[Asterisk-Users] [OT] Old Building Needs a New Telephone System

[Michael Welter]

We have a 100 year old building here in Colorado that needs a new 
telephone system. The building (five floors) is steel frame with lath 
and plaster walls. There is no crawl space above the ceilings or under 
the floors.  The building is "historic", and nothing can be done to the 
exterior.

The current system uses existing Cat3 (two pair) to get to the digital 
telephone set in each office.  Some offices have an additional pair 
which is used for fax (and DSL).  I belive this fax line is a POTS line 
from the telco.

The owners would like to replace the existing telephone system, but they 
are adamant that the exsiting wiring be reused.  They would like to 
provide a LAN connection to each office for both data and voice.  (They 
would also like to install cable TV in each office, but cable install 
costs would be $80,000+.)

The owners are concerned about frequent power failures and keeping the 
telephones operational.  Whatever equipemnt and telephone sets we put in 
the offices will have to be powered from a central UPS (PoE).

So how can I do this?  Can I use RS485 adapters to get ethernet to each 
office via the two pair?  What kind of data rate can I get with RS485, 
and would it be half- or full-duplex?  Would wireless work in a steel 
building? Is there some other technology that can be used?

Ideas, anyone?

Thanks,
Mike

-- 
Michael Welter
Introspect Telephony Corp.
Denver, Colorado US
+1.303.674.2575
mike at introspect.com
www.introspect.com