Phone lines question

[Hagbard Celine]

I want to install phone-lines in my house so that I can get AT&T to hook me up with their stand-alone DSL service.
My question is: If I'm installing four jacks (basically one in each bedroom plus one in the kitchen and one in the living room) do I attach all four wires from the four jacks at a distribution block and then have a single wire leading outside to the phone-company box?
Can I get a distribution block at like radio shack or something?

[Hagbard Celine]

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[Hagbard Celine]

bump

[glockmail]

It's called a "home run" box and yes you can get a cheap one at Radio Shack. Tie them all togeter as you described with a short branch to ATT's future box mounted outside. All you need is a twisted pair 24 ga wire to each phone, but spend another buck or so and use Cat5 cable, which is four twisted pairs with a foil shield, that way you use the wire for ethernet or for up to 4 phone lines.

It sounds like you are talking about bare stud walls here. If that's the case then I suggest that you run two Cat5 plus a coax (TV) cable to each point in the house. Use those cheap nail-on plastic outlet boxes and buy a snap in modular connectors to get telephone, ethernet, and cable all in each outlet. Then go to Lowes or Home Depot and for about 100 bucks get a network connections box that will be the "home run" for all three systems, and mount it between the studs in a basement or utility room wall. Also run a 120V circuit to the box to power a future network adapter. That way when you sell the house you'll be able to advertise it as pre-wired for all that stuff and you'll more than get your money back on your small investment.

[Hagbard Celine]

I just got a spool of 250 of "Philips" telephone wire. I don't know if it's Cat5. Will it matter if I get dsl service? I know the modem just uses a regular phone line that hooks into a phone jack.
I don't have bare stud walls. I'm cutting the outlet holes out of the sheetrock and threading the wire up through the wall from the basement.

[glockmail]

DSL runs on a single twisted pair just like a phone. That's why it's so slow compared to cable and ethernet. The wire you bought is probably two twisted pair, and a standard phone jack has spots for all four wires, so hook them up that way, even though only one pair will used.