Network like it's 1999. What is 1990s era coax networking, RG59?

[Eug]

My sister built her house in the 90s. Being the forward thinker that she is, she put network jacks in every single room. The developer thought she was very strange for wanting some hardcore business feature in a residential home. Well, obviously it turns out she was smart to do that... except she chose the wrong technology. All of her network "jacks" are the now defunct coax networking jacks of the 90s.

What is the coax anyway? Is it just standard RG59? If so, I'm thinking she could reterminate some of the jacks to accept MoCA coaxial networking, which is due out this quarter.

Any ideas?

She has wireless, but it's flaky at certain parts of the house. I've suggested powerline networking to her, but MoCA could turn out to be more reliable and give higher speeds.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I think that the older coax ethernet is 50-ohm, whereas video-signal coax is 75-ohm. Probably won't work. Good luck finding coax networking cards these days. They went out of style along with ISA cards.

 

[Eug]

50 Ohm? Arrrggh.

Oh well, it looks like MoCA is out of the question then. It will have to be Powerline AV networking then I guess.

 

[skriefal]

You can buy adapters to convert from 10base2 (BNC) to 10baseT (RJ45). For example, here. But they're expensive and you'll probably need one for each jack. You'll also be limited to 10mbit, so performance will be about the same as the oldish 802.11b wireless standard.

IIRC, the coax used with 10base2/thinnet is referred to as RG-58 and is 50ohm.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: skriefal
You can buy adapters to convert from 10base2 (BNC) to 10baseT (RJ45). For example, here. But they're expensive and you'll probably need one for each jack. You'll also be limited to 10mbit, so performance will be about the same as the oldish 802.11b wireless standard.

IIRC, the coax used with 10base2/thinnet is referred to as RG-58 and is 50ohm.

Hmmm... They've come down in price. Last I checked those things were like $150 each.

However, I know that powerline works in her place, because I tried my Netgear ones and they worked. It'd be easier and cheaper still to go with powerline, partially because not all her coax jacks are actually terminated, and partially because you can actually get the powerline stuff locally.

Thanks though.

 

[imagoon]

check to see if the coax is stapled down. If not, on one end attach a cat6 cable to the end of the coax. Pull the other end until you find cat6 cable. Congradulations you just retrofitted a house. To save time later, pull a pull sting also.