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Pre-wired home with cat 5 issue

7K views 55 replies 10 participants last post by  zx10guy 
#1 ·
First time posting here so if i'm wrong in any way, please let me know.

I have a home that's pre-wired with cat 5 and thought it would be easy to use when I needed it, but it looks like I'm wrong. I know the home is using cat 5 because it was in my docs when I purchased the home and, after pulling off the wall plate, I see it labeled as cat 5 and see all of the jacks are connected properly with all of the wires. Since I've been living here, all of the jacks have been used as phone lines and have never been needed for a network until now.

Connecting all of the jacks to the router and modem should be as easy as plugging in the Ethernet cable and be good to go. The problem I am having is that there is no main junction box inside the house that connects all of the cables together. All of the cables tie in at the phone box outside of my house and, at that point, only use the colored wires used for phone service, leaving the networking wires not connected and loose.

The question I have is what is the best way to connect the loose wires outside to complete the network wiring so that it works properly? Also, is there a way to even bypass having to do anything outside and just use the colored wires already connected by making changes to an Ethernet cable?

I'm comfortable with wiring and making a cable if I have to, I'm just not sure if it would work or if somehow tying in the wires outside would be the only solution. Any help would be appreciated and thanks in advance!
 
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#52 ·
As yet another Cisco network admin, I'm enjoying this thread. Sounds like PPPI on the builder's part. Of course in my (and any of our) cases we'd be pretty clear about where we'd want the IDF in our homes but to a layman it'd be tough in this situation. The demarc being outside is pretty lousy and I'd be on the horn with the builder to fix that pretty quickly.

And to this:

There is no way to make a cable that would use the phone lines as incoming and outgoing data lines is there?

no network cables can't be spliced like that. they must be separate.
Au contraire. Until we had a full rewiring of campus...we would indeed splice out a pair of jacks on a lead, punch 4/5 on a phone block and 12/36 on the network block. It ain't pretty, but when you've only got one drop...and you could make a pretty ugly cable to do the same.
 
#53 ·
RasputinAXP said:
...

Au contraire. Until we had a full rewiring of campus...we would indeed splice out a pair of jacks on a lead, punch 4/5 on a phone block and 12/36 on the network block. It ain't pretty, but when you've only got one drop...and you could make a pretty ugly cable to do the same.
I'm hate to come into someone IDF room and find undocumented 'tricks' like that ! Instead of doing your job you forced to spend time for research and scratching your head how the hell I would handle the mess?! :D
 
#54 ·
P Smith said:
I'm hate to come into someone IDF room and find undocumented 'tricks' like that ! Instead of doing your job you forced to spend time for research and scratching your head how the hell I would handle the mess?! :D
lol, back in the day it was ALL undocumented tricks. Now that we have a budget we wire the daylights out of a place, but 10-12 years ago when we couldn't convince people to pay for a new drop? Man.

(besides, who had to document it? it was way obvious when we did it... :rolling: )
 
#56 ·
wingrider01 said:
there is a 120 volt outlet in the wiring closet with APC 1500 UPS that functions just fine, the POE panel comes with a power injector that inputs 120v outputs 48V DC, have 3 installed in my wiring closet, heck I even have a power injector that converts 120V to 12V DC in there. Just did a switch upgrade of 10 standard panels to 10 POE panels for 1/10 the cost of swapping out the businesses Cisco 37XX layer 3 switches.

I disagree with the wiring being terminated in the Dmark panel, that is poor construction and even poorer planning. The Telco here will charge for a service call if anything has been touched on their external box at a residential address which is normally no charge unless they walk into the house.

If the builder assumed what you say, then it is the builders fault for not verifying what was on the build plan and requested by the buyer, if it is written down in the specifications the builder needs to make it right
There you go with all things network has to revolve around Cisco. As I said there are other alternatives which more than satisfies most people's requirements (businesses included) without having to pay the Cisco price tag.

In your eyes, it's poor construction. In the eyes of the builder, they don't care unless you're going to pay extra to have it wired in the way we all know is the proper way to do it. I don't know what Telco you deal with but that's not the case in my area. And I can't see how they would charge for anything if the home's wiring is on the customer side of the NID. Have you ever looked at a NID? On the one installed outside of my home, the NID has two compartments. One is labeled customer access and the other is labeled Telco access. The customer side is accessed by using a Philips or flat head screw driver. The Telco side requires the use of a nut driver to unscrew the bolt. Even the troubleshooting steps provided by my Telco instructs their customers to do some testing on the customer access side before calling them in for service.

If the home buyer didn't put it in writing, the yes, the builder can assume or do what ever it thinks is appropriate. I suspect if the OP had this in writing, there wouldn't be all this discussion.
 
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