I need to remake my internal phone wiring - the wiring I have is old
and damaged, and also very byzantine with redundant junction boxen and
sockets (I think there used to be two or more lines incoming) and
extension cables running over almost every architrave in the house.

What I want to do in this age of ADSL and DECT is simplify to a single
master socket by the PC with the phone base station & ADSL
modem/router plugged in.

I understand the connections well enough - I'm going to tear
everything out from the initial junction box onwards and start again.
My question is this: is there any reason I shouldn't use Cat5e cable
for this?

I'm not going for structured cabling (tempting but I can't really
justify the effort and cost of retrofitting it), but I just happen to
have a lot of Cat5e cable. AFAIK it's far superior to bell wire, but
is there any problem I haven't thought of?

The proper cable to use is to the BT CW13308 specification. Cat5E is usually
OK because they are both twisted pair cables which is the crucial thing. You
need to start at the BT socket. Is the master socket an NTE5 or the older
Plan 1?


Peter Crosland