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I'm living in a recently built apartment (2012 or so) and have dual ethernet (Cat5e+) and coax connections at 5 different locations across the floor plan.

Connecting my modem to any of these 5 coax connections across the apartment gets me network access.

My goal is to gain network access through the ethernet connections and use them to connect directly to my WiFi router and/or devices.

My thought is that I need to connect my modem to the panel in my closet:

Possibly also connect my modem to a switch and then connect my switch to the first 5 of 8 ports shown here:

I'm guessing each of those 5 correspond to the ethernet ports across the apartment.

However I have a flurry of coax cables that are identified only by 1-5 (some numbers have doubles) and after connecting my modem directly to each one individually, I found none have a downstream.

What am I missing here? What steps should I take to rig up my cat5e+ connections throughout my apartment?

Thanks in advance!

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  • If your modem, connected to each of the 5 cables through the apartment has a connection, and your modem, connected to the non-connected cables here does not,they are not the same cables. Does your checking include the coax panel in your box, and the 3 cables connected to a splitter in your picture? If you connect your modem to one of the working cable lines, and connect it the network wire nearest that cable line, you can have a switch in the closet connected to all 5 lines, and if all 5 lines connect to the 5 ports in your apartment, you will then have service on the other 4 lines.
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented May 30, 2016 at 1:23
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    While you may have dual cables, and the cables may be cat5e+, it seems most likely that the green ones are currently set up for something like POTS (plain old telephone service - aka a landline, since they appear to all connect to a single device that appears to connect to one wire, but which does not appear to be a network switch)
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented May 30, 2016 at 2:19

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Each of the coax wires, green wires, and blue wires represent home runs from this box to your room plates. Respectively carrying TV, telephone, and ethernet service. (I agree with Ecnerwal's observations) Presumably that black coax hooked to a splitter is your network input.

You can use this in two sorts of ways; 1) put your cable modem and a router/switch here, and hook the cable modem ethernet output to the switch, and wire the switch ports to the blue patch jacks. If you want wi-fi, you can put it here or on a drop that is optimally located. 2) you can use one of the coax drops to run to the room where you want to put your modem and switch(s). Back feed the ethernet from that room to a switch in this box, all other rooms would be downstream of that switch.

WRT to TV. You can add an additional multi-line coax splitter (maybe that horizontal coax thing is one) to feed the other coax drops. There may be two in a room to allow a DVD or satellite receiver source signal to be distributed to other rooms.

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  • Ecnerwal and DaveM. You two are great. Thanks for the advice and info. Your explanations were clear and I identified the fix. I (ignorantly) did not test cable leading in to the splitter seen in the photo and, per your suggestions, plugged the leading cable into my modem and received data. Now I only need to rig up my modem/switch in this panel and I'll be good to go. Thank you so much!!
    – user54635
    Commented May 30, 2016 at 5:16

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