Split 4 lines to 5 different phone?

[dcopel02]

OK...I used to work for a big phone company....But, did some telephone wiring (basic)....and did more computer cabling. So, I am not sure the best way to go about this.

I have 4 lines coming into my telephone closet. 4 different jacks. I need to get 4-line phones at each desk (5 of them). How do I split the phone signal from each phone 5 times? And, I guess tha tmeans I have to run 2 (2-line) lines to each phone......meaning 10 lines total being run? And, again...how do I split it that many times? Also, do I need an amp since I want to split each one 5 times?

[suemarkp]

What you need is a 110 punch down block. Scroll down to item 47603-110
on this page http://www.hometech.com/techwire/lvtp.html for a picture.

For cable, you need 8 conductor cat-5 cable and use all 4 pairs (normal cat-5 network cable). Each phone line will use a pair. Bring the 4 incoming pairs to the top set of connectors on the punch down block. The other 9 rows are all in parallel, so this is where the "splitting" occurs (e.g. the blue colored positions are electrically connected on each row). Phones aren't really split, they are just connected in parallel. You could connect up to nine 4 line phones with the pictured block.

How you bring these out to the desk I don't know, as I never seen a 4-line phone. If they exist, it will probably use an 8 wire jack (like an RJ-45) so just terminate the cat-5 cable on one RJ-45 jack.

You will need a signal conditioner only if the sum of the phones Ringer Equivalence Number (REN) is too high for your switch. This rarely happens with modern phones, but if you exceed it the phone probably won't ring but will otherwise work.

[jeffo]

As far as terminating on the wall. If You're going to have two two-line telephones, you can punch down two-pair to each RJ-11 jack. If you need some lines for SL devices like fax machines, answering machine etc. You should punch down each pair to their own RJ-11 jack. (or say two pair to one RJ-11 and two pair to two RJ-11 for a total of 3 jacks).

Though, it sounds like you want all 4 lines to each desk, so it doesn't sound like you're using SL devices. I don't recall seeing many 4-line keyless telephones. Have you considered purchasing a phone system - you can pick em up quite cheap off of ebay (older models without the modern bells and whistles).

There are some cordless phone systems that are quite economical. Basically, you have a base station that all the lines plug into. Then you have cordless phones at each desk. From what I've seen, these area mroe economical on a small scale than a KSU (but are not upgradeable), however you still have the many of the features that you get in a KSU (Auto-attendant, voicemail, intercom, transfer etc).