[ale] cat5

Geoffrey esoteric at 3times25.net
Mon Jan 14 12:00:07 EST 2002




Joseph A Knapka wrote:

> Stephen Turner wrote:
> 
>>cat5 has 8 wires... why cant we use more of them as
>>like simaltanious transfers of data? ?? could send
>>much more info over it i think than we currently are......
>>
> 
> It does seem a bit silly to waste half the wire in your
> cable plant. I wonder why the standard didn't just specify
> 4-wire cable? The four wires that are already used
> can apparently handle everything up to gigabit.
> 
> Of course, you could use those last 4 wires to run two
> separate connections over a single cable, but you'd
> have to buy or make splitters and adapters.


I'm curious about this issue.  Back when I started making my own cables, 
I had read a number of docs indicating that if you didn't use the proper 
  color coded wires, in the proper order, the cable 'might' not work. 
Point is, you can't just arbitrarely create a 1 to 1 cable without 
considering the ordering of the actual wires.  Standard cat5 cables run 
pin 1-8 as follows: orange/white, orange, green/white, blue, blue/white, 
green, brown/white, brown.  Now, before finding this documentation, I 
had created cables that did not take this approach, and as far as I can 
tell they worked just fine.  The only time I've ever witnessed a problem 
was when I used a flat 8 pin cable to connect one of my machines.  ping 
output presented a large number of loss packets.

So I said all that to get to this.  Assuming you're only using half the 
wires in said cable, if you use the other half for another connection, 
is this going to cause problems (interferance)?

I'm likely to give this a spin just to see.  I've got a single cable 
running from my basement to the 2nd floor.  It's connected to a hub 
which has two machines connected to it.  I could reclaim that hub if I 
could rewire this single cable accordingly.


Anyone else have any experiences with these cabling issues?


> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -- Joe
> "I should like to close this book by sticking out any part of my neck
>  which is not yet exposed, and making a few predictions about how the
>  problem of quantum gravity will in the end be solved."
>  --- Physicist Lee Smolin, "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity"
> 
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> 


-- 
--
Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at 3times25.net

"...the system (Microsoft passport) carries significant risks to users that
are not made adequately clear in the technical documentation available."
- David P. Kormann and Aviel D. Rubin, AT&T Labs - Research
- http://www.avirubin.com/passport.html


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