I have a loft downtown that was run with CAT6 instead of phone lines so that they could later be used for network connections, but I dont know how to get my router connected to the punch-down block so that I can hook a computer up to the wall and get on the internet. Anyone know how to help and willing to stop in? I will buy the beer! :biggrin:
Ok, in that picture those lines are all punched down to a phone distribution block, which means they're all attached in parallel. The cable can be used, but that punch down can't. You have a couple of options. You can pull the cable (or cables if you're doing more than one) off of the punch down and reterminate them with an RJ-45 jack, or you can get an RJ45 patch panel (that panel looks like it'll take On-Q modules, so you could get one at Menards), and run patch cables from the patch panel to the router.
K, I purchased this but I didn't get the block, just the jacks. Now I just have to figure out which one of those goes to the room that I am working in...
Now I'm curious, what does this mean and what was your final solution? You just terminate them with some RJ-45 caps?
He put phone lines coming out of the punch block with RJ-11 connectors and then hooked the On-Q connectors up to the lines going to each room. I can now hook an RJ-45 connector up to the On-Q connector and have network connectivity in each of the rooms in the loft. Pretty sweet! Oh yeah, and if I want to remove the whole setup, I can just plug the RJ-11 into the connectors he put on the block.
I would have done an 8 port switch instead of that hub. Especially since you are using Cat-6, I would have used a gigabit switch, may as well make the most of it. In our house, I ran Cat-6 lines from all the main and lower level rooms to a 24port gigabit switch, transferring files within the house on teh wired network takes seconds. I used an old crappy netgear wireless router setup as an access point for wireless computers like the laptops and such, and wired all of it to a Cisco 1761. If I wanted to do phone through the 1761, I could. But when was the last time anyone used a land line?
I wasn't trying to make the optimal setup, I just wanted to make what I had work. Besides, I only have 3 jacks in the house, and only 1 will be used at any given time. The 4 ports on the wireless router cover the home theater machine, the PS3, and the office with one available port. Connections on the wired network are silly-fast.
