Hello,

As most of you guys are aware I am doing a DIY installation of extra telephone sockets.

I wanted to know if this telephone wire is suitable for what I want to do?

Screwfix direct have the following wires. As you will see, there is alot of wire. But it is cheaper if I buy in bulk, than going for the 20m for £9.99 from homebase or 3.20 for 10m from wickes.

Could somebody please tell me what the difference between these wires is? First is 2 Pair 4 Core, second is 3 Pair 6 Core, third is 4 Pair 8 core?

Below are the links for the cables.

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/18134/...EPHONE-_-18134

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/17421/...ir-6-Core-100m

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/49044/...air-White-100m

They are just as they say, one has 4 wires, one 6 and the other 8.
The 2 pair/4 wire cable is all you need for use at home as you only need 3 wires.

Thanks for the post.

But, what is this core thingy? Thickness of the whole wire?

Would I be right in saying that the 3 pair 6 core has a total of 6 wires paired into 3 sets?

Sorry for the stupid questions. SKy people are coming on friday and the whole house is in a mess, bloody jungle.

need to get the wiring tested and installed tommorow.

the core just means how may wires inside it. for example, we normally use 6 wire(3 pair) for our internal work, i personally use 8 wire(a. it costs the company more, b. my staple gun gets a better grip on it). but the 4 core will be fine, ideally if it wouldn't break the bank perhaps going for cat6 ethernet cable instead, as the pairs (4) are twisted around each other more frequently and reduces the effect the ext'n has on your b.band data rate.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...43891&doy=19m8

what ever you do though, get solid core cable not stranded. the above example is solid.

of course the above example would look crap on the skirting boards.

Would the wiring for the Cat6 ethernet cable be the same as normal telephone wire? OR do I need to change the sockets..etc.

How much work will be involved, if I use this wire?

I might just stick with the normal wire for now.

Thanks for the post.

That stuff looks like the pairs are solid colour and white twisted. Reminds me of some very old BT cable I had to rewire to upgrade the internal phone system at work several years ago.

That was a nightmare. The pairs were twisted about 1 turn per foot or something equally stupid. A real bu**er if you let it get away from you and had to try and work out which of the ten white wires went with which of the coloured wires

There isn't a huge amount of difference, at least not for phone use. To the untrained eye if you put a length of 4 pair phone cable and a length of CAT5 or 6 network cable side by side I doubt you would know which was which. Your only clue might be the way the wires are coloured.

Phone cable tends to have definite stripes whereas I've seen CAt5/6 cable that looks exactly the same, or has dots of colour or little rings every few mm.

But the basic colours used and gauge of wire are pretty much the same. So you shouldn't have any problems using either type.

Excellent. Thank you.

What kind of difference would I expect between the two types?

sorry, just realised it was a bad example for the colour on the cable, however the pairs are very closely twisted together so wouldn't think the OP would have a problem with it.

p.s that old stuff is now what they put in to link the LLU equip to the MDF, lost count the number of splits i've had to take out on faults.

as the cat5/6 cable has closer twists(about 1 turn per cm) this improves the AC balance of the pair and reduces the effect that household EMI(electrical magnetic interference)(and believe me homes are full of it) has on your b/band line(mainly a drastic reduction in atainable speed). for the general user the cable you were looking at would do the trick, but if your after getting as much speed from your line as possible(without fitting an adsl filtered faceplate(google before you ask)) then cat5/6 cable is the way to go.

Actually you only need one pair as modern phones do not need the ring wire. In fact if you have ADSL Broadband the ring wire can cause problems.

openreachpeep, I thought you couldn't turn Cat6 cable around a 45 degrees angle so it would be difficult putting it in?

I also thought that BT Openreach engineers use CW1308 for telephone/adsl extensions?

This is a hand guide to fitting telephone/adsl extensions:

http://www.readman.dsl.pipex.com/oth...ecatwiring.htm

the official ruling is no you can't, but when all you have going down it is pstn/adsl not 1000Mb data traffic it won't affect it that much.

am not old school enough to know what cw1308 is, but after searching for it on the stores catalogue it comes up with 20pr internal cable. i'm guessing thats the old name for 4 wire, which they did re-introduce(for enviromental reasons) but then stopped again cos the staple guns wouldn't hold it to the skirting board.lol. it's now back to 6 wire, but i use 8wire as the staples get a better grip on it and stop it sagging.
if on a job i have to fit a adsl faceplate for line length issues, i can also install a data ext'n(upto 30M) from the faceplate to the router, this has to be cleated(not stapled) but is o.k to be ran around door frames(90 degrees). the data kit is made up of a RJ45 plug on a reel of cat5 cable, with a cute socket that goes on the end.

to the OP that guide posted explains all you need to know about re-wiring your house.

what do you mean by 8 wire mate? Which cabling has 8 wire?

Also where do you purchase 8 wire?

EDIT: Dohh!, didn't read the topic fully...

Just a quick note to everybody who gave me their helpful advice. I have sucessfully managed to connect the extra sockets, and everything works perfectly.

Thank you.

Hopefully Sky will send a good engineer who will fit everything without complaining. *fingers crossed*

when they fitted my sky, their own engineers were very good(sky vans) very neat and tidy. when i updated to sky+ the other engineer was a contractor, and was definately in a rush. had to put a few extra cleats in and drip loop etc.

Tell me about it. My parents had Sky+ with Multiroom installed at their house, they had no problems, I was there, the engineer was extremely helpful, more than helpful.

BUT this guy I had around today, M&G installtions I think was the company he belonged to.

Bloody hell, he started moaning as soon as he stepped into the house.

Its like, its upto him if he wants to install it or not.

Well its rescheduled for wednesday this week. Hopefully will get somebody with a brain.

This ruined my day, I am in the right mind to complain about him, but I have a feeling, nothing will be done.

Here is my official rant.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=882755

just read that, sounds about right. my dish was at the back and i wanted it at the front, about 30M of cable round the side of the house, plus some internal. he didn't half moan the whole time, and i actually had to do the internal myself(tuck it in round the edge of the carpet). i do understand the contractors only get paid peanuts for what they have to do. hope you get a sky engineer next time round, mine came on a bank holiday and even called his mate to come and give a lift as they wanted to get of home early.

Just been off the phone Sky, I shall see what happens when they come around.

Sky could not confirm if a official Sky engineer would come around, most likely it would be a preferred partner. I have threatened to cancel everything if they do not listen to me.

I don't mind helping, but moaning, I know sky pay them peanuts, but surely they get paid a weekly wage..etc. If thats the reason why they don't do their job, well change your job.

I can't understand the logic behind him refusing, as my neighbour has exactly the setup I want to have, hopefully.

Well, we shall see what happens. Wish me luck. :sleep: