Cat5 color code.

This is a Cat5e cable.  You can see that there are 4 pairs of cables (8 wires).  I have them in order from pair 1 to pair 4.  This order is very important for a couple reasons.

1. Pair 1 (blue/blue white) is the 1st pair. So if you were going to hook up a phone jack, you always use pair 1 for line 1.  If you have two phone lines and you are running them over the same cable then you would use pair 2 (orange/white orange) for line 2.  You would use pair 3 for line 3 and so on.

Red, Right Ring!

When your wiring up a phone jack there is a proper way to do it. If you are using a traditional 4 wire cable (quad wire is what I call it) that means there are 4 wires in the cable.  Those 4 wires create 2 pairs.

Pair one is red and green.
Pair 2 is black and yellow.

Each pair has a tip and ring side.

Pair 1 - red is ring and green is tip
Pair 2 - yellow is ring and black is tip

This picture might be a little hard to see but the ring side always goes on the right side of the protector (demarcation point). This is an industry standard, so that all technicians follow the same rules and color codes.  Any color will work if it is same on both sides, but this way you can assume that when your fixing a jack it is right on the other end.  When people start mixing up colors it gets really hard to fix anything! Remember "ring right red" it always works.

Never run your cables in series.

Running cables in series can get you into trouble.  It is cheaper, and maybe quicker. But that doesn't make it better. If you don't know what I mean about running cables in series, it's pretty simple.  You run one cable from your demarcation point to a phone jack.  From that phone jack you run another cable to another phone jack and so on.  My crude little picture here shows you what I mean.

Where should I run all my cable to?

I have been running wires now for over 7 years.  I have seen some pretty nasty wiring jobs!  Funny thing is, is that a lot of these wiring jobs are done by the "pro's".  You would  think that licensed electricians would know how to run data and phone lines in people houses or businesses.  Some do, but most don't. I have been to new house builds, after they are finished and there has been not one phone line ran in the whole place.  A lot of people don't really use phones anymore, but a lot still do.

Cat5 is CHEAP!

 

Cat5 is CHEAP!  Run it everywhere,  you may not need it now. But you will!