On Sun, 25 Dec 2011 08:18:33 +0000 (UTC), Chuck Banshee
wrote:

On Sat, 24 Dec 2011 13:36:12 -0800, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
RJ45 jacks do not cause loss. Un-connected jacks do not cause loss.
Unterminated cables do not cause loss.

Thanks; that's what I needed to know!

The catch is that you have to install one cable for each RJ45 jack.

I have plenty of cable (I bought 500 feet of Home Depot outdoor rated
cat5 cable for $75) and the entire run is only about 100 feet to the
newly drilled hole in the office at the center of the house.

Since CAT5e has 4 pairs of wires, and ethernet uses only 2 pairs,
you can split the cable pairs and wire two jacks on the wall jacks
and attach two RJ45 plugs at the other end of the cable.

That's good to know!

That means if I put the POE & ethernet switch on an indoor shelf in the
garage where the outdoor cat5 enters the house, I can then connect two
female ports of the ethernet switch to two male RJ45 connectors on a
single run of 25 foot cat5 cable to the center of the house under the
crawl space and up through the hole I already drilled, and then put TWO
female jacks at the center of the house in that wall (both using the same
cat5 cable).

I had not realized this was a possibility until you mentioned it just
now. Thanks.

PS: Thanks for admonishing me on the 'wire' versus 'cable' (I'll use the
term "cable" as there are no wires involved).

However, if you're using PoE on this segment, you'll need
all 4 pairs to the wall jack.

Again, very good information.

That means I probably want the POE earlier on in the star topology rather
than later on if I plan on using a single cable to serve two connections.
I would not bother splitting the cable - you have enough cable to do
it right and run 2 cables - which will allow you to move to gigabyte
ethernet later if technology dictates. Gives you redundancy too.