How To Change A Phone Line To Ethernet

A few years ago while I was moving into a new firm and planning how I would gear up my new network I discovered that the existing phone lines in the home were installed in such a manner that I was able to repurpose many of the cables and apply them to fix upward a full gigabit Ethernet network in much of the new house without pulling any new cable at all. Since that projection I have been able to save a lot of time and coin on several projects just by converting phone lines to Ethernet

Information technology is not uncommon to be able to convert phone lines to Ethernet, just earlier you get started you need to brand sure that the phone lines were originally put in using the right kind of cablevision and topology (or network design) to exist able to be used for Ethernet. Once you are sure the original network was fix in a fashion suitable for conversion information technology is simply a procedure of re terminating all of the cables with the proper connectors and verifying that everything is prepare correctly.

In this article I will go through how to tell if your phone network is a good candidate for conversion and how to go nearly setting everything up.

How to tell if your telephone lines are the right kind of cable to work as Ethernet

Before nosotros can make up one's mind if the phone lines in your house were installed using cable that is expert enough to be used in an Ethernet network we need to figure out exactly what kind of cable is installed in your walls. Much of the time the category (or type) of cablevision is printed right on the outside of the cable, but if you lot exercise not see the category number or if you lot are in a situation where you cannot even see much of the outside of the cable at all we can still look at the dorsum of a phone jack and go a good idea of whether it will piece of work or not.

The get-go thing to await at is the number of wires in the cable and whether they are twisted together in pairs or not. If the wires inside your cable are non twisted into pairs yous can not use that cable for whatever kind of Ethernet at all.

Strictly speaking for a cablevision to officially support Ethernet information technology needs to be built using the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) and Telecom Manufacture Association (TIA) standards. Cables under the TIA/Environmental impact assessment standard volition have four pairs (eight individual) of twisted wires. If your cable does not have all four pairs it volition not officially back up Ethernet merely it may withal work at slower speeds. The table below breaks downwardly some of the twisted pair cabling usually used in homes and lists what they can be used for.

Category	Number of wires in cable	Data Rate	Suitable for Ethernet	Compatible with Power over Ethernet
Anixter Category 1	iv, half-dozen, or 8	1 Mbps	No	No
Anixter Category 2	4, 6, or 8	4 Mbps	No	No
Two Pair True cat 3	four	x Mbps	Express to 10 Mbps	No
TIA/EIA Category 3	viii	x Mbps	Express to 10 Mbps	Limited to 15.iv W
2 Pair Cat iv	iv	16 Mbps	Express to x Mbps	No
TIA/EIA Category four	8	16 Mbps	Express to 10 Mbps	Limited to fifteen.4 W
Two Pair Cat five	four	100 Mbps	Up to 100 Mbps	No
TIA/EIA Category 5	8	100 Mbps	Limited to 100 Mbps	Yes
TIA/EIA Category 5e	viii	1 Gbps	Yes full gigabit speed	Yep
TIA/EIA Category 6	8	10 Gbps	Yes 10 gigabit speed	Yeah

Types of Cable with Twisted Pairs commonly found in phone networks

If you are still unsure what kind of cablevision you lot have, but you recollect that information technology might be adequate, the next step is to stop the longest cablevision that you take and test it to come across what kind of performance tin can be attained from the cable. If, after you take used the longest cable for some time and everything is working up to your requirements it is then safe to move on and fix up the residue of the phone lines to run as Ethernet in your network.

How to tell if your phone lines go to the right places

The second major consideration to recollect near before you lot spend the fourth dimension and resources to re stop your phone lines as Ethernet cables is your network topology (or design). The two most mutual topologies that I meet in phone networks are the "Hub and Spoke" topology and the "Dazy Chain" Topology.

A "Hub and Spoke" network will accept i cable for every phone jack in the house. Each of the cables will run straight from the telephone jack to a primal location, or hub, without connecting to any other devices along the way. One of the all-time ways to quickly tell that y'all take a "Hub and Spoke" network in your home is if you can find the hub. These are commonly located in a closet or utility space and just wait like a bundle of cables with some of the wires from within the cable stripped back and twisted together with the line that connects to the local telephone company (or the demarcation point). If the number of cables in the hub matches the number of phone jacks in the house then you lot accept a "Hub and Spoke" topology and yous are skillful to motion on and start setting up your new network!

If withal there are fewer cables connected to the demarcation point then there are phone jacks in the house you accept at least some dazy chained phone lines. Yous may be able to cease some of the sections together (with a small performance decrease) to brand a smaller number of suitable Ethernet cables only it volition not be possible to use the existing infrastructure to install Ethernet in all of the sometime phone locations.

Have a look at the topology charts that I put together to illustrate some the the styles of network that I have commonly encountered. Detect that the only way to use every phone location for Ethernet is to start with a "Hub and Spoke" topology. I also showed that yous can choose to only apply parts of the original network and leave some of the phones in your domicile connected and working.

You might find it helpful to sketch upwards your own topology diagram of your own business firm and label each of the locations with the names of the rooms were they tin be constitute. It tin can be tricky to track down where each of the cables become so if yous are having trouble take a look at the article I wrote on tracking down mystery cables.

What is a phone line to Ethernet adapter? And what y'all should use instead

Near people who research the topic of using telephone lines equally the infrastructure for an Ethernet network will come across the seemingly quick, like shooting fish in a barrel, and cheaply available solution of using adapters to plug network equipment directly into a phone network. These devices are commonly chosen "telephone to ethernet adapters" or sometimes "phone to ethernet cables" and look like they might just work. In reality these devices are only really designed to let you connect a phone through an ethernet cable and not the other way around.

In almost situations a network device volition not even connect using one of these adapters and even if it does you tin expect poor stability and functioning with a speed that is physically limited to one hundred Mbps or slower.

The only way to get a real stable Ethernet connection is to completely remove the sometime telephone jacks and replace them with Ethernet jacks with the same or improve category rating that you found on the exterior of your cable earlier.

Terminating the cables with new Ethernet Jacks or RJ-45 Ends

Choosing the Correct Materials

The first question that needs to be answered when picking out what parts you will be installing in your new network is whether you want to utilize male (RJ-45 shown in the first picture show below) or female ends (Ethernet Jacks shown in the second picture below). I would recommend that yous use female person ends at the locations effectually the house for a diversity of reasons.

Ethernet jacks look better because they can be finished out with a nice faceplate
Ethernet jacks allow you to use a patch cord between your estimator and where the jack is terminated in the wall.
- Patch cords are designed to be moved around a lot and will last longer and then the cables in your wall for this application.
- Patch cords are cheap and piece of cake to supervene upon if they go damaged. You lot will need to re terminate the cable if you are using a male end and it gets damaged.
- You lot can hands alter out a patch cord for ones of unlike lengths if y'all demand to move your network device somewhere else in the room.

Whether you choose to install female ends at the key location next to your router or switch is more of stylistic option but there are some things to consider first.

Structured cabling is non designed to be moved around a lot so if yous will be needing to motility the switch regularly it is best to install jacks and patch cords.
By cutting out the Ethernet jacks and patch cords you lot can simplify a network and make the switch side look cleaner in some situations.
RJ-45 ends are cheaper per unit then jacks and then if yous are doing a lot of cables you can salvage a good amount of money hither.
RJ-45 ends require a special tool (called RJ-45 crimpers) to be installed then if you lot are simply doing a few cables it might only be cheaper to install jacks on both ends of the network cables.

Earlier in the commodity I mentioned that there are some situations where you will need to terminate together the Ethernet cables. To finish two Ethernet cables together all you need to do is put a jack on ane cable, install a RJ-45 connector on the other cable, and snap them together. You can loose some performance by doing this just it is not much and almost of the fourth dimension a cable will still perform upward to it's category rating with terminations and patch cords on both ends and a single splice in the heart. The functioning drops do add together upwards so while one splice is probably fine performance volition get worse and worse every bit you add more and more of them.

Terminating the Cables

Now that you lot have chosen the style of connector that you are going to utilize in your network all that is left is to terminate the cables, connect everything up, and brand sure everything is working the way that it should.

Terminating Ethernet cables is a job that a lot of people seem to find pretty intimidating but it is not something that is all that difficult. The biggest thing to retrieve is that it might take a niggling bit of exercise to get quick at terminating but equally long as you have your time and follow the tips in my guides on how to terminate Ethernet Jacks or how to terminate RJ-45 connectors most people will be able to get proficient clean results that perform well from their very kickoff termination.

Testing and verifying your new network

Now that you accept installed all of your network connections all that is left to do is connect up all of your equipment and brand sure everything is working the way that you wait it to. There are a variety network cable testers on the market at a diversity of budgets that can help you exercise this quickly and easily. These testers volition look at each of the individual wires in the cablevision and will provide you lot with the information that you will need to find and resolve any problems.

This tester from Klein is one of my favorite every day testers as of late. You can spent quite a scrap less then this and go something that will generate wire map style test results just this is really where I discover the all-time value per dollar. Ii of the reasons that I find this particular unit to exist amid the best are that the multiple dongles brand testing more than so one cable go quite a scrap more quickly and that I find the displays on most other testers to exist woefully lacking, both in readability and clarity of information.

If you only accept a few cables to terminate and practice non want to purchase a tester there is another way to get a good idea of how a cable will perform. Simply connect upwardly a figurer and see what link speed it connects with. In the screen shot below y'all tin can see that the Link speed on this connection is thou Mbps which is the fastest that can be accomplished with this computer so everything looks skillful.

This settings page can be establish past searching "Ethernet Settings" into the Windows 10 search bar so clicking on the active Ethernet connexion.

If there is a problem with your new Ethernet connexion it might show up equally 1 of the following symptoms.

The listed link speed is slower then what is expected for the equipment that is being used
No active ethernet cable shows up under Ethernet Settings in windows
The link speed is correct but the connection is unreliable or intermittent

Most of the fourth dimension the problem ether comes down to the cables being plugged into the wrong place, faulty terminations, or bad cable. If you lot are experiencing whatsoever of these problems take a look at my article (coming before long) on troubleshooting Ethernet cables.