help please with house with pre wired cat5e

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rgieg

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Hi I need some help. We recently moved into a townhouse that is pre wired with cat5e cables. There are cable outlets in 3 floors and a wall panel where all the cables go to in the garage.

Currently we have the fios modem in the living room but all the other cat5e panels are not active.

What would I need to do to activate the cat5e outlets throughout the house? I kinda figured that I need to put the modem into the panel in the garage where all the cables go to. Would I just need to plug the coax into the modem and use a splitter before the 3 piece splitter and then plug the rj45's in the box to the different ethernet ports in the modem or is more complicated than that?

Would i need any other equipment such as a switch? additional router?

Here's a picture of the panel if that helps. Thank you very much in advance for your help

]http://www.avsforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=288985&d=1412131688[/img]
 
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ko888

ko888

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That's a picture of a Honeywell Combination Telephone/Video Module for QuickNetwork Series Panel

MDC8T8RJ
Combo 8x8 Passive Coax/Phone Distribution Module
• With RJ45 patch connectors
• Distributes one incoming coax TV line to eight locations plus two passthroughs and four telephone lines to eight locations
• Includes RJ31X connection
• 6" form factor

The blue cables in the picture show the word PHONE on the labels.

Since it's all passive there is no routing. You would need a router and/or switch.
 
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bill001g

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It depends what the device you are calling a "modem" is. If it is actually a router then you are correct you place it in this box and place a splitter before the current one and then just plug your the ethernet cables into the ports on the router going to each room. If you need more than 4 ethernet ports like most routers have you would need to place a small switch in the box also.

The downside to doing it this way is it is a crappy place to put your wireless in most cases. Inside a metal box tends to eat a lot of the signal. You will likely have to place a router running as a AP in one or more of the rooms served by the ethernet to provide better wireless coverage to the house.
 
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Robrertjhonson

Robrertjhonson

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You have two choices, you can either put the FIOS Router / Modem in the Garage (where I believe you mentioned all of the connections terminate) then from there use short cables to connect each of the ports going to the individual rooms to the Router / Modem. If you don't want to move the Router / Modem from its current location you can get a switch and run a connection from the modem back in to the garage and connect it to one of the ports and all of the other house connections to the rest of the ports.

The real consideration here is Wireless, I assume the FIOS Router is also how you get your wireless, if you move it in to the Garage you will probably loose a lot of the signal strength in the house which would be a problem undesired consequence.
 
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rgieg

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Thank you so much for all your help on this. I have 2 additional questions if you please.

1) If I decide that I don't want to move my FIOS router you mentioned running a connection from the modem back to the garage - do you mean I need to physically get a cat5 cable plugged from the fios router in the second floor and run it down the walls into a switch in the box?

2) If I do decide to put the FIOS router in the box to activate the CAT5 ports throughout the house can I then add another wireless router using one of the activated cat5 ports and from this new router (assuming it has Ethernet ports in the back) connect other wired devices without the need for a switch?

Thank you very much for all your help.
 
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rgieg

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Thank you for your help. In the scenario that you mentioned, if I add another wireless router inside my house can I then plug devices in the back of the new router without the need for a switch? Thank you.
 
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bill001g

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You technically have a switch it is just built into the router where you can't see it. The lan ports are connected together and if you use the recommended method of using a router as a AP you will connect one of these ports back to the main router and your other devices to the other ports. The WAN port is not generally used unless the router has special AP settings and all that does in effect is make the WAN port a lan port....but in that case it does pass through the router chip. In either case the wireless users appear to be connected to this switch also even though the path internal to the router is rather complex.

 
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rgieg

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So to summarize please let me know if this is correct.

1) I bring down my FIOS router and place it in the panel box.
2) Run a spliter before the current connection and plug all the Ethernet cables into the back of my FIOS Router (this will activate the cat5e ports in the house)
3) Purchase another wireless router and use it as an access point and to carry my wifi through out the house
4) I can add other devices hard wired into the new wireless router Ethernet connections.

Please let me know if this is accurate. Thank you again for all your help.
 
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bill001g

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You are correct in your assumptions. You can add as many AP as you like if one does not provide good coverage just be mindful of the radio channels they use.

The only concern I normally have with putting devices in these boxes is tend to be sealed up a little too well. A guy I work with had this set up and we spent more time drilling holes in the cover of the box than we did setting up the network so that the router did not overheat
 
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rgieg

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Thanks for the tip. That was also one of the things I was thinking of the heat it might generate since the panel is covered entirely. I would prefer not to place the router in the box and leave it inside the house. Another advised in this forum that I can run a cable from the modem inside the house into a switch inside the panel. I would have preferred this method but I have no actual way of running cable from the second floor to the garage. Unless you think there is a work around for this.
 
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bill001g

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You can pretty much place the router in any room that has both a coax and a ethernet that goes back to this box. So if we assume you can put it say in a bedroom that can get good coax signal you would then put the router there. You can of course hook up all your devices in that room directly to the router. What you do is cable one of the lan ports to the wall jack which takes it back to the central box. You then put a switch in the box and connect all the ports to it.

The key issue with doing this is you have to be sure you get good enough signal in that room on the coax. You generally have one or more coax splitters in the path. With good quality splitters and strong incoming signal it can work.
 
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rgieg

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Ok let me get this clear if I understood this correctly this might have saved ally my problems....

The FIOS Router is currently in my living room there is a coax there and an ethernet that goes into that box in the garage. but this and the ethernets in the other room are not functioning becasue they are not active. The router connects by coax into the FIOS router then I plug all my devices into the router. The CAT5 port in the room is not currently used

If I understood what you just said I can leave the FIOS modem/router where it is right now, get a switch which I place inside the box in the garage. Connect all the ethernet cables for the different cat5 outlets in different rooms to the switch then I will have all cat5 outlets functioning and the FIOS modem/router will remain in my living room and the only thing I need to add is a switch in the box in the garage?

Thanks again for all your patient sir!




 
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bill001g

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Yes. Just think of the cable in the wall as patch cables. The design is exactly the same as if you had all the equipment and users in a single room. A switch is really stupid it has no idea which cable goes to a router or a pc or whatever it just takes data destined for a mac address and sends it out that port.
 
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rgieg

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So basically my setup right now stays the same but I need to buy a switch place it in the panel in the garage run 1 ethernet cable from the wall cat5 outlet (not active yet) in the living room where the router modem is. This then goes back to the box in the garage I add another cable that goes into the switch. Then plug all the cat5 outet ethernets into the switch then I should have access to all cat5 outlets in the house and my router will still stay in my living room right?

This solves it then if this is correct I will go and get a switch! Thank you so much for all your help. Lastly if you could recommend a nice switch that would be great thank you again sir.
 
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bill001g

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You will not find a huge difference in unmanged switches. Pretty much you get 4 port or 8 port ones. You will want gig just because there is little difference in price between 10/100 and gig. The only technical thing you would look for is to see if the device claims it is wirespeed or non blocking. Many times they will list the total bandwidth which should be say 16 gig for a 8 port switch. This allows all 8 port to send and receive 1g of traffic at the same time....not that you can actually get a real life situation that would ever need that. This used to be a feature that showed a quality device from a cheap one. Now it is uncommon to find one that is not wirespeed since they all pretty much use the same chips internally no matter who name is on the outside.
 
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rgieg

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Awesome thank you very much for all your help. I'm off to order a switch now!
 
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