Help activating a home pre-wired with cat5e cable

[itinerant17]

Hi all,

My father-in-law's house is pre-wired with Cat5e cable. I see multiple jacks around the house and there is some kind of hub in the master bedroom closet.

here is a picture of that hub:
picture

i'd like to help him enable these jacks for use. he currently has xfinity service set up an office area downstairs. there is no ethernet jack near where it is currently set up. there is an ethernet jack + cable jack in the living room.

questions:
1. what do we need to do in order to get internet service to all of the jacks?
2. do we need additional equipment to make this happen?

 

[kanewolf]

That "hub" in the bedroom is for phone lines. It says so right across the top. It is no use for ethernet. You will need to provide a few more pictures.
Take one of the jacks loose from the wall and take a picture of the front and the inside. Then take pictures of the ends of the cables in the bedroom closet.
If there are plastic ends on the bedroom cables take a closeup of the flat side of the plastic so that the wire colors are visible.

The one thing that isn't visible in your pictures is power. Is there an electrical outlet with all the cabling? You will need that and probably a shelf.

 

[itinerant17]

Hi kanewolf,

Thanks for the response! I've taken several more pictures that I hope are more informative. here is a link to the album:
Cat5e wiring

Much appreciated!

That "hub" in the bedroom is for phone lines. It says so right across the top. It is no use for ethernet. You will need to provide a few more pictures.
Take one of the jacks loose from the wall and take a picture of the front and the inside. Then take pictures of the ends of the cables in the bedroom closet.
If there are plastic ends on the bedroom cables take a closeup of the flat side of the plastic so that the wire colors are visible.

The one thing that isn't visible in your pictures is power. Is there an electrical outlet with all the cabling? You will need that and probably a shelf.

 

[kanewolf]

WOW!!! What a mess in the bedroom closet. You are going to need some tools and to learn some new skills. You are going to need RJ45 connectors, crimping tool, basic tester/tracer. I would also buy some bulk cable to practice on. You don't have a lot of extra cable in the wall box, so you can't mess up the termination too many times.

Basic networking : ISP -> modem -> router (might be a combined device) -> switch(es) -> devices.

First question is what ISP are you going to use and what type of INPUT cable does there modem require? Coax or ethernet/DSL? The modem, router and switch could all be in that closet.

The first thing you should do is get a plan/design on paper drawn up. With diagrams if needed. Post your design here if you like.

 

[itinerant17]

Hi Kanewolf,

Thanks so much for taking a look. Always up for learning more skills so this will be an interesting project and learning experience.

From your reaction it sounds like the ethernet cables are not 'finished' and thus need to be crimped down with the plastic end pieces?

I put together a rough diagram here.
Diagram

i'm not sure what to do with the coax panel, the coax splitter and also the existing telephone switch thing, but from what i currently understand i did wireframe out the cable modem, router and switch.

We are using comcast triple play and we have a combination cable modem + voice + wifi router device that we are currently renting. However, we plan to replace that device with one that we will purchase. I have also suggested that we get a separate cable modem + voice device and then use a separate wifi router. We will need to buy a switch. Open to suggestions for all of these devices.

Should we get comcast to come back and redo the installation? The cable modem is currently installed downstairs.

Another possible complication is that we do have an alarm system that requires a land line. Father in law says that when the alarm guy came to install the system, he rewired one of the ethernet jacks (he's not sure what happened exactly). we could also get them to come back if needed.

Thanks so much.

 

[kanewolf]

Hi Kanewolf,

Thanks so much for taking a look. Always up for learning more skills so this will be an interesting project and learning experience.

From your reaction it sounds like the ethernet cables are not 'finished' and thus need to be crimped down with the plastic end pieces?

I put together a rough diagram here.
Diagram

i'm not sure what to do with the coax panel, the coax splitter and also the existing telephone switch thing, but from what i currently understand i did wireframe out the cable modem, router and switch.

We are using comcast triple play and we have a combination cable modem + voice + wifi router device that we are currently renting. However, we plan to replace that device with one that we will purchase. I have also suggested that we get a separate cable modem + voice device and then use a separate wifi router. We will need to buy a switch. Open to suggestions for all of these devices.

Should we get comcast to come back and redo the installation? The cable modem is currently installed downstairs.

Another possible complication is that we do have an alarm system that requires a land line. Father in law says that when the alarm guy came to install the system, he rewired one of the ethernet jacks (he's not sure what happened exactly). we could also get them to come back if needed.

Thanks so much.

You are correct. The cat5 cables, will have to be terminated with "plastic end pieces". Those are called RJ45s. There is a special crimper that you have to have. You then want a tester. This is the most basic type -- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004CI9NRM/ but it will show that you got all 8 wires connected. You want to follow a standard color code for the order the wires are in. You want it to match the color code used on the jacks. It will be either TIA568A or 568B. 568B is the preferred color code. You also want to leave as little untwisted wire as possible (1/2 inch or less). This is why I suggested you buy some bulk cable. You can practice by making some jumper cables to go from the wall plate to the computers. When you get good with crimping RJ45s with minimum untwisted wire. Then you could do the in-wall cables. Once you have the in-wall cables terminated then you can connect them to your router or switch to actually enable them.

 

[bill001g]

Since you are not using the telephone connector panel in your box you could replace it with a rj45 patch panel.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-Cat-5E-8-Port-Data-Expansion-Board-5530/206415745

You could then take the wires coming from each room and punch it down into the board. You would then run short patch cable between the patch and a switch. These type of patch panels tend to be simple for beginners to get right. RJ45 plugs take a little practice.