Good Afternoon
Maybe a bit of an odd question but as I’ve alluded to in other posts I’m in the process of swapping out phones form our legacy PBX to voip handsets on a hosted could solution.
We have some phones that are wall mounted and I’ve found with some that getting a standard cat 5/6 cable into the back of the phone and getting it flush on the wall is not easy.
Would cutting an old phone cable and putting RJ45’s on it in a 10/100 pin out work?
Probably 30cm/12" or less just to get form a socket in the wall out to the handset?
Thanks
Grant
You are going to have issues when it comes to power over ethernet, which pretty much all modern IP phones kind of expect to have as a default these days. Yeah you can use power adaptors, but that’s an even messier solution.
Besides most modern IP phones that are designed to be wall mounted account for the RJ45 jack in some way as they know it can’t and never will fit flush. What phone models are you using?
What phone models are you using?
Yealink T31’s
The wall mount will just about accommodate a cat 6 patch cable without a boot and with an extreme bend.In a couple of places where we used the supplied cat5e cable that came with the phones we had to cut the moulded boot off the cable.
I’m also looking at some different mounts for some areas that have a flat back plate rather then the hooks to hang on screws as we aren’t allowed to drill into the walls.
With regards to POE I know we have at least one phone working with POW using a set of splitters to get a phone on our LAN with a POS system on the POS providers broadband, so wasn’t sure if using a short ~6" length of reterminated phone cable to go from the socket to the phone would be workable. Thought Id ask the hive mind before getting the crimping tool out
Your absolutely best off using some of the flat/thin ethernet cord types that have been posted by others in this thread if space really does become an issue. You don’t want to be repurposing cabling that is not intended for PoE, especially if your a business. I note your in the UK as well, so you will fail PAT testing too using non certified cable for PoE.
Having done pat testing (albeit a long time ago) wouldn’t POE be outside of the regs as its considered low voltage?
Experience tells me that most PAT testers who don’t have an IT background will Just sticker stuff and move on. From the contractors that used to PAT test out building I have seen a power cable that had been shut in a floor hatch under a desk with copper showing pass, presumably as the bit they could see was ok.
A printer or a work bench being repaired fail because the the rear cover was off and the fuser unit removed. A tester come out form under a desk start walking away then spot the laptop sitting on the desk, drop a sticker on its lid without even looking at it and then walk away. They were form a large, possibly national company that just did PAT & electrical testing & I’m not sorry to say they don’t have the contract any moreYou are probably right, most testers can’t be arsed and will stick a sticker on a toaster sitting in a full bathtub if it means they get home quicker.
POE is a weird one when it comes to PAT testing. Because the phones can be powered by a plug in power adaptor they qualify for PAT testing and the devices that supply the power for the POE qualify for PAT testing so it often comes down to how your PAT tester wants to interpret it. Some take the whole chain from power socket to ethernet cabling while others just consider the devices themselves. If you get the former though, they will fail 2 pair (If it can even carry PoE).
If you have pots lines in building just pop an ht802 or another ata on the back end.
This would work and have the benefit of not having to even replace the phones that exist.
The other route OP could take would be to get some rather good commercial wireless AP’s. You still have to sort out power but the phones can go anywhere.
But for wall mounted modern phones, it’s just easier to run ethernet from a powered switch. Then it’s just 1 cable per phone gives you the power and network.
What is the wiring itself? Is it like, old 4 pin telephone wiring?
For a very short run like you mentioned, i’d assume it would work, since I’ve seen some flat fairly short ethernet cables that I don’t believe have the twisted pairs inside them, just straight through. If it was a longer run, the twisted pairs inside the cabling are important.
They also sell very thin cat6 cables that might be a better option, something like this
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=29476
(I saw in another post you’re in the UK, not sure if monoprice ships there or if theres another vendor that you could get them from).
Or if the ethernet cabling is already inside the wall going to an RJ45 wall plate, remove the plate and crimp a connector directly onto the cabling?
On wall mounted phones, I’ve found that putting an RJ45 plug on the cable and bypassing the jack is the easiest, cleanest thing to do.
How about these?
yes, you can use cat 3 (cw1308) cabling for 10/100 if the cable is direct end to end.
it is not recommended, though, and does comply with any standard you should use ca5/5a/6
you could use a multi port ata and use analogue phones for the phones that do not have the correct cabling. an alternative solution would be wifi adapters on the ip phone on a dedicated wifi network, which is not an ideal solution. with wifi, ensure you know the limitations, i.e., the number of concurrent connections,
just my opinion, though:-)
I wouldn’t recommend it. If cabling is a problem, you might want to consider WiFi phones, then you would just have a thin power cable with a wall wart.
The two I’m thinking of currently have analog phone lines patched out over cat6 structured cabling with a socket either set into the wall behind. Yealinks supplied bracket is horrible and leaves not much space and a pretty tight bend in the cable.
Might just hope I have some spare thinpatch cables kicking around