Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Need help on phone/LAN cable spec

[BlairDrums (BlairDrums]

On 1/10/97 5:06 PM Rich Lobdill of Tierra Neuva Cohousing wrote:


>I'm working up a proposal to the group which proposes that we wire the
>houses such that each house can connect their computer (if they own one) to
>an NT server in the common house which will then have a hardwire (non-modem)
>connection to the internet.

[snip]

>Specifically, I belive there is a type of standard home phone cabling which
>is built to carry both phone lines and LAN lines (I think it would be
>twisted pair for 10BaseT connections). It would make it very simple to spec
>this cable for the homes instead of standard three line phone cable.
>
>Does this jog anyone's memory?

I don't recall an earlier reference to this on the list, but I know what 
you're after.

The specification is for Category 5 Unshielded Twisted Pair. It will 
carry voice and data, and is most often made up of 4 pair of solid copper 
wire.

To "futureproof" your community (from a tech perspective) I recommend 
that each telephone wall plate, TV jack and doorbell should receive a 
separate feed of Cat 5 cable, run (in hub and spoke fashion) from a 
central distribution point.

Depending on the TV habit/policy of the group, you may also benefit from 
upgrading your video wiring.

TV/cable jacks in most homes use a single RG-59 coaxial cable. RG-6 
coaxial cable, however, is better at delivering digitally compressed 
video (for example, from DSS -- small sattellite dishes). If you do two 
runs to each room you'll also open up the possiblity of distributing 
video around the house -- baby monitors, child play areas, watching the 
video feed in more than one room.

The classic question, of course: "Does being wired help build community?"

If the community answers yes, you might consider a Macintosh server 
instead of Windows NT -- much faster to set-up, easier to maintain, 
compatible with Windows machines, and plenty powerful. I'm sending more 
details on the NT/Mac server comparison directly to Rich.

Good luck,

Blair Hornbuckle
Cohousing of the Genesee Valley
Rochester, NY