Cat5 only needs two pairs of wires, but make sure you reserve color pairs.
If you strip back enough of the outer sheath, you'll find that wire pairs
are visible. Each color pair, like blue and white/blue is twisted and this
is important for the cat5 spec.
bill

"Ignoramus23410" wrote in message
...
I need to run about 100-120 feet of cat5e cable to connect our bedroom
to the utility room where the network switch, DSL router etc is. I
ALSO need to run a phone cable, from utility room to the same
bedroom. I am wondering if all 8 wires on a cat5e cable are used for
Ethernet purposes, and if that is not the case, is there a couple I
could use for phone. That way I could save $$ and time by running one
cable instead of two.

i