Suggestions For a Coax-To-Ethernet Solution?

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."

Comments

Use the Coax as a wirepull for the cat5

[mtippett]

If you have lots of coax running through pipes and if it is free, then use the coax as a wirepull to rewire the house.

Cat5 provides many more options than cat5.

Re:Use the Coax as a wirepull for the cat5

[tweak13]

That's not the way it works. The value of characteristic impedance is in ohms, not ohms/meter. It absolutely does not change based on cable length. It describes how signals will propagate which is a characteristic of the cable, not how long it is.

Re:ATT Uverse runs over coax

[your_mother_sews_soc]

sorry, I realize my post contributed nothing.

Twisted pair, man

[Spy Handler]

100mb ethernet is four wires, yes? And I have four wires for every two coax cables.

The four wires in your coax are not twisted. It's not gonna work.

Pay $100 for those coax-ethernet transceiver things, or string some Cat5e. Seriously, if you can afford to buy a big ass house then what's another couple hundred??

Use the Coax to pull CAT 5e cable

[Cassini2]

If the coax is sitting loose in the walls, you can use it as a pull cable to thread in replacement UTP cable.

Old Ethernet worked over Coax. I just doubt you have the correct kind of Coax. Also, my experience with residential cable installs is that they tend to have damaged Coax cable, so it is pointless even trying to use it for high-bandwidth applications.

Finally, while it is theoretically possible to substitute 4 "pairs" of twisted pair with 4 Coax cables, my suspicion would be that you would have severe impedance mismatch problems. It might be good at 10 Mb, where the old Coaxial ethernet worked. I doubt it would handle modern 1 Gb Ethernet signals. Also, modern Ethernet expects all 4 pairs to be of approximately the same length, and it is unlikely someone would have 4 matched-length pairs of coaxial cable sitting in their wall.

Re:Related Questions

[Corf]

A conduit containing both CAT6 and some fishing line to pull through whatever's in vogue once CAT6 will no longer cut it.

Re:Related Questions

[jayteedee]

I disagree on the conduit containing Cat6 and the fish line. I'd keep the Cat6 separate and put in the conduit with the fish line though. Conduit is definitely the great idea, but having to run more than 1 cable through a conduit is a lot more work than an empty conduit. And forget running the gray PVC or the flexible gray conduit (outdoor rated stuff). Both are way too expensive and totally unnecessary for low voltage wires (except maybe in a few weird states with goofy regulations). Use cheap polyethylene tube used for sprinklers (1/2") which you can get in 500 and 1000 foot rolls.