How to make use of CAT5 wiring in home Network

Sep 26, 2018
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I just moved to a new house that has CAT5 wiring installed by the previous owner.

My current ISP has run wiring from their box outside, to a network box in my garage, and from one of those CAT5 wires in the network box to my basement office.

From that box in the garage, I have 4 CAT5 wires running to various rooms in the house. In addition, in that box, I have 6 COAX cables running to various rooms in the house.

I have two questions:
1) The easiest way for me to take advantage of those CAT5 wires would be to run a new CAT5 from my router to the networking box, then add a switch, then plug in those CAT5 wires, right?
2) One of the rooms I would like wired internet in does NOT have a CAT5 wire, but does have COAX cables. Is there any way to take advantage of those COAX cables to get wired internet to that room?

Thank you in advance for any feedback/assistance you can provide!
 
Solution
You could do it that way it all depends how hard it is to run another wire. You could also place the router in the box and plug all the ports directly into the router. The main question will be how well does the wifi work from that location. You could put remote AP to expand coverage in the other rooms.

There are boxes called MoCA that will use the coax to carry network signals. The main concern will be if you have cable tv some of the systems do not work well with MoCA on the same cable segments.
You could do it that way it all depends how hard it is to run another wire. You could also place the router in the box and plug all the ports directly into the router. The main question will be how well does the wifi work from that location. You could put remote AP to expand coverage in the other rooms.

There are boxes called MoCA that will use the coax to carry network signals. The main concern will be if you have cable tv some of the systems do not work well with MoCA on the same cable segments.
 
Solution
What internet package did you buy?

Keep in mind that cat5 can only do 100Mbs, which for wired it's about 90-95% usable.
Double check and make sure it's not cat5e, which can do 1000Mbs.

Put a router or router+switch in the box thing. use access point for wifi.
I'd strongly recommend having wifi in the most used area to get line of sight.
Wifi is a lot weaker through objects. If your under 20Mbs on internet it's more flexible.
You will get a lot more re-transmissions with no line of site.
 
1. Yes correct.

2. You could contact ISP and ask them if they have a modem that can handle more then one Coax cable.

Normally cable companies run a Coax line from the outside to their modem inside. Then it gets converted to ethernet. If the ISP can provide a modem with a Coax in and Coax out. Then you can connect your secondary Coax connection to the ISP modem and on the other end have them install a small modem that would convert it again to Ethernet.

So basically, two modems. One in garage and one in the room with Coax cable already there.

I would avoid trying to use any Coax to Ethernet converters. They normally either do not work or very badly degrades the speeds.

Aside from that, you might be better off just having someone run a new Cat5e cable from garage to that room or use WiFi instead.

P.S.
If you decide to use a Coax to Ethernet adapter. You could try something like this, something by a named brand my not degrade speeds as much and could be usable. https://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-MoCA-Ethernet-Adapter-ECB6000K02/dp/B013J7L6BW?tag=tomshardware_forum_vgl-20
 


Couldn't you just put the isp modem in the house and use an adapter to connect their line to the line in the box?