RJ11 or RJ45? Home network...

wombooga · 5 Oct 2022 at 20:16

Hi guys, I'm struggling with internet in a large home I share with six other people. It has thick walls and the single router creates numerous dead zones (not helped it's under the stairs where the ONT is situated). I wondered if the house which has a ridiculous number of phone sockets, by chance, may have CAT5 cable to make the networking straight forward. Having opened up a phone socket it looks to be RJ11 but can anyone clarify? I've given it a tug (the wire...) but it won't move so replacing seems unlikely.
Image:

Deleted member 77746 · 5 Oct 2022 at 20:30

That’s Ethernet cable used for phone line. It’s fine to use on phones I’ve done it myself before.

You can run Ethernet over RJ11 and RJ45 if it’s crimped either or.

Sinbad2000 · 5 Oct 2022 at 20:34

That socket is neither RJ11 nor RJ45.
You can probably replace the faceplate and socket with an RJ45 connector but a lot will depend on where all the wires terminate. If they all come to a nice central location you could make them into a kind of patch panel to plug flyleads from your switch into ... For gig ethernet you need all four pairs to be good, for 100mbps FDX you can get away with two good pairs.
Wiring in the pic though looks to be more like a bus topology than a star - ie, all the phone points are connected in series. Not sure how easy it will be to adapt that to a wired networking solution

Caged · 5 Oct 2022 at 20:34

I'm only seeing three pairs there. The best you can hope for is 100Mbps between two ends of the cable, you'll have to remove all the daisy-chaining though and put a double RJ45 outlet in place.

Sinbad2000 · 5 Oct 2022 at 20:36

Caged said:
I'm only seeing three pairs there. The best you can hope for is 100Mbps between two ends of the cable, you'll have to remove all the daisy-chaining though and put a double RJ45 outlet in place.

I can orange-stripe, green and green-stripe in the tied up ends - so yeah looks like 3 pairs

wombooga · 5 Oct 2022 at 21:22

Thanks all, I’ve just checked and they are indeed three pair. Would you recommend rewiring these or just adding dedicated Ethernet?

Deleted member 77746 · 5 Oct 2022 at 23:29

That sockets got 6 pins on so it’s a phone analog socket. The old white type. Looking at those connections it’s an extension.

You can only rewire really if the other point where it goes back to can be connected back to a switch of some sort centrally.

More info is needed on what you are planning on doing I would say.

Philtor · 6 Oct 2022 at 00:11

Yup and how hard you tugged the wire is also relevant as it may have caused damage. Sorry, I couldn’t resist

Deleted member 77746 · 6 Oct 2022 at 07:07

Philtor said:
Yup and how hard you tugged the wire is also relevant as it may have caused damage. Sorry, I couldn’t resist