Date   : Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:16:27 +0100
From   : mfirth@... (Michael Firth)
Subject: Acorn World @ Retro Reunited: Revised Floor-plan

Rick Murray wrote:
> Dave Moore wrote:
>
>   
<snip>
>> Incidentally, myself and Joel did enquire about wall-sockets on Sunday, but
>> were advised that the sockets in the walls were only phone-points, not
>> ethernet ports.
>>     
>
> Surely if they were Ethernet, they'd be wired directly to a distribution 
> panel or router of some sort, thus socket-to-socket for passing Econet 
> signalling wouldn't work?
>
>
>   
The way this is usually done (from my experience) is that the remote 
sockets are all routed to a central patch panel, from where they are 
generally patched to a co-located Ethernet switch.

For things that aren't Ethernet, you can often just patch two sockets 
together in the patch cabinet (if you can get permission), and hence 
create a (very long) transparent connection between two RJ45 sockets 
anywhere accessed from that patch panel.

You will potentially have to put up with a much longer run if you just 
have a passive connection in the middle - Ethernet patching is usually 
designed to have up to 90m from the patch panel to a socket, so that you 
can connect from the central panel to the switch, and from the remote 
socket to the device, with a 5m lead, and still stay within the 100m 
limit for Ethernet cabling.

That is the worst case though, and for small installations the cables 
from the patch panel to the wall sockets are often a lot shorter than 90m.

Regards

Michael