Any reason not to just replace most cable lines with cat6?

Shadeth

Shadeth

Getting the hang of it
Sep 19, 2019
66
42
Texas
I bought a new house recently. It is about 12 years old. In the master bedroom closet there is a junction box of sorts that I believe splits and amplifies the cable to other rooms in the house.
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My internet comes in to a modem through the cable line, so I need at least one of these but so far as all these extras... I was thinking to just place my modern here, and replace these other lines with Ethernet cat6 cables and female ports.

Is there any reason why I wouldn't want to do that and keep these extra cables? I was thinking I won't be using them (don't have cable TV, don't want it, don't have land line phone and don't want that either). The home has an brinks/adt alarm but I'm sure as hell not paying for that monthly monitoring and the extra for a land line phone.

Anyway just wanted opinions before I take most of these lines and replace them with cat6 and a network switch. Having a hard line internet in many of these rooms will be useful (gaming over WiFi isn't reliable enough).

I think you can convert internet signal to work through these lines but the cost might be prohibitive, and I already have 1000 ft of network cable.
 
why don-t you get a second hand coaxial to ethernet convertor just to test speeds? coaxial is stronger than cat6, so getting the cat6 through might open a can of works.

i tried to do something similar once, but my parents house is about 30 years old and it was imposible to run cables thourgh the tubes i had available.
 
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I think it's an intuition call. I ran 2 cats and one coax to every room, more than that to a couple of rooms. I don't use wifi, do feed a couple of TVs with the coax. The cats double as telephone lines, plus I use one for a link to a solar electric system (rs232), one for a digital video link, and two for a driveway sensor announciator (parallel connection).
 
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How are you going to replace it? Open the walls up and remove the physical cable? I don't think it can easily pull through... Or you mean to add CAT6 cables?
 
Most ethernet-over-coax adapters are expensive. The cheap ones are DirecTV DECA because those got used a lot AND when a customer quits directv, they don't ask for little accessories like that back so the customer can sell them if they want. It isn't hard to find them for around $5 each end from amazon or ebay. What I can't tell you is how to avoid a rats nest of DECA adapters where your coax all comes together. There's probably some kind of COAX hub you can use (maybe that very same one you've already got?) but for best performance, you would need to connect one DECA on each end of a coax cable. That way each line has its own dedicated 100 Mbps of bandwidth. That way you can use a standard 100/1000 Mbps ethernet switch to link them all together. You end up with a mess of cables and adapters, but you can avoid running new cable this way.
 
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civic17 said:
How are you going to replace it? Open the walls up and remove the physical cable? I don't think it can easily pull through... Or you mean to add CAT6 cables?
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Well... I was thinking I could tape cat6 cable to the end of the coax and pull it. But then again that cable is rather stiff/rigid so I'm not sure how well that will work depending on how many bends it makes and what all it goes through. I guess I would have to test that to see!
 
Shadeth said:
Well... I was thinking I could tape cat6 cable to the end of the coax and pull it. But then again that cable is rather stiff/rigid so I'm not sure how well that will work depending on how many bends it makes and what all it goes through. I guess I would have to test that to see!
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You could try that, but the coax might be stapled to studs. Some builders do that.
 
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ndstate said:
You could try that, but the coax might be stapled to studs. Some builders do that.
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So to follow up on this, this coax was clearly installed when they built the home. Not only is it stapled in some places, but it has spray foam insulation or something in the stud openings it was going into, so it isn't going anywhere easily, so I'm leaving it alone! Had to run totally new lines, drill new holes, it was a pain in the butt, however I saved a lot of money doing it myself.
 
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Shadeth said:
So to follow up on this, this coax was clearly installed when they built the home. Not only is it stapled in some places, but it has spray foam insulation or something in the stud openings it was going into, so it isn't going anywhere easily, so I'm leaving it alone! Had to run totally new lines, drill new holes, it was a pain in the butt, however I saved a lot of money doing it myself.
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Thanks @Shadeth

Feel free to share any lessons you learned in the process.
 
mat200 said:
Feel free to share any lessons you learned in the process.
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Well, one lesson I learned is that it is POSSIBLE, although difficult, to drop a line from the attic to the first floor of a two story home. it involved cutting a large hole in the drywall and some long drill bits, but since I plan to live here for a while, I figured it was worth the effort! I'm going to drop about 4-5 lines through this space in fact, and probably one strand of para-cord tied off on both ends, in case I ever need to pull something else through this same space after I seal it. I'm not totally done yet (still adding lines and need to patch the hole), but I've been getting photos of the process. Later on, once it is all set up, I'll make another post sharing how I did it with images, and any suggestions or things to avoid doing. :)
 
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Shadeth said:
Well, one lesson I learned is that it is POSSIBLE, although difficult, to drop a line from the attic to the first floor of a two story home. it involved cutting a large hole in the drywall and some long drill bits, but since I plan to live here for a while, I figured it was worth the effort! I'm going to drop about 4-5 lines through this space in fact, and probably one strand of para-cord tied off on both ends, in case I ever need to pull something else through this same space after I seal it. I'm not totally done yet (still adding lines and need to patch the hole), but I've been getting photos of the process. Later on, once it is all set up, I'll make another post sharing how I did it with images, and any suggestions or things to avoid doing. :)
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When it becomes really impossible to get a cable from the attic thru a first floor to the basement you might consider an old tin knockers trick. When they have to get a duct thru the same area often times they will box out an area in the corner of a room that lines up with a corner in the room below. In their case we are talking about a 16X16 or more cross area but for you a 2" pvc pipe would do the trick. They try to get it in a closet if at all possible for 1 floor. Boxing out a 2" pipe doesn't steal too much room.
 
A lot of newer (last 40 yrs) homes already have a cold air return passage inside walls from basement to 2nd floor. In Canada.
 
dudemaar said:
A lot of newer (last 40 yrs) homes already have a cold air return passage inside walls from basement to 2nd floor. In Canada.
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My house has one, but the AC unit is on the second floor, and so the return from the first floor to that is basically just a big hole under the AC unit with a grill over it, so it isn't very useful for any cable runs for me.
 
What about the stink pipe vent for toilets/sink drains. That runs from basement to attic out roof. Usually they cut a hole bigger than OD of pipe and you can sneak wires though passed.
 
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