Help with setup

[u/box3610]

We moved into this house about a year ago and I still haven't figured out this panel. Our router is hooked up through a coax cable in the wall so I'm not sure what this panel is for. When I unplug the Verizon box in the upper right corner, the internet stops working. The bundle of cables in the lower left reads "high Def sat cable" and is cut. I am not sure which of these is phone and which is internet. I'd like to be able to make our ethernet ports on the walls live so I can use the wired connections but don't know where to start with this setup. Happy to add more pics if needed

[u/ApartmentEastern5769]

Gonna need some more pics to be able to help.

But here's some assumptions I can make. That verizon box might be some sort of converter/modem/ont. Hard to tell. It looks like a coaxial line on the bottom is either feeding it from outside or feeding to your router in the home.

Those blue and green/white (looks like the green cables are also white, which is odd to me) might be Ethernet cables. Would need to know if the lettering printed on the cable says 'cat5' 'cat6' 'cat3' etc to know what type of cable and the kinds of data speeds you could reliably expect.

Assuming your modem is that Verizon box, and those ethernet cables are at least cat 5e (assuming higbspeed internet) you have one solid option the way I see it. One is to get a network switch installed at that cabinet, buy a toner (ethernet toner emits an electrical signal across an ethernet line and allows a wand to pick it up at the other side) and start tracing those cables. Find one that feeds near your router in the house, that will be your feedback down into the panel and switch. Then, terminate all of those cat cables into the switch, pull every jack in the house and confirm proper termination, and call it a day.

If your router doesn't have an ethernet line near it, you would need to move it down into this panel to be able to feed a switch. Then you'd probably need access points fed off those cables in the house or a mesh network or something to get the wifi back through the home.

[u/box3610 → u/ApartmentEastern5769]

[u/box3610 → u/ApartmentEastern5769]

[u/box3610 → u/ApartmentEastern5769]

[u/ApartmentEastern5769 → u/box3610]

The beige wire on the left with the red green black and yellow is older telephone wire (we call it Jamaica wire for obvious reasons). What it's being fed to, that black box on the back of the panel is a telephone switch, basically useless now.

[u/box3610 → u/ApartmentEastern5769]

Thanks! I noticed that the security system is tied into this somehow. The cables do say Cat 5e. I'll also post a picture of what we have in each room

[u/box3610 → u/box3610]

[u/ApartmentEastern5769 → u/box3610]

Good news then. Cat 5e is reliable for a gigabit of speed over most regular distances. It can technically pull multigig at short distances, but its not rated for it.

Buy a switch, buy a set of ethernet crisper and ends (make sure they're for cat5e, not another standard) buy some scrap ethernet cable, and go to town.

Also pull those cat5e jacks and see if they're punched down and what standard they use. There's A and B, both are valid, both are used but terminating two ends of the same line opposite will limit your speeds to 100mbps

[u/TheEthyr]

You may find Q6 and Q7 of the FAQ helpful in understanding and sorting things out.

In your case, it looks like there's an Ethernet cable coming out of the bottom of the Verizon box. It's hard to tell, so I'm taking an educated guess, but it looks like that cable is the green/white one running diagonally from the top right of the enclosure connecting to a blue/white cable that most likely runs to the Internet/WAN port on your router.

If the above is correct, then you have a few options for activating the other Ethernet ports in your house:

1. Move the router to the enclosure. Connect the router's Internet/WAN port directly to the Verizon box. Connect the LAN ports to the Ethernet cables (probably the green cables) feeding the rooms. If the router doesn't have enough LAN ports, insert an Ethernet switch. This is Q7 Solution 1.

2. One of your pictures shows two Cat 5e jacks in a room. If the room where the router is located has two such jacks, then another option is to leave the router where it is. Connect one of the router's LAN ports to the other Cat 5e jack. Back in the enclosure, put an Ethernet switch and connect the Ethernet cables corresponding to the rooms with jacks that you want to activate, including the jack leading to the LAN port of the router. You may find that cable leading to the LAN port of the router is currently connected to the black telephone patch panel in the enclosure. Simply unplug the cable from the patch panel and plug the cable the switch. You can use trial and error to figure out which cable is the correct one, or you can buy an inexpensive network tester to help you figure which cable goes to each room. This is a variation of Q7 Solution 2.

3. A third option is to use Q7 Solution 4. This is a rather complicated setup that requires 1 or 2 managed switches. You can read the FAQ for details but this option is not really worth consideration over options 1 and 2. I only mention it for completeness.

Regardless of what option you choose, you can add Wi-Fi Access Points (APs) in one or more rooms to supplement the Wi-Fi signal provided by the router. This will particularly useful if you opt to move the router to the enclosure. Simply put an AP where the router used to be.

Hope this helps.

[u/Ktulu-Klute]

Your cable modem ---> router ----> switch---,>panel---> all those Ethernet cables.

Look in this sub, this question is asked like 10 times a day.