1 Cat5/6 to 2 Ports

[DotNetDog]

A local LV installer tells me that he frequently runs 1 Cat5/6 wire to feed 2 ports. Since network ports only require 4 wires he says it works fine.

Logically this sounds OK but are there any issues with doing this?

 

[personalt]

A local LV installer tells me that he frequently runs 1 Cat5/6 wire to feed 2 ports. Since network ports only require 4 wires he says it works fine.

Logically this sounds OK but are there any issues with doing this?

In theory you can do that.. http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-mak...%22splitter%22/

Where I come from I would call that the getto solution. The problem, especially for TV drops you might end up doing HDMI or some future technology over cat5. That alternate source is likely to require all 8 wires. At my TV drops I ran a wire with 2 cat5 + 2 coax and then I ran a seperate mini-rgb(5 wire) and a hdmi or two. Already I would like to run additional HDMI sources which will steal the cat5s.. If anything I would run more cat5 to tvs etc not less.

My opinion would be that while there could be a few places where you would want two network jacks at the same drop the more likely solution is that you will want to use those cat5s for other types of data and therefore may not be able to share it in the future.

I dont know what I spent on wire.. maybe $600 or so on material.. Of that I used one box of cat5 I think (not including the 2 cat5/2 coax combo). Another box of cat5 is maybe $60.. the first time you need to bust open holes in your wall to run extra cat5 you can expect to spend a few hundred in time and effort.

 

[Kevin L]

I agree with personalt. CAT5 is cheap, and there's only a marginal labor saving in running one cable vs two to the same location. I wouldn't let him get away with it. I put a port wherever I though I'd need it and ran its own cable to each port. In the one are that I'd need a lot of ports (by my desk at home, where I have a desktop PC, laptop, two network computers, and an NAS), rather than rund a half-dozen cables and ports, I plugged in an 8-port gigabit switch and plugged all the clients into the switch.

Kevin

 

[drozwood90]

Also causes issues if you want to use Gigabit...that uses all 8 wires...

--Dan

 

[DotNetDog]

A local LV installer tells me that he frequently runs 1 Cat5/6 wire to feed 2 ports. Since network ports only require 4 wires he says it works fine.

Logically this sounds OK but are there any issues with doing this?

In theory you can do that.. http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-mak...%22splitter%22/

Where I come from I would call that the getto solution. The problem, especially for TV drops you might end up doing HDMI or some future technology over cat5. That alternate source is likely to require all 8 wires. At my TV drops I ran a wire with 2 cat5 + 2 coax and then I ran a seperate mini-rgb(5 wire) and a hdmi or two. Already I would like to run additional HDMI sources which will steal the cat5s.. If anything I would run more cat5 to tvs etc not less.

My opinion would be that while there could be a few places where you would want two network jacks at the same drop the more likely solution is that you will want to use those cat5s for other types of data and therefore may not be able to share it in the future.

I dont know what I spent on wire.. maybe $600 or so on material.. Of that I used one box of cat5 I think (not including the 2 cat5/2 coax combo). Another box of cat5 is maybe $60.. the first time you need to bust open holes in your wall to run extra cat5 you can expect to spend a few hundred in time and effort.

To his credit, I will say that the LV guy here did say that he only does this with network/phone drops. However, you got me thinking...I am 100% sure that a so-called network drop will not need to become a TV drop in 5 years. Hmmmm....

Thanks.

 

[DotNetDog]

Also causes issues if you want to use Gigabit...that uses all 8 wires...

--Dan

Is this true? I clearly specified that all network drops must support gigabit connections.

EDIT: OK, I just Googled this topic and it's true. You cannot split the wires if you're using (or plan to use) gigabit networks.

 

[personalt]

All the guy has to do is buy one more box of cat 5.. Tape the two ends together when he starts pulling.. Have him by 2 boxes of differnt color cat5 that way for each pull you know which wire is which.

If he doesnt want to punch down the 'extra' wire that might be okay. I have a lot of wire that is not punched down in the closet. Best solution is to tag all these wires on both sides even if you dont punch it down. I would think splitting jacks would be labor intensive.

I always prefer to tag everything but in some cases when I didnt tag it would wire up the jack on the non-closet side and use a tone generator to find the un-punched down wire in the closet.

Another problem I would see with this solution is how do you test any of these runs. I have a $5.00 network tester(see ebay and order one from china or pay $20 at Home Depot). All that thing does it look for working pairs of wires and move through each of the wires. It may not work at all in a split jack config as I have noticed when one punch is bad the tool comes with two of the lights not lighting up. I have a feeling in this rigged setup a network tester might fail even for a good jack.

 

[Steve]

+1 for not splitting a single cable. You will only end kicking yourself with aggravation in the future.