Setting up hardwired network in new house (newbie)

[Ryan Thompson]

(Apologies in advance for the terminology which I'm sure is wrong in several places)

Hello, home network newbie here who needs some help (ok.. a lot of help). This is a bit long winded with several questions, so please bear with me.

A bit of background: I just moved into a new house. I'm getting 155mbps from my ISP, and currently have a DOCSIS 3.0 modem/router gateway (arris dg2470). It's connected to coax in a wall jack in my den, and I'm directly connecting a few devices to it via ethernet (PS4, apple TV, AV receiver). The rest of my devices throughout my home are connecting via wifi. However, wifi isn't strong throughout my house - I'm able to connect to the 2.4ghz network in every room, but not the 5ghz. My house has CAT5e jacks in every room, and I'd like to determine if / how it's worth getting these connected so that I can have hard wired connections in every room (as well as strong wifi throughout the house by connecting access points in other rooms), or if there are other alternatives that will help establish a performant network throughout my house.

As I said, I'm a newbie when it comes to networking, but I'm technically savvy (CS degree, professional software engineer) and I think I can get things set up with a bit of guidance. I have some general questions about if / how I should get started.

1) I gather that buying a wifi system / wifi extenders would be one option. At this point, could a wifi system be the path of least resistance? Am I going to a lot more bang for my buck by setting up hard wired connections, or can I fully utilize the bandwidth I'm getting from my ISP with wifi? I do have a media server running on my network that I use to stream to other devices in my house, so I'd also like this to work as well as possible. I'd also like to set up something that's upgradeable and could handle more bandwidth from my ISP down the line (maybe gigabit ethernet if / when it becomes available in my area)

2) In general, I need help understanding the state of affairs in my central patch panel / wiring layout throughout my house. I've attached a few pictures. Each of my rooms has at least one of those wall mounts with 2 coax jacks, a phone jack and an ethernet jack. From what I can tell, the phone jacks are wired up (to the green panel, a Leviton PWB 58141-02, which I understand is only for phone lines), but the ethernet jacks aren't connected to anything in the central control panel. Can anyone help confirm, or tell me what I'm looking at? I'm also curious about what's going on with the door answering system (which I gather is connected to the phone line), and about the wires which are connected in the picture with my hand in it. I don't really know what's going on here, or where / how to start untangling this.

3) How can I test the ethernet wall jacks to determine which cable (in the central panel) goes to which wall jack? Currently, the only tool I have is a crimper (and some CAT5e plugs), so I assume I'd need to buy a device to help me test signals.

4) I have two (potentially three) rooms where I want to connect some devices directly to ethernet, and I also want to have a strong wifi signal throughout my house. What layout of hardware would be best to accomplish this? I could be totally off here, but I'm thinking that I need a modem -> router -> switch at my central patch panel (all of my rooms' wall jacks would be connected to the switch). Then, in rooms where I want to connect multiple devices via ethernet, should I buy another router for that room, and connect the devices to it? I assume these routers would enable my hard wired connections as well as giving my wifi coverage throughout my house by acting as access points. With this type of layout, do I actually need a router at the central panel, or could I just put a modem / switch there?

5) Bonus question.. I don't know much about this "Doorbell Fon" door answering device, other than that it's not currently working (nothing happens when I press the buzzer outside). I assume that if I hook up a phone to one of my phone jacks, it will start ringing when I hit the buzzer, but I haven't been able to confirm this yet, since I don't have a phone. What I'd love to do is set something up where I get a phone call (on my cell phone) when someone hits the buzzer. Any idea how I could make this happen? Will I need to pay for a land line to make this work?

Thanks in advance to anyone that's willing to help! Please let me know if I can provide any more info / pictures to make questions easier to answer.

 

[abailey]

The Gray and Black wires that are in the pics that are hand labeled, where do they go? Do they have ends there in the box? I can't see from your pics.

 

[Ryan Thompson]

The grey wires aren't connected to anything (see new attached pic), except for the one in this pic, where I don't know what's going on: https://www.snbforums.com/attachments/20170514_192603-jpg.9326/

The black are coax cables (pic attached). I'm not too concerned with these since I don't have cable (the guy who installed my internet connected the signal to the room where I told him I wanted my modem/router, but I think that's about it). Most aren't connected to anything either, but a few come together at splitters / combiners / idk what (one thing is connected to power). Looks like some directv related stuff from the previous owner.. I'll probably get rid of most of it to tidy up since I'm not using it.

 

[thiggins]

This is an old series, but worth a read for planning and executing a network.
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/basics/lanwan-basics/24222-howtohomenetpt1
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/basics/lanwan-basics/24217-howtohomenetpt2
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/basics/lanwan-basics/24835-howtohomenetpt3

 

[CaptainSTX]

The blue wires shown in all your pictures are all set up for telephone. They can easily be reterminated and used for data if you should need more data cables in any room.

I can guess that the white wires are your coaxial for CATV.

What is in the cabinet to the left of the telephone wiring cabinet? Looks like your data wiring cabinet.

But it is definetly worth your while to get your Ethernet wiring up and running. Most everyone on this site will tell you that WiFi is for mobile devices. Ethernet should be used for everything that is stationary. TV, streaming devices should for trouble free performane be fed using Ethernet.

You can test your Ethernet cables and determine their location by purchasing an inexpensive tester which will test continuity and if the pinning has been done correctly. It will not tell you if the cable will support 1000 Mbps or just 100 Mbps connectivity.

At the mininum to complete your Ethernet setup you will need an 8 - Port switch $25, perhaps some 4 port switches to use in Entertainment centers or other locations where you want more Ethernet connections than you have cables $15. If their is space in your Ethernet cabinet you might want to consider adding a patch pannel along with the switch $50+. You may also need to add a couple of WiFi APs throughout your home so you have decent signals in all locations. $75 per AP is a starting point. Before you get seduced into buying a mesh based system be sure the nodes can be fed using Ethernet. You don't want to waste your wireless bandwidth back hauling data between APs.

As how to set up your network you will need to provide floorplans for your home showing where the jacks are, where the wiring cabinets are and where you want to put Internet connected devices both hardwired and WiFi.

 

[Ryan Thompson]

Correct about white wires (CATV). The cabinet on the left is for my security system.

Do you have any specific suggestions for devices for testing the cables? Something like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OUFX38W/?tag=snbforums-20 What would I buy if I wanted to test speed?

You didn't mention a router in your suggestions.. where would that fit in? Between modem and switch in cabinet?

 

[degrub]

The router should already exist where your cable terminates into the ISP's modem/router. Unless you have some special needs beyond general internet access, it should be fine.

 

[Ryan Thompson]

I currently have a gateway device (modem + router) that I'm renting from my ISP, but I'd like to get my own. I'm planning on buying a separate modem and a router.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Correct about white wires (CATV). The cabinet on the left is for my security system.

Do you have any specific suggestions for devices for testing the cables? Something like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OUFX38W/?tag=snbforums-20 What would I buy if I wanted to test speed?

You didn't mention a router in your suggestions.. where would that fit in? Between modem and switch in cabinet?

That tester will work. There are devices that will do the same test for less, but not that much.

To test a link to determine what its link speed is the simplest method is to hook a PC with a gigabyte Ethernet port on one end of the cable and a router with gigbyte LAN ports on the other. If the router indicates through lights on the LAN port or in the firmware that it has a gigabyte connection then you do. If you will actually be able to move a gig across the link depends on the hardware at both ends. You can test what you actually get by doing a LAN speed test using a small program you can download for free.

 

[tannebil]

It looks like at least a couple of your network (grey) cables have connectors on the end. You could just buy a small switch, plug them in, and walk from room to room with a wired Ethernet device, and see where it lights up.

If you want to get fancy, you can buy Leviton patch panels and mounting brackets on Amazon. You have enough slack to just put Ethernet connectors on the end of the cables and plug them into the switch but a patch panel and short patch cables is the traditional solution. This link shows the mounting bracket and mounting pins in the "frequently bought with" area. These are 6 port so you may want two if you decide to wire all your cables. You can get a wider bracket that has room to mount two patch panels

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00022742I/?tag=snbforums-20

Nothing special about Leviton other than it's designed for the mounting holes in your cabinet. My active stuff is just mounted with cable ties to Leviton brackets.

If you use patch cables, make sure they are at least CAT5E

The cable should have some identifying marks on it so you should be able to figure out if it is CAT5 or 5E. Hopefully the latter. If not, you have to decide if it's worth the trouble just to get 100Mb Fast Ethernet connections.

If it is CAT5, using MoCA 2.0 bonded over your coax might be a better choice if performance is important. About $70-80 per adapter. One in the center and one in each room you want wired connections. You also need a MoCA POE filter. You might also need to replace the splitter with one that goes to 2Ghz. The most common ones only go to 1GB. It's printed on the splitter. But GB Ethernet is better if your cable supports it.

You just add a switch in rooms where you want multiple hardwired connections. You can use a multi-port router or a router/WiFi but make sure to configure it in bridge mode.

WiFi coverage is a whole different subject with lots of options and even more opinions. Get your cabling sorted first as it will effect your WiFi options.

 

[WimV48]

I have a working setup with Netgear switches a GS108T and two GS105Ev2.
These switches are VLAN capable.

From the providermodem the IP-traffic is going to the IP-router (Apple Time Capsule) and then to the GS108T and the IP-TV-trafic is going directly to the switch GS108T.
My IP-LAN is on 192.168.1.n and the IP-TV from my provider is on IP-domain 10.30.9.nnn .
For mixing 2 IP-domains in one switch you need to setup VLAN's.

I have a TV setup with 2 Amino settopboxes in the living room and in the gardenroom.
These settopboxes need the IP-TV-packets (VLAN4) but I also want IP-LAN in these rooms.
So effectively there now 2 trunkcables that carry the combined IP-LAN + IP-TV traffic.

I wanted the IP-TV-traffic to run over the same cable (trunk) as normal IP-traffic.
The cable goes under the floor (limited space) from the front of the house to the back of the house. I ended up with an extra VLAN4. This works fine now.
I use Cat6-cables and have them split in 2 IP-channels (4-wire: 1,2,3,6)

With VLAN you can mix traffic from different IP-domains over one IP-channel. Only on the start/endpoint the traffic from VLAN4 is separated form the normal IP-traffic.

 

[coxhaus]

You need to figure out what cable you have before you invest too much and whether it will support GIG. It should be labeled CAT5 or CAT5e. If it is CAT3 it will only support 10meg. CAT5e would be your best option. CAT5 was for 100meg. I have run GIG across some of the better made CAT5 with pretty good luck. If it is CAT5 then you need to terminate 1 or 2 and run data across them to check them for errors. If they test out ok then you can pull the punch down block out and mount a small switch there. Terminate all the ends with RJ45 ends for solid core wire.