[S13xFLYxBY]

Hey guys is it possible to change my phone jack to a ethernet port? If so how would you configure the wires? I've seen it done at my friend's house when he needed to play Xbox Live, so one of his dad's friend that was over changed the phone port for him.

[awdark]

You can't exactly change it... in theory there are 2 or 4 wires (depends on how they made it) and the ethernet uses 8 wires but only 4 of them are used so theoretically you can connect it. The problem is the type of wires. The phone lines uses phone wires while network cables are twisted and use the extra wire for shielding. So although they will probably connect it will get really bad speeds. So most likely they ran another network cable along the phone lines when they setup those wires

Okay... I should probably make sure I understand your question
Are you... trying to like network the house
or get internet like DSL?

[S13xFLYxBY]

You can't exactly change it... in theory there are 2 or 4 wires (depends on how they made it) and the ethernet uses 8 wires but only 4 of them are used so theoretically you can connect it. The problem is the type of wires. The phone lines uses phone wires while network cables are twisted and use the extra wire for shielding. So although they will probably connect it will get really bad speeds. So most likely they ran another network cable along the phone lines when they setup those wires

Okay... I should probably make sure I understand your question
Are you... trying to like network the house
or get internet like DSL?

Oh thnx for the info and i'm tryin to get internet.

[DaRkViEt73]

Hey guys is it possible to change my phone jack to a ethernet port? If so how would you configure the wires? I've seen it done at my friend's house when he needed to play Xbox Live, so one of his dad's friend that was over changed the phone port for him.

If you are talking about converting the phonejacks from two different rooms (one of which is next to your router) so that you can connect your xbox to the internet.... *** EDIT *** This should be called "If you want to re-use the existing wiring and not run any new cables."

Yes you can but it's not something a casual person can really tackle on their own without proper punchdown and toning tools. You'll also lose the ability to use a normal phone in each room if the cable behind the walljack is 2 or 4 wires only. Also the quality of the connection could end up being poor/unusable. Because of the general difficulty involved, I doubt you'll be doing this. However, for the curious, here goes...

The basics involve opening up the wallplates on each side and seeing if you've got 4 wires available on each end. You then need to go outside to the side of your house/building where your phonelines terminate (aka "the phone box") and figure out which are the wires you're trying to connect together. Be careful because this part of the phone box is HIGH VOLTAGE. You won't die, you'll just get a good jolt if you touch it with your bare hands. Anyways, this is where a toner tool will come in handy. You can simply plug in a tone generator into your phone jack then, using the probing tool, find out which set of wires it is outside your house. Here's an example of one http://www.testequipmentdepot.com/extech/c...sters/40180.htm. Once you find out where all 8 total wires you're connecting are (4 wires on each end), you can simply connect them using some simple button wire connectors sold at Home Depot or other hardware stores.

You now have 4 complete wires end-to-end between the two phone jacks now. At this point, simply replace the phone wall jacks with CAT5 wall jacks. This is where you really need a punchdown tool to terminate (connect) the wires to the wall jack. Even though there's 8 possible wires you can punch down with cat5 jacks, you'll only need to use the 4 of them. You simply connect the wires to pins 1, 2, 3 and 6 on both ends.

If you actually have 8 wires behind BOTH phone jacks, leave the 2 or 4 wires currently used for the phone alone. Take the other 4 wires not being used and connect them as explained above. You then just buy a wall plate that allows you to plug in two walljacks instead of one. This allows you to have a separate jack for phone and internet.


If you are talking about converting just the ONE phonejack so it becomes an ethernet port... *** EDIT *** This should be called "If you're willing to run brand new cables"

Figure out if you can simply run a cable thru the attic or something. The basic idea is to get a cat5 cable and drop it down from the attic so it comes out of the wall jack. You may need to drill a hole thru wood in the attic right above where the walljack is to be able to drop the cable down and grab it from the opening in your wall. Once you do that, simply disconnect the existing phone wires and phone jack... then terminate the new cable you just ran to a cat5 walljack instead. Or to retain the use of the phone line, buy a two port wallplate and plug both walljacks into that instead. That takes care of the jack that'll go to your xbox.

The other end that'll connect to your router can also be done the same way. Or you could simply drill a small hole in the ceiling of the room where your router is. Just make it big enough to fish the cable thru and down into your room. You can then terminate this end with a cat5 wall jack... or put a cat5 modular plug instead so you can just connect it directly to your router. Done.



My recommendation... just forget the whole thing and simply get a long cable to connect your xbox to your router. Drill holes in your celing in both rooms so you can run the cable thru the attic and forget about using cat5 wall jacks. It's easy if you simply use existing holes that your cable TV or antenna cable are using and follow the cable.

[awdark]

Oh thnx for the info and i'm tryin to get internet.

Signing up for internet? What do you use now? Like if you have dialup (hopefully not) then you will have to sign up with a local internet provider to get it... they will send you the stuff you need