CAT5e cable

kevhed72

My builder ran blue CAT5e through-out the house vs. standard phone wire.
It appears he ran 1 line from the outside box to the basement for the 1st floor and 4 lines from outside to the attic and then to the second floor.
I am looking to run a PC, ROKU box, and Wii all off of my DSL connection, preferably hard-wired. Questions for the experts:

1. Can I just splice-together this existing CAT5 to make all the connections from my modem and hub?
2. The CAT5e has 3 extra colored wire and white wire pairs not connected to my phone jacks. Would it be beneficial to hook up these extra pair, starting at the box outside, and run the existing lines as CAT5e from the box outside to the modem and hub inside?
3. It seems silly to run a standard telephone cable from a wall outlet to the modem, and then from the modem to the hub/router as actual CAT5e...am I missing something here?
4. What do those DSL adapters they give you for every phone jack actually do?

I know this is alot for one post, but I would rather get an answer here vs. asking some nimrod at Radio Shack or Best Buy...thanks in advance.

vc69

1: No. Don't splice anything you are using for 10/100/1000 (ethernet) data networking. Terminate and use a hub/switch. and/or a patch panel for distribution.

2: Sounds like he used cat5e for your voice lines, which is fine, but don't use any wire with voice on it for data. Use separate runs.

3: Standard phone wire is 2pr and uses only one pr. Data is different. You should use the appropriate one where required. DSL modem should be plugged into a phone jack. From modem --->computer/router/switch (whichever) should be cat 5(e).

4: They filter the DSL signal. Use them. Period.

Edit: It seems you may be confusing DSL, which piggybacks on a voice line (1pr for voice and DSL signal) with data. In laymen's terms the DSL modem separates voice and data (dsl) signals and turns it into a signal that computers use (ethernet).

kevhed72

Thanks much...I am going to either go wireless or run another line of CAT5e for the PC and keep the ROKU hard-wired...

Sherardp

Do both, run wireless modem and use switch for hard wiring. For wii you can use built in wireless or buy the USB/ethernet adapter for like 15 bucks.