Here goes...
I've described this a couple of times before, but never got round to doing it. I've had a poke about today, so I've got a bit more of an idea what's going on.
From the roadside, there's a 20 pair BT cable coming up to a junction box outside our office. In this junction box, there's a 20 pair cable going to the house, and a 20 pair cable going to the office.
From what I can see from having a gander in the junction box, all the cables are joined. 10 pairs from BT go to the office, the other 10 go to the house. There are then 10 pairs that link the office and the house. A fairly sensible arrangement.
For our phone system, 2 pairs are need for an extension (1 data, 1 voice). There are three extensions office-side, so 6 pairs are used. This leaves 4 pairs between Office and House that aren't used. There are termination boxes in both the house and the office that are fairly standard push down terminations.
My plan is to be finally able to dump the shoddy wireless link between the two buildings and to use the spare pairs as an ethernet cable. All the cabling's CAT5, as far as I know, so it should be good enough.
I think (although I can't be sure) that the cables have been fairly sensibly laid out. i.e. 10 pairs to BT on the left side of the termination panel, 10 pairs inter-building on the right side. They've also been sensible enough to match up the colours, so this could be really quite straight forward.
So, my question. Where do I go from here? Just buy a punchdown tool and shove a bit of CAT5 on the end and hope for the best? I'm thinking I ought to get a cable tester that can test one pair at a time for continuity - can anyone suggest such a device? Most of the ones I've seen are for complete LAN cables...
If I manage to get this done, then all I have to do is persuade my Dad to put a cable from the side of the house the termination box is to the side of the house where the computers are!
Thanks for any input!
I've described this a couple of times before, but never got round to doing it. I've had a poke about today, so I've got a bit more of an idea what's going on.
From the roadside, there's a 20 pair BT cable coming up to a junction box outside our office. In this junction box, there's a 20 pair cable going to the house, and a 20 pair cable going to the office.
From what I can see from having a gander in the junction box, all the cables are joined. 10 pairs from BT go to the office, the other 10 go to the house. There are then 10 pairs that link the office and the house. A fairly sensible arrangement.
For our phone system, 2 pairs are need for an extension (1 data, 1 voice). There are three extensions office-side, so 6 pairs are used. This leaves 4 pairs between Office and House that aren't used. There are termination boxes in both the house and the office that are fairly standard push down terminations.
My plan is to be finally able to dump the shoddy wireless link between the two buildings and to use the spare pairs as an ethernet cable. All the cabling's CAT5, as far as I know, so it should be good enough.
I think (although I can't be sure) that the cables have been fairly sensibly laid out. i.e. 10 pairs to BT on the left side of the termination panel, 10 pairs inter-building on the right side. They've also been sensible enough to match up the colours, so this could be really quite straight forward.
So, my question. Where do I go from here? Just buy a punchdown tool and shove a bit of CAT5 on the end and hope for the best? I'm thinking I ought to get a cable tester that can test one pair at a time for continuity - can anyone suggest such a device? Most of the ones I've seen are for complete LAN cables...
If I manage to get this done, then all I have to do is persuade my Dad to put a cable from the side of the house the termination box is to the side of the house where the computers are!
Thanks for any input!