What to do with homerunned telephone in closet?

[skcocoon]

A few years ago, I built a house and did all the low voltage myself. Even though I never had the phone company hook me up to the PSTN (I use voip and cordless phones), I did wire cat5e all around the house for voice/phone. Now, I'm getting ready to sell the house and I need to get everything in my wiring closet completed that I never really needed to do for myself.

Right now, I've got approx. 40 drops of cat5e that I've designated for voice. They are terminated at the wall with an RJ-45 jack, back to the closet and terminated into a cat5e patch panel. I'm using T568B on both ends.

My question is - What should I do from the patch panel? I see mentions of 66 and 110 blocks. I know there are modules that leviton and other companies sell, etc. Problem is, I don't really know which way to go. I'd like to go the cheaper route here, as I'm doing this simply to finish off the closet before listing the house on the market, but at the same time I want to do it "right" so that it'll just work for any new homeowner if they decide to leverage a standard telephone line (or want to use VoIP with multiple regular handsets, etc).

Let me know if you have any advice, suggestions, questions, etc.

Thanks in advance!

 

[standon]

I would leave it, just leave the cat5 you have connected to the patch panel. Just make sure each port is marked clearly regarding their locations.

If the next homeowner wants a POTS line, the telephone company will come out and install a demarcation box. They will probably need only 2 to 3 of the drops for the telephone anyway. They can just take the white/blue and blue cables (Pin 5 and 6 on RJ45) and put it directly into the demarc box. On the jack end, you can plug a RJ12 into RJ45 and the center pins match up. If you're looking for something fancier, I'd say this sort of thing works.

 

[Frunple]

I agree with standon.

 

[skcocoon]

I was considering at least having a bridge where up to 10-20 lines could always be patched from... something like a pair of these: http://www.smarthome.com/8631/Leviton-47689-B-Bridging-Module-with-110-Connectors-and-Bracket/p.aspx or this: http://www.amazon.com/CHANNEL-VISION-C-0439-Telephone-Distribution/dp/B0006DNQXY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1336260828&sr=8-2 that I could run to any of the ports on the patch panel.

My fear is that a homeowner would see it in it's current state and think: "I'll have to pay someone to make my phones work" (besides just getting the demarc in). If I can spend ~$50 and basically have it so that any of the lines can be easily patched from the panel into the bridge, and then all the phone company would have to do is tie in from the demarc to the bridge, and it works... then I might be better off.

I'm doubtful that any potential buyer is going to know one way or the other what they're looking at either way... but on the other side of the coin, I don't want to leave them with something that's going to be a major pain for them to get working - people expect phones to simply "work" when they buy a house.

I'll consider just leaving it as is, but would like to make a decision in the next day or two... any other thoughts/suggestions?

 

[treo650]

Maybe it's the geek in me..

But if I had all home rubbed cat5s to a used home that I was buying, I'd be happy.

The demarcation punch down above looks like it will do too

 

[skcocoon]

Maybe it's the geek in me..

But if I had all home rubbed cat5s to a used home that I was buying, I'd be happy.

Well, this is only like 10% of the wiring, there's cat6, rg6qs, mini-coax, security wire, speaker wire, etc running everywhere If I could pre-wire for it, I did... I just have an answer for how I want to terminate everything else... just never had to think about telephone until now, and of course it's such a basic thing that every home (historically) has - even when it has nothing else.

The demarcation punch down above looks like it will do too

Which one were you referring to?

 

[gizzmo]

I would say it is wired for the future and you can terminate it any way you see fit.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[tmbrown97]

I agree - leave it... and if the owner has any questions about how to use it for phones, show them this splitter - plug it into an incoming line, then use a few short patch-cords to connect to whatever jacks you want phones lines at. Very simple.

 

[wuench]

If possible I would pull a Cat5 to the Demarc box for them and just terminate it on the patch panel like all your other drops. That's basically how I have my house wired today. I always consider what I am going to do selling my house when I do ha stuff. In my last house (which was all unreliable X10), I pulled all the switches out when I put it up for sale.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Is the telephone demarc in the same closet as the cat5e terminations? If so, I would consider getting one of these boards (the center one in that link) and land the telephone demarc on it, then patch to whatever cat5e jack for telephone use via the flat ribbon cables.

 

[pbeaulieu]

I agree with Standon also. I use to have just punch downs but my better half complained that if we were to sell the house who would understand what to do other then a geek (like her husband ). The Leviton stuff is available at Home Depot and local electric stores. So just about anyone who is a little bit handy can get some help to figure out the Leviton stuff.

 

[skcocoon]

I went ahead and got one of these: http://www.amazon.co...36260807&sr=1-3

I think it's a good compromise, as I was going to order at least 3-4 of those, but this way I can at least easily bridge 9 drops and the future homeowner can change which ports they want active at any time that way. All the phone company has to do is tie in from the demarc.

Thanks for all the advice and opinions!

 

[tmbrown97]

May be too late, but I don't like that idea (what you chose)... Unless I'm mistaken, that's intended for you to remove the wires from the patch panels where they are today and terminate the raw wires into that board - that lessens functionality! What BSR suggested is great - it's a more elegant version of what I suggested above.

To each his own, but if I bought your house, I'd be thoroughly annoyed at your fix and would put it back to what you had before, making it all a waste of time and money.

 

[skcocoon]

May be too late, but I don't like that idea (what you chose)... Unless I'm mistaken, that's intended for you to remove the wires from the patch panels where they are today and terminate the raw wires into that board - that lessens functionality! What BSR suggested is great - it's a more elegant version of what I suggested above.

To each his own, but if I bought your house, I'd be thoroughly annoyed at your fix and would put it back to what you had before, making it all a waste of time and money.

I'm not sure I understand your hesitance, or perhaps I didn't explain my thought-process well enough... Nothing changes at the patch panel today - only addition is patch cables (from the panel) to the bridge board.


1) Pole to Demarc (future decision)
2) Demarc to RJ11 (or RJ45) port (future decision)
3) RJ11 port to Bridge Board - Wire an RJ45 or RJ11 port on to one of the sets of punchdowns on the board
4) Bridge Board to patch panel (x9) - 1 end of a cat5e cable punched in to each of the remaining 9 sets of punchdowns - and the other end of the cables have RJ45 jacks that plug in to any jack the patch panel.
5) Patch Panel to Wall Plates/jacks in Rooms

Then, any 9 ports can be actively bridged by simply switching the port in the patch panel that the cable is hooked to. And, if the homeowner wants to use the cat5e in the patch panel for something else, all they have to do is unplug any/all of the cables from the patch panel and plug in whatever they want.

To me, it's the same thing as what BSR suggested - the only difference being ports vs punchdowns on the bridge side. At the patch panel side, it's identical. Patch in to the bridge, or don't

Unless I'm misunderstanding something???

 

[Swancoat]

I use one of these: http://www.homecontrols.com/On-QLegrand-1x8-Enhanced-Telecom-Module-OQ36455101?sc=22&category=74261

Telco plugs into it and they can just walk away. Whenever they need a telephone line, they can just plug a Cat5 cable they buy anywhere from here to your patch panel. Plus: built in RJ31X for security panel.