Question What type of panel is this?

[kkothamasu]

We recently moved into a house we purchased and just getting around to checking out all the wiring in the basement. There seems to be ethernet junction boxes in various bedrooms and seem to have the ethernet cable run into each room but not connected to anything (I found them when I removed the wall plates for the phone jacks.) There's about 40 cables in the basement so trying to find the rights ones has been nightmare but I was able to use a cable tester to trace one of the ethernet cables and it seems to be connected to this panel thing that I've never seen before (see attached picture). I'm pretty sure it isn't a patch panel so I'm wondering if I can re-purpose it to feed hardwired internet to the whole house or if I'm better off pulling out all the cables from this panel and actually using a switch or a patch panel instead. Thank in advance for your help!

 

[aigomorla]

telephone patch panel.

4 wries... blue / bluewhite orange / orange white.... represent the 2 dedicated landlines you can get at your house.

you can also tell because its all in serial as its patched in.
Its a land line patch panel.

FYI, you can connect a RJ11 in a RJ45 jack.
Some phone companies do it that way as its easier running a cat cable with 8 wires with double redundancy to the panel.

OR...

Take a multimeter on the blue and blue white.
See if there is voltage running though.
I have some some bad installers use it as security camera line power feeds as well.

 

[mxnerd]

Inspect the cable shield and it will tell you it's CAT3/CAT5 or CAT5E cable.

It looks old and likely not CAT5E and won't run gigabit even if you repurpose it as network cable.

 

[kkothamasu]

Thanks fellas. I figured the panel wasn't anything I could use for a real Lan and I did notice that the cables say Category 5 so definitely appreciate that I won't be able to get gigabit ethernet out of these cables. I was just curious what this panel was as I hadn't seen anything like it before. I do believe the same spot where I found the ethernet cables in each room has a coax line so I'll probably end up using my MoCA adapters I was using at our old place to get wired ethernet in to various rooms. I really wished they would have sprung for at least cat 5e cables since the house was built in 2001. Thanks for all the insight!

 

[ch33zw1z]

You *may* still get gigabit out of those cables. quality and length of run come into play

 

[Fallen Kell]

Its a 110 block with C-clips bridging 2 of the lines together throughout the entire house. This is most definitely setup for your phone lines (at least as configured). The good news is that it may be possible to convert it into 10/100 and possibly gigabit ethernet depending on if there are other locations that they tied the lines together or not in the house (if all 4 pairs actually exist at the drops in the rooms and not just the 2 pairs that are currently shown as bridged together you can convert to gigabit ethernet by re-terminating and changing the C-clips on that 110 block to connect to a RJ45). Here is a quick how-to on this kind of block:

How to Wire A 110 Block Telephone Connector

110 wiring blocks are commonly used for distributing telephone lines in homes and offices. If your home was built after 1990 there's a goo...

tombuildsstuff.blogspot.com

To convert to RJ45 you would need something like the following (this is just the first I found, there are plenty of others and probably cheaper as well):

Search results for: 'spctelco itc 3002b 110 block adapter four pair 110 to rj45'

www.specialized.net

Or this:

Cat5e, 4-Pair, 110 - RJ45 Patch Cable, Stranded, Non-Booted, No shrink tubing, 7 Foot

Cat5e, 4-Pair, 110 to RJ45 Patch Cable, Gray, 7 Foot

store.cablesplususa.com

You need to make certain that the replacement RJ45 clip is wired the same way as the 110 block is wired (i.e. the proper colored pairs are in the proper location), otherwise the wires will not be on the correct pins of the RJ45 (you can compensate on the other end of the wire when you re-terminate the CAT5 to RJ45 assuming it is currently only RJ11 currently, but that is a real pain in the a** and probably better to just re-wire the incoming lines to the 110 block properly as there is probably enough slack to cut them and punch them down in again).

Again, for gigabit, it will need all 4 pairs both at the room and terminated in that 110 block. Most phone/electricians/contractors will only terminate 2 pairs in typical home installations (as can be seen from the c-clips) because they were only thinking 2 lines might exist for a typical home environment (1 for phone, the other possibly for fax, modem, or possibly a second line for teenagers back before cell phones). And to save on time wiring, they would simply not connect the other lines and possibly cut them off which means you might need to re-wire the 110.

 

[fkoehler]

Agree with the other's posts.
Unless you really want only 100Mb, using the coax adapters might be most worthwhile.
I guess depending on how old the coax is, and current state of it.