[SOLVED] Can someone help me understand this network setup

[joelataylor]

We purchased a house that has Cat6 running to each room. However, the patch panel is a bit of a mystery to me. I'm trying to understand what these two boards do, and how I can send internet to each outline. And perhaps even label each cable with it's termination point.

Help!

 

[punkncat]

This looks to be telephone jack only.

 

[joelataylor]

@punkncat - the first port has a telephone jack in it. The rest are Cat 6 / ethernet.

 

[bill001g]

hard to be sure but I suspect the panel on the right is a standard ethenet patch panel. They hooked it via those jumper cables to the left board which is telephone.

I "think" if you unplug all the cables you could then plug all the ports into a switch or router and get ethernet connections to all the rooms

 

[punkncat]

@punkncat - the first port has a telephone jack in it. The rest are Cat 6 / ethernet.

Yes.

The top board is for sure phone. The lower board "could be" internet, but it appears they have patch cables tied to it in the "of the left side" picture and appears that they split the CAT (cable) into (2) phone plates. It would be really hard to tell without being there to see what they did.

If these are all home runs and not spliced/tapped, you could readily MAKE network out of them at the (possible) loss of phone.

 

[joelataylor]

Maybe it was wired for phone (the house is only 8yrs old - so not sure why it's phone and not ethernet).

I took off the plate in a room and here's what it looks like.

Maybe if I install a true patch panel where the internet comes in, these can act as a true network.

 

[bill001g]

My pc being strange....the first time I looked at your photos the platch were left and right and when I just looked again they were top and bottom. The panel on the bottom is a standard 6 port ethernet patch panel.

I have never seen clear plates before, doesn't hide the messy wires too well. In any case those appear to be standard cat6 ethernet jacks and from what I can tell they are wired correctly.

Did they mark any of the jacks so you know which room goes to which port. It may not matter you could just plug a switch into all of them and you could then tell by which ports light up on the switch.

 

[SamirD]

So in the picture it clearly states that one of them is a 'Leviton Telephone Expansion Board' while the other is a 'Leviton Category 6 T568A' panel.

The runs to the cat6 panel might be good. Best to plug these into a switch and see if you get a link at any of the wall outlets (and then notate which outlets are what).

The telephone panel I think is just for cross connecting a phone line into the rooms that want it instead of ethernet since you can do that--run telephone over ethernet wires.

Not a bad setup actually--you just need to figure out where all the wires go--and also what that brown stuff is everywhere...