Help with home networking!

Techlover101 · February 15, 2017

Hello I am in need of assistance. I have been living in my home for the past 6 years. My home was built in 2006. Around my house I can see a few wall plates with ethernet jacks and some accompanied with coax below them. These ethernet jacks are labeled with Cat 5e on the wall plates. My modem and router are both in the downstairs office and the modem is connected by coax to the wall in the office and I believe this cable is extended through the garage (the garage and office share a wall and I can see a coax cable sticking out the same spot in the garage and this goes to the side of my house). The modem is then connected to my wireless router in the same office. What I need help with is activating the ethernet jacks around the house. I have contacted Comcast since I have Xfinity internet but no help. One time they even told me that they don't provide service for wired internet. I noticed this box in a closet upstairs in one of the bedrooms. I attached a few pictures so that you can see what is exactly in the box. I was just wandering, can I connect my modem to that free coax in the middle that is labeled "in" and then attach the router in the expansion port with all of the cat5e cables?? I was just really confused to see this box in a closet in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Even though the wall plates are labeled Cat5e I was afraid that they were all just phone lines. Can anyone please help me in figuring this out?

Sorry for the really long post!

kirashi · February 15, 2017

Looks like a pre-wired box for Telephone systems. Despite those being Cat5e cables, a lot of installers actually used them for phone lines instead of running RJ11 since RJ45 provides more wires for additional jacks in each room. You'll want to make sure the jacks you've found in each room are actually Cat5e RJ45 jacks, and not the smaller RJ11 jacks, before you get started.

If they are RJ45, great! You'll want to remove them from the wall and make sure they're actually hooked up on the other side. Then you'll probably need to do a lot of checking and testing and finagling to get it all working. It's not hard, but it's going to require some networking knowledge, time, and money. JayzTwoCents did a couple videos on home networking this kind of networking panel a while back.

Techlover101 · February 15, 2017

Thanks for the reply. I already watched his videos and they were good. But I wanted to know how I can find out exactly what they are, Jay talked about it briefly how some of the wires weren't used in the jacks but I need more information on how to tell exactly. If they do end up being cat5e can I go ahead and do what I mentioned earlier, connecting the modem and router in the box with that free coax in the middle??