Can someone verify my condo networking plan?

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Evan Tanguma

Evan Tanguma

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We have a Honeywell Quicknetwork panel wired with coax and CAT5e.

CAT5e comes from the building and into the rear of the panel. Outgoing CAT5e cables go from the panel slots for the different rooms in our condo and back into the building. I believe it is currently set up for phones.

The incoming coax is hooked up to a 3-way splitter rated for 5mhz to 1ghz (looks to me like the splitter might have been supplied by a former cable company, because they seem to have mindlessly bypassed the panel's onboard 8-way splitter also rated for 5mhz to 1ghz). The 3 outgoing lines feed directly back into the wall. My hunch is these also are supplied to the various rooms of the condo.

My plan is to:

1. Get rid of the wonky 3-way splitter and hook the incoming coax onto the panel's splitter.

2. Hook the 3 outgoing coax cables onto the outgoing panel jacks.

3. Plug modem into one of the splitter's outgoing coax jacks.

4. Unhook the incoming CAT5e cable from the rear of the panel.

5. Run CAT5e from modem to the rear of the panel by snipping one end and punching its wires into the panel's rear terminations.

Will this work?
 
Solution
anotherdrew
If you already have RJ45 plugs on the phone lines, then the job is a lot easier. 3 potential issues:
1) alarm system that ties into the phone lines
2) wall jacks that are not RJ45.
3) non standard wiring (google RJ61) ... this could affect speed, but should not affect connectivity.
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anotherdrew

anotherdrew

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The coax part should work, but keep the 3 way splitter handy. They might not have used the 8 way because it didn't work or something.

I assume you want to use the cat 5e for Ethernet around the condo (great idea), but you never mentioned a switch. The cat 5e from the modem back to the panel is fine, but you can't use a telco punch down block to distribute the Ethernet, you need a switch.

What you would do is remove all the cat 5e from the punch down, attach RJ45 plugs and then plug them into a switch. Now, attaching RJ45s is less than fun. I have a 50% success rate after lots of practice. I prefer use RJ45 jacks and then a store bought 6 inch cable from the jack to the switch.

One thing ... make sure the incoming telco line is not attached to anything. Telco line voltage is much, much higher than Ethernet and will likely fry something if plugged in.
 
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Evan Tanguma

Evan Tanguma

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Okay, that makes sense -- and I think that's where my hitch might be. I think the onboard module (MDC8T8RJ) is only set up for phones. It has one incoming NID CAT5e cable punched into a single RJ31X that is outputting to 8 RJ45s (5 are connected to rooms). I'm wondering if I'd better not touch the incoming NID cable since the building owns that wiring.

Is there any issue with connecting the existing outgoing CAT5e cables directly to a switch?
 
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anotherdrew

anotherdrew

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Dec 27, 2017
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If you already have RJ45 plugs on the phone lines, then the job is a lot easier. 3 potential issues:
1) alarm system that ties into the phone lines
2) wall jacks that are not RJ45.
3) non standard wiring (google RJ61) ... this could affect speed, but should not affect connectivity.
 
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Solution
Evan Tanguma

Evan Tanguma

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Mar 27, 2013
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No security system at the moment. But I'll leave that a possibility and leave the phone incoming connection attached.
I drew up a room diagram for the CAT5e cables for my switch and connected everything. Good news, hooking the rooms I wanted internet into the switch worked and is resulting in a solid 180 down and 7 up. Thanks for your help!
 
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