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Suggestions For a Coax-To-Ethernet Solution?

Posted by timothy on from the point-to-point dept.

watanabe writes "I just moved from a house with Cat5e wiring to a house with ... a whole bunch of coax cables. Like, my living room has five coax cables coming out of a hole in the wall. All of them go back up to my attic. The house is big, (and I like it, thank you), but I have realized that our digital usage pattern (media server + squeezeboxes + remote time machine backups to a linux box) will not work without wiring. I am currently bridging some old Linksys WRT54Gs to the right places, but of course, that slows everything down. This got me thinking: 100mb ethernet is four wires, yes? And I have four wires for every two coax cables. What about a two coax-head -> ethernet jack setup? Has anyone done this before? Searching online only gives me $100+ coaxethernet transceiver type boxes. At that price, a HomePNY system would make more sense. I'm willing to solder if I have to, but I first wanted to get advice and holes shot in my plan, if there are any."

4 of 608 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Use the Coax as a wirepull for the cat5 by UID30 · · Score: 5, Informative

    If the coax was installed when the house was built, then the coax is probably stapled to the wall studs. If the coax was installed "after-market", then this trick might work.

    </2cents>

    --
    "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." - Napoleon Bonaparte
  2. MoCa by MikeDataLink · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm surprised no one has already mentioned MoCa,. Several companies make MoCa adapters that runs 100Mb/s ethernet over Coax cables: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=MOCA+adapter&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=2590185696454305965&ei=PoR9S5uIC4mWtge8z5GfBQ&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ8gIwAA# And read all about it on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_over_Coax_Alliance

    --
    Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
  3. Re:Use the Coax as a wirepull for the cat5 by gyrogeerloose · · Score: 5, Informative

    You do realize ethernet originally ran over coax, right? Google '10BASE2'

    Only problem with that is 10Base-2 ran over 50 ohm impedance coax while CATV coax is 75 ohm impedance. The mismatch would reduce the power delivered to the receiving end and set up a standing wave that would deform the wave shape, possibly causing errors.

    --
    This ain't rocket surgery.
  4. Re:Use the Coax as a wirepull for the cat5 by lewiscr · · Score: 5, Informative

    Attach a CAT5/6 AND a string, and pull like hell. You'll be glad you have a string in the wall when you want to pull CAT7.

    Just remember, when you attach something to the string, always attach a new string too. It sucks when you finally finish pulling a run, only to have forgotten the replacement string.