Direct burial phone line or regular in a conduit?

[Fawken]

I'll bet we've met. Did you ever go to one of the SWB schools on Harwin St in Houston? I taught some of the cable fault locating and fiber-optic schools down there from time to time.

 

[kcflhrc]

I'll bet we've met. Did you ever go to one of the SWB schools on Harwin St in Houston? I taught some of the cable fault locating and fiber-optic schools down there from time to time.

No training in Houston, one or 2 in St. Louis and numerous PBX Schools at Global Knowledge in Richardson, TX

 

[MossRoad]

Your post doesn't really say what you are doing and why.

He said phone line, so I'm guessing phone. But then again, people say lots of things when they mean another. :laughing:

 

[MossRoad]

I do believe 256 feet is real close to max distance without signal boosters for data. So, your not running power? Cost effective direct buried. 12-18 inches like other said. Then use point to point wiresles to go from house to barn. Or go with voice over IP use the point to point. Ubiquiti, don't quote me on the spelling, is cost effective and don't bury anything

Its 300' and more like a guideline, than a rule.

 

[Kenneth in Texas]

He said phone line, so I'm guessing phone. But then again, people say lots of things when they mean another. :laughing:

this is for one simple landline phone.

 

[MossRoad]

How tough's your soil? If you're going to have to go through the trouble of trenching it, VS just using a simple cable layer, you might as well put in a conduit for the future.

You asked for pros and cons....

Pro is direct burial cable is technically less work.

Cons are it's a lot more expensive than non-direct burial cable, and if it fails, you have to dig it up and bury it again. In a conduit, you'd just pull it out and snake in a new one with a string and a vacuum cleaner.

For example, just by poking around, I quickly found telephone cable for 13 cents a foot and 1/2" non-metallic conduit for 14 cents a foot, so .27 cents per foot total. On the same site, I found direct burial phone cable for .55 per foot. The phone cable was 4 pair, and the direct burial was 6 pair, so there's some difference there, but on another site I found 4 pair direct burial, but it was still .52 per foot.

So, for the price of one run of 6 pair direct burial cable, you could probably get the same run in a 3/4 or 1" conduit with fittings at each end, which would allow you flexibility in the future and you'd still have to dig a trench either way. To me, its a no brainer to allow for the future and ease of repair for the same price or less.

As others have mentioned, you could run CAT5 cable, split out two pairs for a computer jack at decent network speed and use the other two pairs for phone line. I've found CAT5 for as low as 7 cents per foot. That really lowers your price, allows for conduit, allows for computer and phone, is serviceable, etc....

Anyhow, regardless of which way you go, take lots of pictures, we all enjoy a good project. :thumbsup:

 

[k0ua]

Actually I was wrong, it was 36 years in June. SWB, then AT&T, then Sprint, then Embarq and now well, you see the pattern, right? Started right out of High School. Primarily PBX Installations for most of that time but a variety of other Telecom projects throughout the my career. Been a good gig, it pays the bills.

36 years here. Back at Windstream now selling Data bandwidth for the most part. But 21 years as a tech, and 14 as an engineer. I practically cried when Nortel went belly up. But worked on a lot of other brands too.

 

[MossRoad]

We've got skids of Nortel phones in our basement.

 

[k0ua]

Now a couple of things...yes 10/100 only uses two of the 4 pairs in a cat5e cable. BUT BUT.. if you "split them out" for voice.. they wont' pass specs. Near end cross talk etc. Have I done it? um... guilty your honor. Do I recommend it?.. uh no. Pull two wires.. One for voice and one for data...

Also, putting inside wire in a conduit in the ground... hmm. Does it work.. yeah for a while. Maybe for a long while in low humidity areas. But any conduit I ever saw was full of water after a time. The ground is cooler than the air, the air is full of water... water condenses in the conduit, drop by drop, the conduit fills with water... Inside wire is not filled with "icky pic" and it will have water migration right thru the PVC jacket.. yep. it will. and it will corrode. Maybe not if you live in a low humidly area. But my experience here in Missouri and Arkansas.. is ... they are full of water. Maybe if you got the ends really really sealed. But every time I stuck my fish tape in one, they had water in them.

The conduit is not a bad idea, but if you pulled the direct burial cable into it, you will have an installation that will last a very very long time. Just don't forget the lightning protection.

Do it any way you want, but this is what I think.

 

[MossRoad]

Good thoughts for sure.

I put some drain holes in mine at the low spots. We have sandy soil and no high water table to worry about. They've been in for 15 years. Perhaps I should inspect them for water. Thanks. :thumbsup:

 

[kcflhrc]

36 years here. Back at Windstream now selling Data bandwidth for the most part. But 21 years as a tech, and 14 as an engineer. I practically cried when Nortel went belly up. But worked on a lot of other brands too.

I'm still working on and maintaining Nortel PBX's with my company. There is currently no end of sale notice for the current 7.6 release, still a lot of that stuff out there, it just works. But back to the original topic, JUST DIRECT BURY SOME 2 PAIR CAT 3 JELLY FILLED CABLE AND YOU WILL BE GOOD TO GO, PUT SOME LIGHTNING PROTECTION ON IT TOO.

 

[truckdiagnostics]

Go wireless and be done with it! 256' for data? then you count what is in your buildings. You will have to boast the signal or you are going to loose to much on the data side. Then if you have to bury two in condute, not to mention the cost for lightening protection. Wireless has come a long way. Done the direct bury gig. Hands down wireless more cost effective and easier in the long run. Done it both ways.

 

[JerryK]

Conduit with ethernet cable for laptop in barn, hard wires for phone land line. Hard wires for alarm system so I can sleep good at night away from my toys in the barn. Video cables for video surveillance system. Coax cable for barn TV hooked up to Satellite receiver in house. Plus, lots of room to add more wires in the future. That's why I went with conduit...... [ plus, I are a has been electrucian ]

PS: I have been fighting these type of battles all my life. Guy wants to run just this, only run a 1/2" conduit.. then later want to add something. Pays sometime to go big, maybe run duel conduits, think long term.... Been there.....

 

[Pilot]

I don't know about phone line, but we had direct bury power line out to our well and after about 18 years it failed. Naturally it was in December. Had a location guy come out, said the break was "here", dug down to the line & could find no damage. Cost a lot to get a new trench dug, conduit installed & new line run to the switch in the garage. Conduit is cheap.

 

[kcflhrc]

We have buried phone cable that has been in the ground since the early 70's. If it is real buried cable, phone or electric, it will typically out live you. Most people will short cut the electrical and just bury some regular romex to their shop or well and think it will last, it wont. We have 2 lights on rock pillars down by the highway, 900' from our house running on real buried romex, the wiring was put in when the house was built in 70.

 

[MossRoad]

We have buried phone cable that has been in the ground since the early 70's. If it is real buried cable, phone or electric, it will typically out live you. Most people will short cut the electrical and just bury some regular romex to their shop or well and think it will last, it wont. We have 2 lights on rock pillars down by the highway, 900' from our house running on real buried romex, the wiring was put in when the house was built in 70.

We've had the phone company out half a dozen times in 19 years at our current house. The neighbor has too. I had two pairs buried to my house. One was our personal line, the other was a centrex line for work. One of the pairs failed. So the ran a 6 pair overhead for the centrex, but left the personal line on the buried pair. That failed soon thereafter and they had to come out again and use one of the overhead pairs.

Then a couple weeks ago my neighbor's phone and internet failed. Instead of running his overhead (we share the same pole between our houses), they sent out a crew and did directional boring through three yards and under the road! Then sent out another crew to hook it up. Good grief. One guy in a bucket truck van could have done it overhead in an hour. What a waste of resources, both mechanical and human.

 

[Kenneth in Texas]

Believe i will go with regular phone wire and conduit, that direct burial stuff im seeing worries me with all the moles and gofers I have.

 

[k0ua]

Believe i will go with regular phone wire and conduit, that direct burial stuff im seeing worries me with all the moles and gofers I have.

That is why some of those direct burial phone cables. have a "gopher steel" sheath.