CAT cables question

[chancetobeintosh002]

Hi guys,

I'm late to the party... but...thanks for all of your comments, they were quite helpful and I now understand this better.

Cheers!

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by ChessieMom

How would one get to the individual cables? I have cat5 cable connections in all my rooms too, from the previous owners - but I have never had cable myself. Not that I am considering it (never would) but IF I wanted to use the cable in one room...where would a person find the other end?? There is nothing inside - and only an old unused cable outside the house (that I actually trimmed a couple of years ago because it was absurd to have this great long cable coming out of the brick that was not needed).

What part of your house is on the other side of that brick wall?

Where you cut it, trace where it goes, probably your crawl space unless it goes to the attic.

Originally Posted by ChessieMom

Yeah I know it's cable. Pretty sure I already stated that. That wasn't even a question. Look - the only thing I was asking is how one would access the "split" where the incoming cable was split off to the different rooms. I don't really care, as I don't use cable tv anyway. I was just curious!

I don't see that anyone fully answered you except to say that it's for cable TV.

Your house was wired for Comcast back in the day. DirecTV used it too the last time we had them over 5 years ago. The DTV dish would be on the outside of the house connected to that long cable you cut. It then feeds into all of the bedrooms.

With Comcast, each TV needs a box to access TV unless it's a smart TV where you wouldn't need a box, you'd be able to watch TV using the Comcast app. They still use that line you cut, it's connected to wires on the poles or underground.

We have a main Comcast TV and internet box RC09 in the basement. That also feeds to all the rooms that have a cable TV box plus it's also hooked up to a router to split the wired internet to each room. I doubt many people even used a wired system these days. RC09 is also wireless so our wireless devices also access that.

I've been with Comcast so long that I remember when they did not give support to us having wireless internet issues. They finally got smart that supporting it would bring them more customers and more money.

Originally Posted by CaptainNJ

do you know what number the cables are? my entire house was wired but they didnt complete the set up in the basement. a friend has a local IT company and he hooked it all up so all my ethernet ports around the house work. but because they are older cables (i dont remember the number) they arent as fast as newer cables and even new wifi speeds.



this is what it looked like before he did it:

This is my box which is what yours can look like if you buy a new box and snap ins like I have. I see your friend got rid of the box that you had. It looked pretty worthless, not large enough. The top left snap ins with blue lines are phone lines, the right is TV. We have the internet lines coming down onto the ceiling, they go straight into the router on top.

Excuse the mess. The main Comcast box was just changed out, this new one doesn't fit like the old one did. I see my son didn't tie up the wires. It was his day off, he works for Comcast lol

For the OP... The white device at the bottom is RC09, a Comcast router that's also wireless. The line from outside feeds directly into it. It has a cable TV line that feeds to the living room and all of the bedrooms. It also has phone which is the blue line and internet which is the white line. Back when the house was built in 2008, you could buy a snap in router but we didn't, you can see we keep the router on the top. The router is on the way out.

Back when we moved in, we went to every room to hook up computers one by one to figure out which line ran what room while one person was in the basement. It was time consuming. I think they have a tool to do that now.

[CaptainNJ]

Originally Posted by Roselvr

This is my box which is what yours can look like if you buy a new box and snap ins like I have. I see your friend got rid of the box that you had. It looked pretty worthless, not large enough. The top left snap ins with blue lines are phone lines, the right is TV. We have the internet lines coming down onto the ceiling, they go straight into the router on top.

Excuse the mess. The main Comcast box was just changed out, this new one doesn't fit like the old one did. I see my son didn't tie up the wires. It was his day off, he works for Comcast lol

For the OP... The white device at the bottom is RC09, a Comcast router that's also wireless. The line from outside feeds directly into it. It has a cable TV line that feeds to the living room and all of the bedrooms. It also has phone which is the blue line and internet which is the white line. Back when the house was built in 2008, you could buy a snap in router but we didn't, you can see we keep the router on the top. The router is on the way out.

Back when we moved in, we went to every room to hook up computers one by one to figure out which line ran what room while one person was in the basement. It was time consuming. I think they have a tool to do that now.

i was pretty happy with the improvement in the appearance of the area after he did the work. but most of those wires are completely useless to me. i guess they are a bunch of cable and phone wires and we have no need for either of them (just the couple of cable connections we currently have and i think we only use one of them). i could probably just cut them up to the ceiling and call it a day.

we dont have regular phone service, just the voip. we dont watch tv using the cable, we use wifi connected streaming. even for the comcast content, we watch it through the xfinity app.

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by CaptainNJ

i was pretty happy with the improvement in the appearance of the area after he did the work. but most of those wires are completely useless to me. i guess they are a bunch of cable and phone wires and we have no need for either of them (just the couple of cable connections we currently have and i think we only use one of them). i could probably just cut them up to the ceiling and call it a day.

we dont have regular phone service, just the voip. we dont watch tv using the cable, we use wifi connected streaming. even for the comcast content, we watch it through the xfinity app.

Please don't cut those wires. The next homeowner may need then to fish line through or even need to use them. I'd just wind them up and hang them from the ceiling rafter on a big cup hook.

[CaptainNJ]

Originally Posted by Roselvr

Please don't cut those wires. The next homeowner may need then to fish line through or even need to use them. I'd just wind them up and hang them from the ceiling rafter on a big cup hook.

ok for you i will not cut them.

its in an area where it doesnt really matter what it looks like. an ugly unfinished area with HVAC, water heater, electric panels and grossness.

[markjames68]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

I put CAT 5 cables to every room in our house when I wired the house. I connected them all to a hub thingy of some kind in the basement. I no longer remember what it was. test the whole thing in each room - worked great. Then we never used it. Wireless became better and better. It just was not needed.

I might use it for something called "backhaul" on our new wireless mesh system. Apparently whatever backhaul is, using cables makes the mesh router system work better.

Wired backhaul does work better. Instead of using one of the 2 (or 3) available frequencies you can use Ethernet.

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by CaptainNJ

ok for you i will not cut them.

its in an area where it doesnt really matter what it looks like. an ugly unfinished area with HVAC, water heater, electric panels and grossness.

LOL I'm sure the next owner will thank you

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by markjames68

Wired backhaul does work better. Instead of using one of the 2 (or 3) available frequencies you can use Ethernet.

The mesh units have a hard wire jack, however I have no idea how to make it go. Presumably I need to do some sort of programming on the mesh system on my phone. It has no instructions for backhaul.