I know that cat5 cable is designed to be four data wires and two telephone lines. How do I split them? Which pair is for data, which pair is for the telephone and which bits of the connectors do they fit into? Thank you.

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I wouldn't go that route if it were me. Pull two Cat5 cables and use the blue pair in one for your telephone. Use the second network cable (all 4 pairs) for your data. If you use only two pairs for your data cable, then you'll never get a connection rate faster than 100 Mbps.

Should have said, this for my house. One cable is easier to route than two, but I know two would be better. The phone is for the Sky box and the data is so my laptop can access the internet, and with only a 2Mb connection, I really don't think I'm going to miss the other 98Mb. Thanks anyway, and thank you Orbital for the guide.

"I know that cat5 cable is designed to be four data wires and two telephone lines" No it was never spec-ed for that. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Don't be surprised if you have intermittent issues with both telephone and networking. Telephone [cat3] is at 16mhz whereas cat5 is at 100mhz. Whatever you do don't cross connect between pairs. Are you ready for where Microsoft wants you to go today?

We use Cat5e extensively for phones where I work. But we don't share cables between phones and computers. That's where you'll run into issues with interferance and signal degradation. One cable is easier to route than two If you can sneak two cables in there, I would do it. If not, get a single, one pair shielded wire for you phone and pull it with the Cat5. Trust me, you'll be happy you did. You may not think you want the bandwidth now, but I'm willing to bet if you don't pull two cables (or one cable, one wire) now, there will come a time you'll regret it and possibly find yourself pulling another or going with wireless. My philosophy where cable pulling is concerned is, "always pull extras, you will need them".

Good advice CurtR. We have all learned that lesson the hard way haven't we :-) Give a person a fish, they eat for a day. Suggest they internet search and they learn a skill for a lifetime.