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By: Captain B

Before I begin, unless you plan on installing Cat3 wire in your home, you need not read any further. The purpose of this file is to give you an understanding of the Cat 3 wiring color scheme, and how to connect it to standard wiring phone jacks. Before I do, let me mention that another difference between standard and Cat3 cabling is that Cat cabling has a greater bandwidth, and can push more data per second over it than standard wire. Also, Cat cabling is twisted pair wiring. Standard is non-twisted. Meaning, each wire in a pair (negative and postive) are twisted around each other, thereby making the pair self-shielding. In other words, Cat cabling phone wire is better. To further break it down which is the best among the 3 types of Cat cabling, here's a chart showing the data per sec each can transmit...

Type -- Data per sec.
Cat3 -- 10MegaBits/sec
Cat5 --100MegaBits/sec
Cat5e--1000MegaBits (or 1GigaBit) per sec

Cat5/5e only seem to come in RJ45 4 pair (4 line)wiring, as far as I've seen. Cat3 I've seen in both 2 pair and 4 pair wiring at Home Depot. For residential homes, most people won't have more than 2 line wiring. (And most likely won't need more than 2 pair wiring). So, for Cat3 I'll only be mentioning the wire colors for 2 pair Cat3. The extra wires (if It's Cat3 4 pair wire) don't need to be hooked up. In fact, they can be cut, if you like. Installing phone wire of any type always requires a wire cutter and wire stripper. (Or buy a combo wire stripper/cutter from Rat Shack, or some other electronic store). I'm not going into about how to strip off wire insulation, or any of that here. You should know that stuff. Okay, so here's how the color conversion between standard and Cat3 wire goes..

Standard wire               Cat 3

Tip- Green -----Line 1----- Orange
Ring- Red  -----Line 1----- White/orange stripe
Tip- Black -----Line 2----- Blue
Ring-Yellow ----Line 2----- White/blue stripe

Tip= Postive (primary)
Ring= Negative (secondary)

Solid color wires= Positive
Non-solid color (stripe) wires= Negative

As a final note for anyone trying to install phone wire for the first time: Take your time, work slowly and carefully, and exercise patients. The small gauge (size) of phone wire of any type makes it pretty prone to easy breakage. Also, if you're only using your phone line for standard voice communications, It's not necessary to go with Cat 3,5, or 5e wire. Cat cabling is more ideally suited for data transmitions. Such as modems, fax machines, TTY machines, or other telecom equipment that transmits data over phone lines. But, you can use Cat cabling for regular voice communication, too. To get a few more tips on installing phone wire, pick up a book called "Installing Telephones" from Radio Shack or pick up some other telecom related book at other electronics stores. Also, your library may have some books about it, so go check. And, here's a related web site you may find useful: http://www.phonewiring.com/ Oh, and always remember to disconnect your phone line at the TNI (Tel!
ephone Network Interface) outside your house first to remove voltage while working. Or, you can short the pair (connect ring and tip terminals or wire together) to remove voltage. Or, at least take a phone off the hook to minimize voltage. Have phun.
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