Can I add a phone jack usaing 4 strand wire my home with existing cat 5?

Question

My home telephone is wired with cat 5 using 8 wires. I want to add a jack to the basement, and I have a 100 foot roll of 4 strand phone wire. Can I use it? If so, where can I find the color scheme for the addition, since the colors of the dark wires do not all match?

Answer 1

Yes, you can use the 4 strand wire.

Look at wherever you are going to run the wire from, and check how the wires are connected to the jack terminals. Match your 4 wire strand to the wires that are connected to the red, green, black and yellow terminals.

You could also run straight from the phone box outside the home, and just match the wires to those colored terminals in the box.

Have Fun

Answer 2

Regular wire uses red,green,yellow and black.
red & green are the first pair and yellow & black are the spare pair.
Newer cable with Blue/White and White/Blue is generally the first pair.
Orange/White and White/Orange are the second pair.
The remainder of the wires follow the same pattern.
White with Colored stripe and Colored with White stripe.
If you are connecting a junction box to a junction box use the first and second pairs as described above.
If you are planning to crimp connectors on the end it's a lot harder.
I am a perfectionist and bought a $10 phone line tester to make sure the polarity is right even though phone works most of the time either way. Follow the instructions on the package.
Good Luck ! ! !

Answer 3

Yes you can as long as you don't plan on using that line for Internet.