Yes, you can theoretically have a complete Mac AppleTalk (PhoneNet) network
using your regular telephone wiring, but there are certain GOTCHAs...
A Farallon engineer once told me that this was their original intent, to be
able to use your existing home telephone wiring with their PhoneNet connectors,
since they used the "unused" pair of wires in the traditional 4-wire phone
cabling, but there turned out to be too many variables for them to advertise
it as such. Namely:
1. Not all RJ-11 phone jacks are wired properly. Since telphones work with
only two wires, often the other two were not even connected in the jack.
2. The original Bell Telephone specs called for the "black" wire to be
connected to earth ground, and many older installations still were.
3. A few rogue phone installations used the 2nd pair (the same one the
PhoneNet device used) for a 2nd phone line, even though the official RJ-11
spec did not allow for this.
4. Probably most damaging, many early Trimline phones used the 2nd pair for
low-voltage AC to light the dial.
However, if all the variables are taken care of, it works well. I had my
former apartment set up with all the phone jacks set up as PhoneNet jacks as
well as telephone jacks.
Rob
>So it should be possible to network at least two
>Macs via PhoneNet through the wires in the walls,
>provided you don't have a second line and do have
>four wire phone cable in the walls and that the other
>pair is connected to the jacks for the second line you
>could have if you paid the telco for it. ;)
>
>> Two. The outer two wires of the four. (The
>> inner two are reserved for
>> voice phone)
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gregg Eshelman"
>>
>> > How many wires does PhoneNet use in the telephone
>> cables?
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