Cabling in my house

framework123

Hi ,

Trying to understand how everything cabled in my house..moved in a few years but never had phone line, broadband etc..I know I asked my electrician when building to run cat5e cabling to all rooms
So abyway I took off face plate and took picture(attached) of how it's cabled...
I would appreciate if someone could explain it to me -
First is it cat5e?
Second it appears to be attached to a telephone plate not network plate? Not sure why is it easy to change?
If I connect broadband will it be available throughout house through face points ?
I don't know where all cables terminate or join together
Basically I'm not well up in this area and like to know what my options are based on what I have already installed.

Thanks
T

White Heart Loon

Typical of clueless electricians back then, he used cat5 alright, but he looped it from room to room instead of bringing them all to a central point. This means it's only suitable for an analogue phone system, not for network connections throughout your house. If they all went back to a central location you could easily just add a switch to send signal through each cable to each room, as it is you can do nothing with it.

framework123

White Heart Loon wrote: »

Typical of clueless electricians back then, he used cat5 alright, but he looped it from room to room instead of bringing them all to a central point. This means it's only suitable for an analogue phone system, not for network connections throughout your house. If they all went back to a central location you could easily just add a switch to send signal through each cable to each room, as it is you can do nothing with it.

Thanks for reply, bit dissapointing allright...so when eircom come to connect my broadband they will connect to my external phone box and this will bring signal to some point inside the house where I will have to use a wireless router from there ?
I attached a pic of my external phone box not sure what all the cables are for ? Should there be only 1?
Thanks

White Heart Loon

framework123 wrote: »

Thanks for reply, bit dissapointing allright...so when eircom come to connect my broadband they will connect to my external phone box and this will bring signal to some point inside the house where I will have to use a wireless router from there ?
I attached a pic of my external phone box not sure what all the cables are for ? Should there be only 1?
Thanks

Yes, they will connect to the main socket where you plug in your router, the cables throughout the house are only of use for analog phone.

fbradyirl

If you clean those white cables a bit, and read what it says on them. Are they cat5 also? If so, then you could probably link them through into the house and hook up a switch to it.

White Heart Loon

fbradyirl wrote: »

If you clean those white cables a bit, and read what it says on them. Are they cat5 also? If so, then you could probably link them through into the house and hook up a switch to it.

The cables in the external box are coming from inside the house

framework123

White Heart Loon wrote: »

The cables in the external box are coming from inside the house

Ok so the electrician that wired this is in Australia somewhere so I have no way of asking him ! Does it look like he terminated some of the cables in the external box ? I'm not home at the moment but will check how any cables coming from house and of there cat5

fbradyirl

My advice would be to open the plates where the Eircom line comes into the house and look for more cat5 cables there. You might be lucky and have a few there, which would correspond to sockets in each room. Then, in each room you can replace the RJ11 plates (phone) with RJ45 plates (for ethernet), and place a gigabit switch down where all the cables are bundled, and connect each cable into the switch. The switch would then be connected to your Eircom router.

You could then tidy the cables into the wall using a patch panel.

I've done this myself recently in my home. Any questions, give me a shout...

White Heart Loon

framework123 wrote: »

Ok so the electrician that wired this is in Australia somewhere so I have no way of asking him ! Does it look like he terminated some of the cables in the external box ? I'm not home at the moment but will check how any cables coming from house and of there cat5

He probably ran a few, one or two to main phone socket, maybe one to attic in case of adding an alarm. Did you plan on having an office, it's possible he ran an extra cable to there.

Although Eircom recommend connecting your router to the main phone socket, you'll find it will usually work fine from any phone socket depending on the length of the cable run and quality of the cable and connections

White Heart Loon

fbradyirl wrote: »

My advice would be to open the plates where the Eircom line comes into the house and look for more cat5 cables there. You might be lucky and have a few there, which would correspond to sockets in each room. Then, in each room you can replace the RJ11 plates (phone) with RJ45 plates (for ethernet), and place a gigabit switch down where all the cables are bundled, and connect each cable into the switch. The switch would then be connected to your Eircom router.

You could then tidy the cables into the wall using a patch panel.

I've done this myself recently in my home. Any questions, give me a shout...

The phone socket image in the first post shows the cat5 cables are looped, not radial. If they were radial there would be a single cable, the other ends of which would be joined together

framework123

White Heart Loon wrote: »

He probably ran a few, one or two to main phone socket, maybe one to attic in case of adding an alarm. Did you plan on having an office, it's possible he ran an extra cable to there.

Although Eircom recommend connecting your router to the main phone socket, you'll find it will usually work fine from any phone socket depending on the length of the cable run and quality of the cable and connections

So what do eircom connect there cable to one of those grey cables going into my house from the box? The first pic I took was off wall plate in hallway which I assume would be main one , I'll have to take off a few others to see if there the same

framework123

framework123 wrote: »

So what do eircom connect there cable to one of those grey cables going into my house from the box? The first pic I took was off wall plate in hallway which I assume would be main one , I'll have to take off a few others to see if there the same

Sorry just to clarify I have no connection at all at the moment..the eircom line just runs to my external box from the road..as u see in my box I then appear to have 4 or so whiteish cables running into my house but these are connected to nothing yet

fbradyirl

White Heart Loon wrote: »

The phone socket image in the first post shows the cat5 cables are looped, not radial. If they were radial there would be a single cable, the other ends of which would be joined together

The person who wired that is just using the blue and white pair, out of the total of 4 pairs (8 in all) . That can be simply undone, and use all 8 for ethernet cat5. Exact same thing was done in my home when I moved in and it is sorted easily. In my case, I didn't care about wiring the house for a phone, I just wanted ethernet ports in each room.

If the OP opens each panel in each room, you will see if cat5 goes to each room. If it does, then hopefully they all lead to a central location where you can manage them easily.

White Heart Loon

fbradyirl wrote: »

If the OP opens each panel in each room, you will see if cat5 goes to each room. If it does, then hopefully they all lead to a central location where you can manage them easily.

They don't, they loop from room to room. I have experience in this and can see it from the first image. Yours may have been radial, these are in series (looped), it's one or the other

fbradyirl

Mess job then if so. I wouldn't be at all happy with that.

framework123

Id say it is just looped room to room cos I cant see where they all terminate...Only thing I cant figure is the 4 wires in my telephone box going back into my house...And which,if any if these Eircom connect to , which will bring the broadband into my house

White Heart Loon

fbradyirl wrote: »

Mess job then if so. I wouldn't be at all happy with that.

For years it was the standard way to cable a house for an analog phone. Technology has moved on but some electricians didn't keep up with learning the latest.