Decipher this patch panel?

C

computerpro3

LightningRod
Joined
Mar 29, 2003
Messages
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I posted earlier about moving into my new place, which has cat5 runs to every room for RJ11. I don't use home phone and would like to turn it into a wired LAN.

I live in a 4 unit condo building, all of the wires terminate in the garage. Today I had my fioptics (cincinnati bell 50mbps fiber service) in to install, and they told me that all of my jacks are run individually back to the patch panel so it should be possible to do what I want.

In fact, to hook up my router they even changed one of the RJ11 ports in my living room to an ethernet port and it worked great. That cream/pinkish wire on the patch panel is the internet "in" line from the ISP, which is connected via the patch panel to the cat5 cable going to my living room.

My question is, what exactly am I looking at? Is the top row mine and the second row another apartment's? Or is the second row mine too? I only have five ethernet jacks in my condo.

If I wanted to convert this to a LAN, I assume I would install a router and switch in the garage. I'd take that pink/cream internet in wire, terminate it, plug into the router. Then pull out the cables from the existing patch panel, terminate them, plug them into the switch. use a patch cable from the router to the switch and I should be golden.

Am I talking complete nonsense or will that work?

What is that yellow and blue wire that connects several ports?

img4714c.jpg
 
Yes, it is originally a telephone patch panel. But I want to convert the cat5 telephone network to an ethernet one. I know I can change out the keystones in the room of the condo to RJ45 (my ISP already did one successfully), but I'm asking what I'd have to pull out here and terminate to plug into a switch that I would install next to the patch panel.
 
Its not really a patch pannel though, you would need a CAT5e patch pannel or its going to a nightmare and you may aswell just remove it and put RJ45 on the end of each cable and plug it into the switch.
 
Jay_oasis said:
Its not really a patch pannel though, you would need a CAT5e patch pannel or its going to a nightmare and you may aswell just remove it and put RJ45 on the end of each cable and plug it into the switch.
Click to expand...

That's what I'm planning on, but I don't understand the layout of this telephone patch panel. Are rows one and two mine, or just one? Nothing is labeled so I have no clue to make sure I pull the right wires out (don't want to remove my neighbor's telephone service).
 
pull the white unit out, put keystones on each line and then run a patch cord into a switch. that way if a jack needs to be network or phone you can change the end.
 
computerpro3 said:
That's what I'm planning on, but I don't understand the layout of this telephone patch panel. Are rows one and two mine, or just one? Nothing is labeled so I have no clue to make sure I pull the right wires out (don't want to remove my neighbor's telephone service).
Click to expand...

Its hard to tell you will need to see if you can get a toner.
 
That is a 110 block. All the station cables terminate on the bottom and the jumpers terminate on the top. Impossible to know which cables go to which units without toning them out. The yellow and blue is just putting dialtone across the white/blue pair of those jacks. It can be removed. Looks like the four cables with only the orange and green pairs connected are a weak attempt at wired ethernet.
You can get 110 clip to modular plug cables and go right to your switch.
http://www.siemon.com/e-catalog/ECAT_GI_page.aspx?GI_ID=mpc_s110-to-mc-cable-assemblies
 
There is no way we can tell you... they are just cables, who knows how they ran them. You need to tone them out to find your cables. Then yes, you could take them out and put them in a switch.
 
To simplify this, because you have other peoples connections involved here, I would call out a local company that does telecom work, This wouldn't be too expensive, since they arent running lines, Just tone work and then a quick patch for your stuff.
 
From the looks of it each row belongs to a different condo, second row being yours. Each row looks like it has it's own internet in - C-Clip #3 for row 1 and 2, C-Clip #4 for row 3 and C-Clip #5 for row 4. The blue/yellow pair on row 4 for is for their phone, passes dialtown to the blue/white pair.
 
Thanks for the help. I find it interesting to learn about.

So from the looks of it, only one of the four condos has phone service? I know I don't. If the others did, there would be a dialtone wire for the other blue and white strands too, correct?
 
Do you have a tone generator?

I would trace the sets down to each jack, pull them from that panel, and put them on a new patch panel or whatever and then terminal and use switch.

If you're cheap, you can put ends at the patch panel and plug into switch
If you're cheap and want some class, you can terminate to surface mount boxes and run small patch cord to switch.
If you're not cheap and want it done nice, then buy a patch panel, terminate, run patch cords to switch.

I have 2 different tone generators I use. Tone them back from the walls in question and pull them off of that panel and put them on a separate data only block.

Monoprice is your friend, just make sure that the color codes are true.
 
You don't have to reterminate if you use the cords I linked to. Just get 5 of them, clip one to each position (4 pair) and plug into your router/switch.
 
Assuming everything is 4 pairs all the way through, I can not see why it would not work.
 
jeffmoss26 said:
That is a 110 block. All the station cables terminate on the bottom and the jumpers terminate on the top. Impossible to know which cables go to which units without toning them out. The yellow and blue is just putting dialtone across the white/blue pair of those jacks. It can be removed. Looks like the four cables with only the orange and green pairs connected are a weak attempt at wired ethernet.
You can get 110 clip to modular plug cables and go right to your switch.
http://www.siemon.com/e-catalog/ECAT_GI_page.aspx?GI_ID=mpc_s110-to-mc-cable-assemblies
Click to expand...

I just wanted to personally thank you as I went ahead and got those cables and it works incredibly well. I hooked those cables up to the 110 block, wall mounted my router, terminated that cream WAN In wire with a RJ45, and plugged everything in. Swapped out all the phone jacks in each room with RJ45 jacks and connected the computers. Holy crap, it worked.

And get this - despite the fact that all of the wiring in the walls is standard Cat5 - not Cat5 E, I am getting well over 100 megabytes per second transfer rates. Pulling about 110MB/s sustained on large file transfers. This is shocking to me because I've always heard about how Cat5 is distance limited, but there has to be well over fifty feet on each run to get from my condo to the garage since I'm on the second floor. And even more amazing, the router's WIFI signal is strong enough to penetrate two concrete floors and still be able to pull about 60 megabits per second on my Macbook Air (not the 5ghz band though).

Anyway, thanks to you I now have gigabit in my office, living room, kitchen, and bedroom (didn't bother with the dining room, and no jacks in the two bathrooms).

Also, one other funny thing - this was my first time swapping out wall jacks. I read online how you're supposed to strip as little wire as possible, keep the twists nice and tight, and be as neat as possible. Well, I'm shocked how messy a job the cableco installers did. There was literally 4 inches of twisted pair wire exposed on each jack.

Anyway, couple of cell phone pics:

img20120207113839.jpg


img20120207113828.jpg


:D
 
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