even twisted pair.  I have a house from like 1997 and its this way, just straight phone pairs that would be garbage for data.  A lot of older houses also didn't contain 4 pairs of wires and would do one or two pairs as old phone lines would only need 2 wires per line.  Some newer constructions have been using cat5e which you can sometimes reterminate, but if it's daisy chained between outlets then that's also a bust.

 

Realistically you'd be running new cabling so you can leverage higher data rates over twisted pair cabling. 

[GDRRiley]

your most likely just going to have to run new line. I'd do cat 6A but cat 5E is a little cheaper.

Cat 6A will be better if you ever want to run 10gb or even 1gb over super long cables.

[Weston.w]

1 hour ago, beersykins said:

Not really, a lot of old phone wiring isn't even twisted pair.  I have a house from like 1997 and its this way, just straight phone pairs that would be garbage for data.  A lot of older houses also didn't contain 4 pairs of wires and would do one or two pairs as old phone lines would only need 2 wires per line.  Some newer constructions have been using cat5e which you can sometimes reterminate, but if it's daisy chained between outlets then that's also a bust.

 

Realistically you'd be running new cabling so you can leverage higher data rates over twisted pair cabling. 

 

54 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

your most likely just going to have to run new line. I'd do cat 6A but cat 5E is a little cheaper.

Cat 6A will be better if you ever want to run 10gb or even 1gb over super long cables.

So, If I replace the existing line with cat6a It should work fine? That sounds like a difficult but doable job. Ill have to think about it.

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, Weston.w said:

 

So, If I replace the existing line with cat6a It should work fine? That sounds like a difficult but doable job. Ill have to think about it.

you'd need new line and wall plugs. something that maybe possible, is you attach the new cat cable to the old phone cable and pull the old out while running the new.

[beersykins]

2 hours ago, Weston.w said:

So, If I replace the existing line with cat6a It should work fine?

Assuming they aren't daisy chained, yes.  You'd need to have all of the runs terminate into a similar location and not hanging off of each other.