We moved into our new house a year ago and I am just now getting around to setting up our networking to each room. Each room has a wired drop with it all connecting to our coat closet up front.

When setting up our internet, the spectrum guy put our modem and wireless router in the living room and told me networking the house would be an additional charge and to call and set up an appointment.

Is this something I can do or should I have spectrum do it? If anyone can layout some simple, non industry jargon-ese instructions and components I need/should buy I'd appreciate it.

Here is our box and I tried to label it. Is it as simple as moving the modem into the closet and plugging the cable line in directly to it, then buying a networking switch from the modem to the study/master?


If so, can I then plug the wireless router in the study and/or master?

Is there a drop in the living room? You can connect the router to that and then send the signal over that wire to the closet where you can have that as the input to the switch. Should be easy if that is the case. I hope the wires in the closet are labeled already.

I posted that before your second post. It looks like you could move the cable modem back to this. What is the unit they have in the living room? Does it have the internet separate from the TV DVR?

The living room does not have a data drop. I don't know why grrr. I have the modem and wireless router in the living room.

I want to move the modem to the front closet (pic above) and have hard wired in the master/study (and possibly I'll add a drop to the living room).

Once that is confirmed. I still want wireless so then I could conceivably plug the wireless router into any one of the data drops (Master, study, future living room) correct?

Did they run cat5e/6/7 to the other rooms? -- this looks like an overgrown phone jack setup. if not just use Wifi

if the drops are cat5e/6/7 then:

a typical WiFi router has 1 input and 5 lines out ports look like overgrown phone jacks. note you can get switches that have more lines out.
<1>Spectrum uses coax in my area. IF they are the same in your world plug the coax into data in on your TM1602 or similar box
<2> Then take a cat5e or 6 patch or if conditions warrant longer cat5e/6 cable from the TM1602(or like box) data out to your data in jack on your switch/router. It works the same way even if the coax in and the cat5e/6 box are in different rooms.
<3.> plug in the cat5e/6 cables into the back of the out ports on your router/switch.

Good luck

Yes the two data lines in my pic are Cat5e+.

So making sure I can follow your directions:

the closet is in the front of the house and I want to make sure I get the wireless router centrally located for better coverage.

1. Connect the cable line "IN" to the modem in the closet.
2. connect a Cat5e cable from modem (data out) to network switch (something like this: Switch) in the closet
3. using two Cat53 cables connect the switch and the white data lines (these are female connectors) in the closet (see pic).
4. I now have my master and study wired and can use a cat5e cable from the wall in those rooms to my wired devices.

**5. If I want the wireless router central (ie master bed) I can connect the router to the wall drop via Cat5e cable (Plugged into the "IN" slot on the router).

Did I get all of that right?

If you get some kind of cable modem that has wifi and in which you can plug in ethernet cables, don't try to put it in that box. Once you close the box, you would severely limit the range of your wifi.

It's always surprising to me how many people insist on putting their wifi in a closet against advice and then whine incessantly about the limited range. Or they put it in the furtherest corner of the house. Or sometimes in the attic.

You can, however, put an ethernet switch in the box and run all your ethernet lines to it. If your cable modem was in the living room, you would have the coax cable coming into the living room to go to the cable modem and an ethernet cable going back to the switch.

Yes, my steps above mention not putting the wireless router (separate from the modem) in the closet.

I unfortunately don't have a drop in the living room but I understand that I could put a drop there and keep the wireless router there with the modem in the closet.

thanks!

Dumpster Fire said:

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Yes the two data lines in my pic are Cat5e+.

So making sure I can follow your directions:

the closet is in the front of the house and I want to make sure I get the wireless router centrally located for better coverage.

1. Connect the cable line "IN" to the modem in the closet.
2. connect a Cat5e cable from modem (data out) to network switch (something like this: Switch) in the closet
3. using two Cat53 cables connect the switch and the white data lines (these are female connectors) in the closet (see pic).
4. I now have my master and study wired and can use a cat5e cable from the wall in those rooms to my wired devices.

**5. If I want the wireless router central (ie master bed) I can connect the router to the wall drop via Cat5e cable (Plugged into the "IN" slot on the router).

Did I get all of that right?

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Those may be Cat 5e cables, but those aren't RJ45 connectors. It's possible, though, that they might connect to the connector with an RJ45 connectors. (I use such a setup to connect my dumb terminal to the serial port on a computer across the room.) If that is the case, you can unplug the RJ45 connectors from the serial connectors and use them.

eric76 said:

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Dumpster Fire said:

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Yes the two data lines in my pic are Cat5e+.

So making sure I can follow your directions:

the closet is in the front of the house and I want to make sure I get the wireless router centrally located for better coverage.

1. Connect the cable line "IN" to the modem in the closet.
2. connect a Cat5e cable from modem (data out) to network switch (something like this: Switch) in the closet
3. using two Cat53 cables connect the switch and the white data lines (these are female connectors) in the closet (see pic).
4. I now have my master and study wired and can use a cat5e cable from the wall in those rooms to my wired devices.

**5. If I want the wireless router central (ie master bed) I can connect the router to the wall drop via Cat5e cable (Plugged into the "IN" slot on the router).

Did I get all of that right?

---

Those may be Cat 5e cables, but those aren't RJ45 connectors. It's possible, though, that they might connect to the connector with an RJ45 connectors. (I use such a setup to connect my dumb terminal to the serial port on a computer across the room.) If that is the case, you can unplug the RJ45 connectors from the serial connectors and use them.

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I'm lost now with the connector part.

Both of the connectors say Cat5e on them. not just the wires but the white plastic connector.

Dumpster Fire said:

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Yes, my steps above mention not putting the wireless router (separate from the modem) in the closet.

I unfortunately don't have a drop in the living room but I understand that I could put a drop there and keep the wireless router there with the modem in the closet.

thanks!

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We don't have any cable systems around here so I'm not at all sure about what is usually done these days by cable companies for ethernet. Thus, I don't know if it is normal for the cable modem to have wifi. If it does, you could probably turn off the wifi and use the external wifi as you suggest.

I know one guy who is just finishing his new house. He ran ethernet cables to every major room in the house so that once it is all complete, he can put an inexpensive, low-power wifi router in each room if he wants. And then he got a Google Nest and doesn't make use of the capabilities. He's still ahead because if he ever needs an individual connection to a room, he already has it.

Dumpster Fire said:

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eric76 said:

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Dumpster Fire said:

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Yes the two data lines in my pic are Cat5e+.

So making sure I can follow your directions:

the closet is in the front of the house and I want to make sure I get the wireless router centrally located for better coverage.

1. Connect the cable line "IN" to the modem in the closet.
2. connect a Cat5e cable from modem (data out) to network switch (something like this: Switch) in the closet
3. using two Cat53 cables connect the switch and the white data lines (these are female connectors) in the closet (see pic).
4. I now have my master and study wired and can use a cat5e cable from the wall in those rooms to my wired devices.

**5. If I want the wireless router central (ie master bed) I can connect the router to the wall drop via Cat5e cable (Plugged into the "IN" slot on the router).

Did I get all of that right?

---

Those may be Cat 5e cables, but those aren't RJ45 connectors. It's possible, though, that they might connect to the connector with an RJ45 connectors. (I use such a setup to connect my dumb terminal to the serial port on a computer across the room.) If that is the case, you can unplug the RJ45 connectors from the serial connectors and use them.

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I'm lost now with the connector part.

Both of the connectors say Cat5e on them. not just the wires but the white plastic connector.

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Never mind. I thought those were serial plugs. You have a female RJ45. To use them with a standard ethernet switch or router, you would need a short RJ45 male to male cable.

Those should probably be able to be used in a wall plate. If you have the female plugs at the other end, do they go to a wall plate or do they just hang out from the wall?

That splitter is a 4 way splitter. I'm guessing they used another splitter in the living room? One for the modem and the other for the DVR. You should be able to use that splitter to put a coax connecting your modem in there. It should be pretty straight forward and easy unless they have some new hardware I don't know about.

They are in a wall plate in the rooms and are female connectors as well.

Thanks for the help. it looks to be as simple as I think and can just start moving the boxes/connecting with the switch and cables.

If you are just getting internet from them, I'd take that four way splitter out and just plug your modem in straight to that coax cable.

tfunk02 said:

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If you are just getting internet from them, I'd take that four way splitter out and just plug your modem in straight to that coax cable.

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I plan to plug the coax cable into the modem, but how do I get the internet from the modem (with only one OUT) to the two or more rooms? I would need the switch correct to "split" from the cable to the multiple room drops?


EDIT: ignore this. I understand you're talking about the cable splitter. yes I'll get rid of that and plug directly into the modem.

Update: I got the net gear switch and moved my modem and connected everything to the modem/switch.


Got it all working as needed!

Now it isn't working for my drop in my study.


I have the modem connected to the spectrum cable line.
I have the modem connected to my Netgear switch and then two lines running from ym switch back to the two white lines that go to my living room and study.

In the living room my wireless router is connected to the drop, powered on and working. We can all access the internet wirelessly.

However, in my study I hooked up my PS4 to the wall and cannot connect to the internet. When I try to connect via LAN, it 'fails' at obtaining an IP address. I do the easy set up and it still asks me for the following things after checking for network environment:

1. IP address Settings (Automatic, Manual, or PPPoE) and I choose automatic
2. DHCP Host Name (I choose do not specify)
3. DNS Settings ( I choose Automatic)
4. MTU Settings (I choose Automatic)
5. Proxy Server (I choose Do Not Use)

After all of that the PS4 still 'Fails' to obtain an IP address.

Any help?

Router has to be first device after modem. Modem will only be able to give one address out, and the first active device gets it. Your router hides multiple devices behind one address using a strategy called nat. If router is in living room the cable has togo directly to modem from router wan port.
You can add a switch on the lan side of your router to provide additional hard ports but not on the wan side.

Quick look back through thread.
Move modem back next to router.
Connect modem to router wan back together.
Connect ethernet on lan side to cable to wire center.
Connect wire from living room in wire
center to switch port
Connect study wire to switch port in wire center

Edit: got it. I had the switch between the modem a d the router. I moved it around to modem>router>switch.

Thanks!

Just moved everything around and it works in all rooms and wireless!

Thank you so much! You and everyone else who helped are amazing!

Glad it going now. Just checking back to make sure you got it resolved.

All good