Technokid and PHAND....acknowledged I misread the post and agreed with your points.

I wouldn't combine voice and data on the same cat-5/6 cable though. While only two pairs are needed for data and one pair for voice, the issue becomes crosstalk.

I wouldn't combine voice and data on the same cat-5/6 cable though. While only two pairs are needed for data and one pair for voice, the issue becomes crosstalk. I understand your point but unless he starts rewiring the housse this is the best option. If he has proper CAT5 cable, being twisted pair is met to eliminate cross talk as much as possible. If there were any cross talk at all, it would only be during an actual phone conversation as there is no handshake on a phone line during idle as it is simply a low voltage (it only gets to the max voltage during the ringing portion). I think this is the best option available to him at this point and I am convince he shouldn't experience any issues as I would more likely be concerned about cross talk in either commercial or public communication environment which involves mass of cables that could possibly intertwine.

Your other issue that the wire is cut at each phone jack.. You cannot just solder them back together (like another electrician I saw tried to do once).

You can splice voice lines,, nothing stops you doing data as well, but youll have a loss in signal,, which could result to 10mbps. I've been working in the telecom trade for some time now.. I agree solder is not the way to do it,, you use beans,, there usally blue or white, you connect 2 lines together and squees the bean, inside is just cooper with sharp teeth that bite in the line. Blue is used for outdoor,, as its grease filled, white indoor use, nothing in it.

You can for example use a cat5e line, and split it in two jacks,, the blue pair could be used for voice, green and orange for data. Brown would be spair or second line. You can split the line for 2 network connections too, Use blue as your orange, and brown as your green, the reason is the amount of twist in the line, blue and orange have the more twist then the green and brown, this is to prevent cross talk, as orange is your RX and green is your TX. RX is what you want in most cases to be faster and free of interference.

There is now networking over the power grid,, its a pretty interesting solution, alows you to network from any room to another room, no need to run additional wires and you get the same amout of security and reliability that you just dont quite get compared to wireless.