What is this?

[Oberon.Smite]

I moved into a house and just noticed these in the basement. I have no idea where they go because they don't have any ports that I know of in the building, but was wondering if anybody knows anything about them?

 

http://imgur.com/a/UUh92

[suchamoneypit]

patch panel if im not mistaken

 

although it is the only networking hardware I really haven't worked with hands on yet, so I can't be 100%

[SageOfSpice]

Some splicey box thingy.

Looks like 11 pairs?

I have no idea.

 

Whatever it is, it looks pretty messy.

Perhaps the previous owner was trying to set up some sort of wired networking.

[CoffeeandBagels]

The big black one is the main sewer stack. The copper ones are a little large to be main water feed. Might be radiator loop but I am not sure. The thick white one is more sewer, but much newer. Likely a fixture or bathroom as added and they needed to tap the stack to get sewer.

 

Goodness only knows what the cable is.

 

EDIT: looked at it again and realized the black one is closer to the camera. Thats gas.

[Lurick]

It's a patch panel, and a pretty big one at that. It's designed for CAT5 cable and looks like a lot of ports are already wired up to it. You go from those ports into a switch to make them "hot"

[Oberon.Smite]

10 minutes ago, Lurick said:

It's a patch panel, and a pretty big one at that. It's designed for CAT5 cable and looks like a lot of ports are already wired up to it. You go from those ports into a switch to make them "hot"

OK it looks like these CAT5 cables flow to our neighbor's home. Why they go through our home, I have no idea. If I don't want this can I cut it off? I live in a townhouse if this is relevant.

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, Oberon.Smite said:

OK it looks like these CAT5 cables flow to our neighbor's home. Why they go through our home, I have no idea. If I don't want this can I cut it off?

Are you sure? They would funnel to the rest of the house through the blue cables most likely. If you live in a townhouse I'm wondering if that's the main hookup for everyone, but that doesn't make much sense to put it in another persons home.

[Donut417]

If it was a standard networking patch panel, wouldn't there be ports that you could plug in to? I wonder if this is for phone service as many people use CAT 5 for that now days. 

[Oberon.Smite]

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

If it was a standard networking patch panel, wouldn't there be ports that you could plug in to? I wonder if this is for phone service as many people use CAT 5 for that now days. 

 

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

If it was a standard networking patch panel, wouldn't there be ports that you could plug in to? I wonder if this is for phone service as many people use CAT 5 for that now days. 

Hmm, I have RJ11 ports in some rooms, could the CAT5 just be for those?

[Oberon.Smite]

45 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Are you sure? They would funnel to the rest of the house through the blue cables most likely. If you live in a townhouse I'm wondering if that's the main hookup for everyone, but that doesn't make much sense to put it in another persons home.

Well shit I just went down there again, looks like I was wrong. Not flowing into neighbor's house.

[Donut417]

3 minutes ago, Oberon.Smite said:

 

Hmm, I have RJ11 ports in some rooms, could the CAT5 just be for those?

If I remember correctly phone lines only use half the wires I think its like 2 pairs. Most use CAT 5 now days because its cheap. 

[Oberon.Smite]

25 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

If I remember correctly phone lines only use half the wires I think its like 2 pairs. Most use CAT 5 now days because its cheap. 

Did some more investigating, i'm pretty sure they're phone cables. However, if I wanted to I could re-configure them as ethernet because it still is CAT5.  Thanks.

[Blake]

46 minutes ago, Oberon.Smite said:

 

Hmm, I have RJ11 ports in some rooms, could the CAT5 just be for those?

Yes. This is not a 'patch panel' not even close. This will be an MDF/IDF, most shops use cat5 cables to wire it all up, because it is cheap, and then you have redundant lines (or two lines for the price of 1). They typically are more robust then telephone cables.

 

it'll be used for phone lines.

[Brightglaive]

It's a 66 punch down block. Basically a bare wire patch panel. Wires are basically punched down into a v-shaped metal connector. The connector usually connects the 2 sides of the punchdown block. It can accommodate up to 66 wires. It can be used for cat 5, cat 6, or telephone cat 3 wiring and each can coexist in the same block if it's a 1-to-1 punchdown.