Media Cabinet

psychomantis

We've moved into a new home and it features a mysterious media cabinet we are told the house is wired with cat6 cabling and in some rooms we have RJ45 connection panels in the wall. Does anybody have an idea what the media cabinet below does or what we might use it for?

Johnboy1951

You seem to have eight RJ45 connections, I guess to the wall plates you have found in various rooms, and also telephone splitter providing four outputs.

..... my guess .....

psychomantis

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

You seem to have eight RJ45 connections, I guess to the wall plates you have found in various rooms, and also telephone splitter providing four outputs.

..... my guess .....

Sweet any uses for it? Would I need to connect a network switch to link all the connections in the cabinet together?

Johnboy1951

My suggestion would be to open it and confirm how it is wired.

Those cabinets are usually built to house a switch which would be connected to give internet access to the 8 wall plates (I have assumed).
There should also be space for a modem and the telephone distribution could be from the four telephone outlets.

It does all depend on how it is wired ...... so the first step would be to confirm how everything is wired up.

psychomantis

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

My suggestion would be to open it and confirm how it is wired.

Those cabinets are usually built to house a switch which would be connected to give internet access to the 8 wall plates (I have assumed).
There should also be space for a modem and the telephone distribution could be from the four telephone outlets.

It does all depend on how it is wired ...... so the first step would be to confirm how everything is wired up.

I've cracked it open what do you make of this?

psychomantis

So it looks like there is a tv splitter and a telephone splitter in there, the connections at the top I guess are linked to the RJ45 panels in the rooms? What practical applications would the tv splitter have? I've no need for the telephone splitter.

babi-hrse

Having worked on cabinets like that even with purple cat5 cables. I've found its usually one leads down to an underground carpark to a distribution point for phone connection and the others lead to rj45 wall faceplates around the place

psychomantis

babi-hrse wrote: »

Having worked on cabinets like that even with purple cat5 cables. I've found its usually one leads down to an underground carpark to a distribution point for phone connection and the others lead to rj45 wall faceplates around the place

I see, this cabinet is located on the utility room wall I think I'm a bit closer to understanding what it does I'll have to hook up a network switch to it.

Johnboy1951

Still guessing

It looks like the patch cables to go from the RJ45 connectors to the Switch are bundled in the plastic bag at the top.
The Purple Cat 6 seem to be the wiring from wall plates to the connectors.

Once connected to the switch, and the switch connected to the modem/router you should have internet available at all eight wall plates in the rooms.

I have never used the other splitters ........ one is for coax ...... one in and six out for distribution of TV signals.

On the left are two splitters for telephone lines.
Two lines catered for with each getting split to four outlets.
If you have no need of the telephone units they can be easily removed ........ but check to see if there is any wiring distributed for telephone points around the premises.

There appears to be a bunch of coax wires (black) which implies they are also connected to various wall plates in rooms.
You should check those out as they might prove useful for distributing TV signals.

I suspect you have RJ45, RJ11 (telephone) and Coax sockets in various rooms and they are all wired back to this central point.

.

TheChizler

There was a thread with an identical question and identical wall unit a fewmonths back. Basically have the broadband connection installed next to or in this box and connect the router you get from whoever to as many ports in the patch panel as you need with patch cables.

psychomantis

Thanks for the helpful replies I'll have a poke around it again tomorrow

ED E

Theres no switch there John or we'd see a 12v rail going up.


@psychomantis:
1. Get your ISPs router setup next to this box.
2. Buy an unmanaged 8Port switch
3. Connect a few patch cables
4.(Optional) add wireless access points at the wall plates around the house if extra coverage would be useful.

Johnboy1951

ED E wrote: »

Theres no switch there John or we'd see a 12v rail going up.

Didn't mean to imply there is an existing switch in the cabinet, only that they supplied patch cables, it seems, to connect to a switch.
Some of those Hager cabs have room for a 'built in' switch, which I thought initially might be the case.

@psychomantis:
1. Get your ISPs router setup next to this box.
2. Buy an unmanaged 8Port switch
3. Connect a few patch cables
4.(Optional) add wireless access points at the wall plates around the house if extra coverage would be useful.

Tinder Surprise

Just one small point as everything else is well covered..

The patch cables you see (wrapped up in plastic) to use on the 8 points into a switch, or similar are more than likely CAT5 standard that come with those HAGER units.

depending on desired speeds on your LAN you might want to upgrade to CAT5e or higher.

ED E

Tinder Surprise wrote: »

Just one small point as everything else is well covered..

The patch cables you see (wrapped up in plastic) to use on the 8 points into a switch, or similar are more than likely CAT5 standard that come with those HAGER units.

depending on desired speeds on your LAN you might want to upgrade to CAT5e or higher.

Its CAT6.

Johnboy1951

I wondered if any of the cables are actually terminated in the Hager?

The coax are definitely not ..... and we cannot see any of the others to be certain, although the ethernet cables look like they might be terminated at the RJ45 blocks.

There might be a bit of wiring to be done to make it all usable.