Hi all, moved into a prewired house (built in 2003) and am trying to get my office connected to my router. The office has one of these green wires terminated at a wall jack while the rest of the house has the blue, which I just put new terminals on and plugged into a 10 port switch, then my router without issue. Question is, what is this thing that all the green CAT 5 wires connect to? The bulk of the wiring is strung through the attic space and drops down into the access panel in my closet. Do I need this thing or does it serve as some sort of bus? I just see wires come in and wires going out. Do I need to disconnect it and identify the office wire or can this be used somehow?

Thanks and any help would be appreciated!

  • tenacious_mucus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    66 block. It’s a punchdown block for telephone systems. Builders/electricians started running CAT5 for POTS (plain old telephone system) lines long ago, around the tome your house was built. Notice they are only using 1 or 2 pairs from each run. The wires coming in to the block will be from the outside telephone company lines into your house.

    If you want to repurpose all or any of the CAT5 runs for networking then you’ll have to remove it from this block and re-terminate them to suit your build! Just pop the cover off and yank the wires out.

    110 block is the networking version of a punchdown block, but totally unnecessary in a residential setting. I usually end up terminating these wires with RJ45s right here in the panel and put the switch in here with 1 line being a backhaul to wherever the router/modem will be.