Home network question ... TIA

[batchaps4me]

We just cut the cable and are looking to change our internet provider. About a year ago I replaced all of the cable/fittings under the house when I wired all of my bedrooms for cable. The new internet service will still use those cables but since I am not using most of the cables, should I terminate the inactive lines? I will definitely leave them in place even if disconnected but am curious if this will help my service/signal. I would be getting rid of one splitter but all of the lines off the splitter are inactive. If it makes little difference, I am going to save some wear on my titanium knees ...

 

[fordman84]

We just cut the cable and are looking to change our internet provider. About a year ago I replaced all of the cable/fittings under the house when I wired all of my bedrooms for cable. The new internet service will still use those cables but since I am not using most of the cables, should I terminate the inactive lines? I will definitely leave them in place even if disconnected but am curious if this will help my service/signal. I would be getting rid of one splitter but all of the lines off the splitter are inactive. If it makes little difference, I am going to save some wear on my titanium knees ...

The fewer splitters you can have, the better. But are you asking about just having unused coax, or unused coax wall outlets, connected? Because I don't think that would have a big effect.

But I'm not a networking installation guy. We have fiber to the house, then it connects to coax to the router and a mesh network covering the house. I ended up not using the coax with the house, I instead just pulled a new one from the fiber box to the router so I wouldn't have any splices or connections in that line.

 

[batchaps4me]

The fewer splitters you can have, the better. But are you asking about just having unused coax, or unused coax wall outlets, connected? Because I don't think that would have a big effect.

But I'm not a networking installation guy. We have fiber to the house, then it connects to coax to the router and a mesh network covering the house. I ended up not using the coax with the house, I instead just pulled a new one from the fiber box to the router so I wouldn't have any splices or connections in that line.

I have one splitter in line but all of the branches split off are going to be dead. I am thinking that the extra lines will have no effect. But if that is the case then having a splitter with only one live output line may be as effective as just replacing it with a coupling, I just don't know.

 

[fordman84]

I have one splitter in line but all of the branches split off are going to be dead. I am thinking that the extra lines will have no effect. But if that is the case then having a splitter with only one live output line may be as effective as just replacing it with a coupling, I just don't know.

Having the dead branches won't matter too much unless one of them is damaged/shorted. A coupler would essentially be the same thing at that point but may reduce a little bit of noise from whatever those branches are connected to. If you disconnect the branches (after labelling for future sanity) at the splitter it would be the same as just putting a coupler on there. The only way to really see any improvement would be to pull a single new line. There are tools you can get for testing coax to see if there really is anything going on with that coupler. For home use I can't imagine that one coupler is going to degrade the signal very much. I replaced mine just because it was a simple 10 minute job and then I could just leave my splitter/amp hooked up in case I ever need to go back to coax in the future.

 

[batchaps4me]

Having the dead branches won't matter too much unless one of them is damaged/shorted. A coupler would essentially be the same thing at that point but may reduce a little bit of noise from whatever those branches are connected to. If you disconnect the branches (after labelling for future sanity) at the splitter it would be the same as just putting a coupler on there. The only way to really see any improvement would be to pull a single new line. There are tools you can get for testing coax to see if there really is anything going on with that coupler. For home use I can't imagine that one coupler is going to degrade the signal very much. I replaced mine just because it was a simple 10 minute job and then I could just leave my splitter/amp hooked up in case I ever need to go back to coax in the future.

Thanks a lot, I appreciate the information and advice. FWIW I was able to remove the splitter and run new cable without crawling under the house on my bad knees. I used some creative fishing techniques, duct tape, and new cable to cut out a lot of dead lines and unneeded connectors. It's like I now have extra operational routers due to improved signal strength.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Figured I'd add in here.

Looking to wire my basement office. Current setup is a cable only faceplate attached to the modem, then a wireless router, all in the living room. What I think I need to do is get a faceplate with a Cat6 plug and cable connection, plug the router in to the wall jack, and then have a cable running to a switch in the basement, which will then hook in my work and personal laptops, and any other shit I desire as time goes on. Planning on running Cat7 wire for the connections to the switch and anything off the switch, as well.

@RoyMunson, I know you did something similar. Your thoughts here? Is a Cat6 plug good, or should I buy a Cat7 or 8 plug in its place?

Outlet for the living room (has female connections on both sides of the faceplate so I don't have to wire the connection):

 

[RoyMunson]

Figured I'd add in here.

Looking to wire my basement office. Current setup is a cable only faceplate attached to the modem, then a wireless router, all in the living room. What I think I need to do is get a faceplate with a Cat6 plug and cable connection, plug the router in to the wall jack, and then have a cable running to a switch in the basement, which will then hook in my work and personal laptops, and any other shit I desire as time goes on. Planning on running Cat7 wire for the connections to the switch and anything off the switch, as well.

@RoyMunson, I know you did something similar. Your thoughts here? Is a Cat6 plug good, or should I buy a Cat7 or 8 plug in its place?

Outlet for the living room (has female connections on both sides of the faceplate so I don't have to wire the connection):

given the devices you're hooking to aren't above Gigabit, you'll be just fine with Cat6 in your home.

Cat7 and 8 are expensive and overkill outside of a server room or lab. If you aren't transferring tons of data on your local network, your main network bottleneck will be the incoming connection from your ISP.

 

[Guy Incognito]

given the devices you're hooking to aren't above Gigabit, you'll be just fine with Cat6 in your home.

Cat7 and 8 are expensive and overkill outside of a server room or lab. If you aren't transferring tons of data on your local network, your main network bottleneck will be the incoming connection from your ISP.

Kind of what I thought. I was thinking about Cat7 cable, but I can change it to 6 instead, since it hasn't been ordered yet. Right now, my work laptop gets around 500Mbps over wifi, but mine and my wife's laptops only get around 40, which I think is a spec in the wifi adapters that we have. Kicking myself for not running the wires while they were still framing out the basement, because I think trying to get a faceplate into the walls now is going to be a pain in the ass.