I believe four of the houses ethernet ports lead here.
Well, aint much of a picture to really get a good idea. But that’s a punchdown block for CAT5. My guess would be it was used to extend a run, or repair a run that got cut- just a really ugly job of it. Looks like there’s a white wire there as well at the edge of the photo, tho…so 🤷 Gonna need some better pictures if you want a good answer.
Got a word from my friend who’s a sparky, that if I want, I can attatch RJ45 plugs on the ends of the cables running into the junction and then run the cables down my wall into a switch in my office. Would that work?
Yep, just make sure to check the other ends pairs are ordered correctly and match the order when you crimp and add plugs.
Honestly though, if there’s no fault or degradation in connectivity already, I wouldn’t bother. A switch just adds a new potential (powered) point of failure.
That’s absolutely fair.
The initial reason why I was up there was because I remember there already being a network switch but I believe once we upgraded to fiber many years ago, it has been changed to this setup in the photo.
I want to play around with homelab gear and some home networking as it’s becoming a hobby of mine. Sending the cables down into my office so I can manage a more hands on setup; especially for a server, NAS and security cameras.
It’s called a 66 block. It’s used in the telephony system as “punch down.” This is where you centralize all the cabling for the building. You run all the internal cables to this, then have one external line for egress.
It’s for phones, not internet.
They use the same cable, and just wire up like 3 of the wires. it’s usually so you can have multiple phone lines in a house.
It’s a highband join strip perfectly acceptable to join cat 5/6. Would’ve been better to mount it in a box con 201/301 enclosure though.
