Help me optimize my internet

[JackOfDiamonds]

I don't know anything about Internet! Please be gentle...yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

I have a house with attached garage, in a subdivision. It's one of those 90s houses that has coaxial cable run to every room in the house. Probably installed by the cable company at some point; usually the cable is run all over the outside of the house and just drilled through the siding and caulked. Because you know they couldn't survive without cable TV / Satelite in every room. Sigh.

When I moved and got internet hooked activated, I started checking the cable jacks in the house to find out where to put my wifi router. I found only one of them was actually hooked up to internet. I have a decent mesh wifi system but the problem is it's the furthest jack from the garage where I really need the internet. Now I am going to paint the house so I want to demo all the (apparently dead) exterior cable and put blank plates on all the cable jacks in the house.

Two thoughts occurred to me: I'm removing a high-bandwidth hardwire connection to each room. This is sort of sad. However, I just can't stand the wires running all over the outside of the house and if I want to run hardwire to the rooms, I would start over with CAT6 through the attic.

Second, most of these jacks area already dead, and the one active one is in a bad location. I think the internet comes into the house at what I shall call the "internet connection box" (I think it's owned by the cable company) outside my garage. Currently with wasps living in it to boot. Should I maybe start over there and run a new run of coaxial cable from the internet connection box to an optimized location in the house? If I do that, does it really need to be coaxial cable, or could I run CAT6? Or maybe I should run a really short run of coaxial to the cable modem near the internet connection box, then run CAT6 from the cable modem to my mesh wifi router at an optimized location? How do I actually make the connection to the internet connection box? I think it's locked by the cable company.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

I don't know anything about Internet! Please be gentle...yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

I have a house with attached garage, in a subdivision. It's one of those 90s houses that has coaxial cable run to every room in the house. Probably installed by the cable company at some point; usually the cable is run all over the outside of the house and just drilled through the siding and caulked. Because you know they couldn't survive without cable TV / Satelite in every room. Sigh.

When I moved and got internet hooked activated, I started checking the cable jacks in the house to find out where to put my wifi router. I found only one of them was actually hooked up to internet. I have a decent mesh wifi system but the problem is it's the furthest jack from the garage where I really need the internet. Now I am going to paint the house so I want to demo all the (apparently dead) exterior cable and put blank plates on all the cable jacks in the house.

The rest of the jacks would be connected to a splitter in the DEMARC box on the outside of the house. Since most people are cutting the cord these days and only need service to one jack, only one jack will be live. The rest would be disconnected from the splitter.

Two thoughts occurred to me: I'm removing a high-bandwidth hardwire connection to each room. This is sort of sad. However, I just can't stand the wires running all over the outside of the house and if I want to run hardwire to the rooms, I would start over with CAT6 through the attic.

Second, most of these jacks area already dead, and the one active one is in a bad location. I think the internet comes into the house at what I shall call the "internet connection box" (I think it's owned by the cable company) outside my garage. Currently with wasps living in it to boot. Should I maybe start over there and run a new run of coaxial cable from the internet connection box to an optimized location in the house? If I do that, does it really need to be coaxial cable, or could I run CAT6? Or maybe I should run a really short run of coaxial to the cable modem near the internet connection box, then run CAT6 from the cable modem to my mesh wifi router at an optimized location? How do I actually make the connection to the internet connection box? I think it's locked by the cable company.

If you have cable modem internet then yes it needs to be coax. RF doesnt run on CAT6.

As a C-7 licensed contractor, this is my professional advice, run the RG6 coax to a centralized location where you will put your modem and router, then install a patch panel and run CAT6 to every room in the house and the garage. also run a couple cables to ideal locations for APs....

 

[infinkc]

typically when you get cable internet installed, the installer checked the coax where you want the modem at and will see if the signal is within spec. i have had them install attenuators before on my lines as the signal was too much.

They probably cut all the connections at the outside box on the house, you can connect those lines to the main coming from the street to re-enable the ones that are disconnected if you wanted to move the modem.

 

[dcg9381]

As a C-7 licensed contractor, this is my professional advice, run the RG6 coax to a centralized location where you will put your modem and router, then install a patch panel and run CAT6 to every room in the house and the garage. also run a couple cables to ideal locations for APs....

I'm not a licensed whatever-he-said, but just completed a new residence with internet connectivity at the top of the list. We have all the CAT6 pulled into a single closet in 3 large drops (AV/camera/network ethernet). We installed a wall mount rack. Cable modem goes in there and internet gets distributed via CAT6 hardwire.

Mesh networks are wireless back-haul. This means they essentially "wire" each other together using a wireless band and a different band to provide internet. They are GREAT for areas where you can't distribute wire, but do have limitations.

What's better than mesh? Wired back-haul. And you can get power and ethernet on the same socket now, it's called PoE (Power over Ethernet) - so we distribute our access points via wires....

 

[theoldwizard1]

Coax cable is dying ! The only use is to distribute cable TV which is also dying.

If you want Internet, go wireless. You don't have to spend an arm and a leg for "fancy" wireless solutions if you can run a Cat6 cable from your primary router/wireless access point to any secondary router/wireless access point. Give them the same "name" and password but make sure they on different channels. Cheap "mesh" !

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Coax cable is dying! The only use is to distribute cable TV which is also dying.

If you want Internet, go wireless. You don't have to spend an arm and a leg for "fancy" wireless solutions if you can run a Cat6 cable from your primary router/wireless access point to any secondary router/wireless access point. Give them the same "name" and password but make sure they on different channels. Cheap "mesh" !

not the only use for it. also need it for cable modem internet