Connecting Virgin Router to Room Ports

RickBlaine

Not sure if this is the right forum and please direct me to the correct one if it isn't.

I live in a duplex and the Virgin router is located in the utility room on a different floor to our TV. At the moment, I'm only using it for broadband so this isn't an issue - we are using wifi and an Ethernet cable plugged into a PC in a nearby room.

I'm now looking at getting a TV package but I'm wondering how I can actually connect the router to the set top box which will be some distance away on a different floor.

You can see the setup in the utility room here:
imgur.com/a/mzthO7T

Sorry about the last image. Not sure why it turned out blurry. I don't know what that blue box does. There is no connection between the Virgin router and that blue box.

Each room in the apartment has a coax port and ethernet ports. I think the front and back panel is used to connect up these ports to a router but I'm not sure and won't know how to do so. I can set up a router but that's about the extent of my knowledge of such things.

So my question is, am I correct that I can connect the Virgin router to the ports in those rooms via that panel for both TV and internet, and if so, would the Virgin engineer do this when he sets up the TV on a callout or would I need to hire a third party engineer to do this.

Thanks for your help.

MarkR

I was just going to say home plugs, but it looks like you're already networked. It's kind of spaghetti juntion there, so this might be something that you can reference in a call to VM to arrange an install?

RickBlaine

MarkR wrote: »

I was just going to say home plugs, but it looks like you're already networked. It's kind of spaghetti juntion there, so this might be something that you can reference in a call to VM to arrange an install?

Thanks. I just realised that Virgin has a 'Talk To...' forum on this site so I'll post there also and see what they comes back with,

TheChizler

I very much doubt Virgin would go near this but nothing to stop you trying yourself. Do those connections correspond to specific Ethernet ports in the rooms? Where do those grey cables go?

Edit: Just realised there was was more than one picture! It looks like you can just connect an Ethernet cable from your router to the appropriate port in the junction box and connect from the matching port in your room to the set top box.

RickBlaine

TheChizler wrote: »

I very much doubt Virgin would go near this but nothing to stop you trying yourself. Do those connections correspond to specific Ethernet ports in the rooms? Where do those grey cables go?

Edit: Just realised there was was more than one picture! It looks like you can just connect an Ethernet cable from your router to the appropriate port in the junction box and connect from the matching port in your room to the set top box.

I'm happy to give it a go myself but I've no idea where to begin. The grey cables on the back of the panel go back into the "hole in the wall". They aren't connected to the Virgin router.


I believe the connections do correspond to the ethernet ports although they have never been used or set up.

TheChizler

RickBlaine wrote: »

I'm happy to give it a go myself but I've no idea where to begin. The grey cables on the back of the panel go back into the "hole in the wall". They aren't connected to the Virgin router.


I believe the connections do correspond to the ethernet ports although they have never been used or set up.

I'm presuming there's no labels on the ports in the room you want to connect to? You can figure out which connection goes where easily enough.

Connect the powered up set-top box to the nearest port on the wall with the Ethernet cable it comes with. If you have a spare Ethernet cable connect one end to one of the yellow ports on the router, and the other to each "Data" port in the second picture, until the lights come on on the port you're connecting to on the router.

RickBlaine

TheChizler wrote: »

I'm presuming there's no labels on the ports in the room you want to connect to? You can figure out which connection goes where easily enough.

Connect the powered up set-top box to the nearest port on the wall with the Ethernet cable it comes with. If you have a spare Ethernet cable connect one end to one of the yellow ports on the router, and the other to each "Data" port in the second picture, until the lights come on on the port you're connecting to on the router.

Ah, I was actually confusing myself. I thought I had to change the wired stuff on the inside panel. OK, what you said above makes sense for the internet.



What about the coax for the TV? That is more important because at least I can use wifi for the internet.

RickBlaine

Actually, that blue box is a TV distribution amplifier so I guess that connects to each of the coax ports in the rooms. I think I know what needs to be done now.

The problem in the first place is that I confused myself by thinking I had to connect the virgin router to the wired components in the inside of the panel, but I know realise they actually connect to the different rooms.

Thanks for your help.

TheChizler

No problem, best of luck with it!

bk

Cool, that is pretty awesome and very flexible setup there, lucky you.

Hopefully those cables are labelled, otherwise you will need to experiment with them.

The coax cable that goes to your Virgin router, you can put a splitter on it so one cable goes to the Virgin router and the other goes to the TV input on the TV amplifier, which should make the cable TV signal available on the TV output in the living room. Nice.

If you can check the make and model number of the amplifier, it can help to confirm that it will work.