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On Apr 18 at 3:43am, Let_Me_Be wrote:
What hardware do I need to buy? Would prefer to set up a wireless - but if it is not practical I can go the hardwire route. (My house is wired for telephone in every room and there are four pairs of wires in each box, but only one pair is being used for telephone service, do if worse comes to worst could I use some of those extra 6 wires?)
You need only 2 pairs for 100Mbit, I don't see any problems with using the same cable for both telephone and network. (I'm using 1 cable for 2 computers on each sides). Sure telephone does use other voltage, but it will simply run on other cable, and i'm sure that it won't interfere with the network much.
You CAN use one cable for both ethernet and telephone, but the cable must be Category 5 or more for 100 Mbit. You cannot use the ordinary telephone wiring in your house for ethernet, unless it is at least Cat5. Cat5 cable is usually wired using one of two standards called EIA/TIA 568A or EIA/TIA 568B. A Google search for either one will return lots of pages about them. Here is one: http://www.pera.net/Category_5_Document.htm An ordinary Cat5 ethernet connector has 8 contacts (4 pair), but only contacts 1, 2, 3, and 6 are used for ethernet. Contacts 4, 5, 7, and 8 could be used for telephone. An interesting set of slides on UTP (unshielded twisted pair) wire can be found at: http://boulder.noaa.gov/noc/Training/noframes/sectionIII/sld001.htm Many other resources are available. Google can help.... Jim