CAT5 vs CW1308

Are there any figures for using CW1308 telephone cable (2-pair or 4-pair) for data, where CAT5 should have been used?

I'm interested in distance and speed.

Thanks.

Cheers!

(Officially)
it would be 1Base5 (aka StarLAN at 1Mbps) for up to 250m. But you probably won't find any NIC for that.
while 10Base-T (10Mbps) for up to 100m required minimum Cat 3.

There are various LAN extenders that can run over phone quality pairs (VDSL for example) or similar for coax
and it's not cheap, but as they can go longer distances and over legacy cable they sometimes have their uses.

Edited by prlzx (Thu 10-Jun-21 19:09:57)

StarLAN. Crikey I never saw that in the wild! For me it was either loads of thick coax 10base5, then Thinnet took off about the same time that IBM Type 1 was popular for the Token Ring groupies. Then we ripped all that out and along came Cat 3, Cat5 rapidly supplanted by Cat5e yada, yada structured cabling revolution took hold. My early career in the nineties!

As said, not officially supported for anything LAN data standard remotely modern/still in use. I reckon you'd struggle to get it to Cat3 (for 10BaseT).

Anyhow what lengths are we talking, and roughly what's the age/vintage of the cable?

In reply to a post by Ancient_Mariner:

Are there any figures for using CW1308 telephone cable (2-pair or 4-pair) for data, where CAT5 should have been used?

I'm interested in distance and speed.

Thanks.

Cheers!

I used a de-commissioned length of CW1308 in my lad's student digs to give him a LAN feed from the router three stories down. Worked fine at 100 Mb/s, only really needed it to work at 10 Mb/s (ADSL days !)

Various lengths, say 10 to 15 metres max; although some much less.
Installed during full rewire of house in 2002. It is all copper, none of this 'copper covered steel'.

I'm looking for a future solution for post PSTN shutdown, so in the main speed will be whatever a digital phone needs.

Cheers!

That sounds promising! Thanks.

Cheers!

At least I won't need that sort of distance. 10 to 15 metres max.

Cheers!

If it was rewired in 2002 did anyone run coax for TV/Sat distribution?

Edited by prlzx (Thu 10-Jun-21 21:00:23)

In reply to a post by Ancient_Mariner:

Various lengths, say 10 to 15 metres max; although some much less.
Installed during full rewire of house in 2002. It is all copper, none of this 'copper covered steel'.

I'm looking for a future solution for post PSTN shutdown, so in the main speed will be whatever a digital phone needs.

Cheers!

Can you please clarify, when you say 'digital phone' connection from what to what precisely please?

I should have said a VoIP phone.

The CW1308 cable installed is mainly 3-pair, but due a shortage at the wholesaler at the time, there is some 4-pair CW1308 (pity we didn't purchase CAT5 at the time

Cheers!

Yes, but all in use. Those adaptors are interesting though!

Cheers!

10/100 is reasonably forgiving. It may just work on relatively short lengths of 1308. Much depends on the age/condition of the cable as well as the length. Totally against the standards, but in a pinch you don't lose much by trying.

Edit - you probably know this, but just in case, you need pairs 2 (orange and or/wh) and 3 (green and gr/wh) for 10/100. Not all 4 pairs at those speeds. These are the pair colours in a regular Cat X cable

Edited by Pheasant (Thu 10-Jun-21 21:50:55)

Could you convert to analogue at the easiest place and use the phone cabling for analogue phone extensions?

E.g if all the cabling went to the old BT master socket then just connect that cable to the VoIP adaptor or equivalent.

That is also part of the "plan".

I want to see if my Cisco ATA191 can ring the existing phones (which are currently on a BT phone line), then that may well be the answer. Currently the ATA191 is happily ringing a desk phone upstairs plus line 2 on a Delta 700 two-line phone and a basic Panasonic cordless.

Cheers!

I think I would go with DECT for the handsets with dual mode PSTN+SIP base unit, with the main base plugged into a switch or router without needing the CW1308 cabling.

UK DECT being sub-2GHz has a bit better range through walls than Wi-Fi especially with lower data rate requirements, and GAP providing vendor-agnostic compatibility.

I only mentioned the adaptors as those 10/100 looked relatively affordable (compared with gigiabit over coax or TP), and I don't know how much people pay for ATAs these days for comparison (are they usually second hand?).

I expect come the switchoff, ATAs will be what suits a minority but significant segment of the population wanting to use the same phone.
By analogy with the digital TV switchover, STBs were used to achieve the take up where people didn't want to replace all their TVs, and for people with VCRs or DVD recorders (commonly still connected over SCART even in 2009).

But I have a feeling most households will be using mobile (with or without Wi-Fi calling) in combination with ISPs offering a SIP package (as a line rental replacement) bundled into the fibre Internet monthly billing.

Enough people will want to keep the same geographical number at least for the first few years, even if it is automatically ported into their ISP such that they can also carry it with them on an app when out and about.

Edited by prlzx (Thu 10-Jun-21 23:21:16)

In reply to a post by prlzx:

Enough people will want to keep the same geographical number at least for the first few years, even if it is automatically ported into their ISP such that they can also carry it with them on an app when out and about.

That’s precisely what I’ve been doing for several weeks now. What’s now available, the next generation of SIP soft-phone apps, like Acrobits Groundwire, which is far and away a more clever and sophisticated solution than previous smartphone SIP apps; uses ios / android native push notification on inbound calls. The app doesn’t even need to be running at all on the smartphone, and it’s completely seamless on WiFi or the mobile network.

So I effectively have all my landline numbers (several SIP registrations) available and working wherever I have my smartphone, without needlessly sucking up battery, and it works seamlessly and brilliantly. Totally converted.