Some Thoughts to Consider on Your Phone Services

Telephone Repair Service and Information

FYI - SOME SUGGESTION ON NEW HOME WIRING

(This information is given to provide you with some direction. I do not do home or business pre-wiring as a rule. If you have a service problem, see the last section on this page for information on how I can help with that.)

It is all too common that new home builders will only make allowance for two or maybe three phone jacks for telephone service in a new home. In today's communication-intensive households, this is insufficient and inadequate when so many homes are also home offices which make use of telephone, fax, Internet dial-up as well as high speed DSL service.

All too often, after the home has been built and the homeowner wants a jack in a certain location, they find that they can't because not enough locations within the home were wired for service.

In this situation, wire has to be run to where the homeowner wants it because it hadn't been done during construction. The cost to the homeowner is now much greater than if it had been wired before the walls went up. And, if the wire can't be fished inside of walls, the wire has to be run externally. The problem with that is, exposed wire runs are eyesores and also more liable to damage resulting in service interruptions.

If you're having a home built, jack locations need to be considered carefully so as to avoid the draping of equipment cords and wire around the inside of rooms and across walk-ways. The ideal for safety and convenience would be, in general, a jack located between every doorway and/or on two sides of most rooms. The diagram below gives you an idea of where jacks should ideally be situated. This would be the same whether the room is to be used as a study, home office, library, family room, dining room, living room, bedroom or guest room.

A guide to follow for jacks, or at least wire to be placed, in different types of rooms would be:

rooms with one or two doorways - jacks on opposite walls of two sides of the room especially in living and family rooms;
rooms with three or more door ways - jacks between door ways and on opposite sides of the largest area of the room;
a jack in bathrooms, powder rooms, sun porches, laundry or utility rooms, mud rooms, attics and dormers;
at least one jack in basements and garages;
a weather-proof jack location should be considered for porches and decks;
a jack location for interior hallways, especially in the sleeping quarters areas;
at least one jack, if centralized, in the kitchen, but, preferably two.

If the garage is not attached to the house, provision should be made during construction for conduit to be laid between the house (basement, generally) and the garage for telephone wire especially if the garage might be used as part of a home-based business.

All wiring runs should be "home runs" which means each potential jack location (whether a jack will be installed or not) should be wired to where the telephone service comes into the house with no splices, or wiring bridges, in the run to other jack locations. In other words, all jack wire runs should be separate from every other jack wire run all the way back to where the service enters the home.

The only exception to this is if the type of equipment to be used has a certain maximum line impedance requirement for special phone features such as dial intercom or all station paging; the AT&T model 954 is an example of such a phone. In this case, it would be better if the phone stations were wired in series rather than in parallel home runs.

This rough drawing is an example of where jacks might be typically located on a main floor.

To pre-wire a house before the drywall goes up makes the installation much less costly than afterwards. Given what the cost per jack would be to do wiring installation after the house is finished, pre-wiring is a small investment and adds value to the house. But the main consideration in all this is that the house would be set regardless of whatever the use of ANY room might be.

Standard category 3 wire can be used for phone/fax/modem/DSL line combinations at each jack location. If, however, you want a home network to connect several computers, then you're going to need category 5 wire which has a greater number of twists per inch and which can handle a high data rate. If you take this into consideration during the building process, then, whether you will be using phone, fax, Internet dial-up or DSL services, or a home network, your home would be set regardless of whatever the use of any room may ultimately be.

WHY YOU DON'T WANT AN ELECTRICIAN TO DO YOUR PHONE WIRING

Without meaning to cast aspersions upon electricians, they are not, generally, knowledgeable enough to properly wire today's homes for telecommunication service. Just as you wouldn't want a telephone man doing your electrical wiring, so you don't want an electrician doing your telephone wiring.

Electricians do a great job in getting the wire placed within your home or place of business, but, you want someone who is knowlegeable in how to put it all together to make the connections; that is, in the method of routing the wire properly at the base location where the termination and service feed connections will be located. Having someone who can do this in a manner consistent with industry standards will make the difference in your telecommunication needs throughout your life in your home or place of business and will assure proper service utilization.

The proper amount of wire placed during construction also means no sub-standard wiring alterations or add-ons later on.

Also, typically, many electricians use wire that is not designed to meet minimum transmission standards. This usually results in phones within the home or place of business picking up cross-talk from other lines because of the type of wire used.

Also, more often than not, even if the proper wire is used, it is never more than four pair (though that is a distinct improvement over the two and three pair wire many still use).

I recommend the use of six pair wiring when you have your home or business pre-wired. This will greatly facilitate the setting up of home offices and the like which can easily exceed four lines considering most basic home offices will have a home line, a fax, modem and/or DSL line and at least one business line, not to mention what phone and Internet lines any children might have.

When all this is taken in consideration, four pair wiring can be a liability for it does not allow for expansion. If this is what your electrician is planning to use in your house, he's 40 years out of date.

In case you might think that six pair wire is overkill, it was the Bell System standard as far back as the late fifties-early sixties for all new residential pre-wire construction work. So six pair wire is nothing new; it's just getting back to what had been. As the saying goes, "If it isn't broke, don't fix it;" but fix it they did by reverting to wiring which has been inadequate for the job for more than 40 years now.

However, that much being said, if your going to be wiring your location for a LAN, or, Local Area Network, then, you're going to want the higher twist of Category 5 (Cat 5) wiring. It is possible someone makes six pair Cat 5 wire, but, I've never seen or heard of it. But, then, I don't know everything; I wish I did.

Nowadays, as you may be aware, wireless computing is being used more and more and may well become the standard. In a typical home, wireless should work without any problems. But, more floors between the wireless Gateway or modem means decreased speeds.

Because of this, if you're getting something such as AT&T U-verse service, which includes Internet access, you might want to consider placing the Gateway in the middle of the building, if that is feasible.

In our home, for instance, before I realized the Gateway was actually wired AND wireless, the unit was placed in the basement at the back of the building. People on the second floor with wireless laptops are getting only one or two "bars" indicating the strength of the connectivity. So a mid-building Gateway or wireless router location will increase service usability.

A CAVEAT - THE TROUBLE WITH BUILDERS

Getting your new house wired has to clear a hurdle - the builder. Unless you own the property, you may have trouble getting your builder to allow someone to come in to wire your new home for telephone service. Afterall, you don't own it yet. And, even if you do own the property, you may run into resistance. So if you encounter this from your construction company, do not be surprised. There may be some kind of an arrangement between the builder and the electrician for only the builder's electrician to do the telephone wiring. But, it will be your home and you will probably be in it for a long time. Insist that he let you have a third party come in to do the communications wiring if you don't like the way the electrician will be doing it. You won't regret it.

IF YOU HAVE A SERVICE PROBLEM

If you're experiencing trouble with your present phone service, and you don't have a wire maintenance plan, I can isolate the trouble for you to either the phone system or the telephone line if it is not in your inside wiring.

If the trouble is isolated to the inside wiring, I can probably fix what's not right or let you know why not. If it proves into your equipment, I'll advise you of that so you can contact your equipment vendor to clear the trouble. If the trouble proves into your service provider's domain I'll advise you of that as well. For most situations, isolating the trouble is the biggest obstacle to getting it fixed; that is, knowing where to turn.

I don't work on actual telephones or telephone systems. For that you must contact your equipment vendor. There are too many different types of telephones and/or systems for any one individual or company to have sufficient knowledge to adequately service them all. That limits me to isolating trouble on your phone lines to network interfaces and demarcation points and the like.

But, that being said, if you have a question, we can always talk about it if you'd like to give me a call.