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Modernizing old house network wiring - Part 1 - Goals and Overview

I have an old house, well over 100 years old.  It's been hacked up over the decades, and now I'm trying to change it so it's appropriate for our modern Internet age.

In-the-home Telecommunications have changed a lot over the years.  100 year old telephone wiring is not uncommon, along with 40 year old Cable TV wires.   But these days, in the home telecom has shifted to Internet standards and all the handy services they provide:
  • WiFi is in.
  • Security Cameras are in.
  • Video doorbells are in.
  • Ethernet cabling is in.
  • Power over Ethernet is in.
But...
  • Old-school alarm systems and doorbells are out.
  • Analog Telephone is definitely out.
  • Cable TV wiring is fading fast.

This series will cover my adventure of transitioning my 100+ year old house full of old-school telecom wiring into a full modern data-capable home for today and the foreseeable future.

My General Plan

Generally I want to have all the modern conveniences in my old house, but I don't want to spend a lot of money doing it.  I want to be prepared for the future.  I don't want to remove useful capabilities, but I also don't want a huge nest of wires everywhere.

Therefore, I've developed this short list of goals.
  • Keep everything as simple as possible.
  • Expect that Internet services will be delivered via Cable TV-based ISP *or* via a Wireless ISP.
  • Plan for a UPS to power key network equipment (modem, routers, switches, WiFi, cameras, etc).
  • Use Power over Ethernet for Cameras and other Network equipment
  • Add IP cameras to cover the doors and other areas of the property.
  • Have a minimum number of WiFi access points to covers the entire property (hopefully, one)
  • Have TVs use an IP-based DTV adapter with an in-attic Antenna.  TVs expected not to use COAX.
  • Rip out any ugly, broken, or insanely obsolete wiring.
Well that doesn't actually seem so easy and cheap!  But I'm going to do all the work myself, and I'm going to cheap out when necessary.

My first step is to understand what I have.

Pre-Existing Wiring

My house has a ton of telecom wiring of different vintages - some of it as new as 20 years old, but some of it as old as 70 years old (and likely even older).  Here's what I think I've got.

Cable TV Coax cabling

Cable TV usually runs over round coaxial cables, and my house has a ton of it.  I have nine cable TV wiring runs - more runs there there are rooms!   I guess the prior owners really loved their TV.

All of the coax cables seem to lead to a large coax distribution amplifier bolted to a wall in the basement. The coax cable is 20 to 30 years old and looks to be in excellent condition.  About half the cables run properly within the walls, but the other half is strung up on the outside of the building.  Ugly!

I'm a modern guy and do not plan to use the cable TV wiring, but I have no plan to rip it out the good cables.  Coax cable is still useful for cable TV, satellite TV, or even an over-the-air TV antenna system.  Even more important, coax cabling can be used with "Ethernet over coax adapters", better known as MOCA adapters, which could be useful if I need Ethernet where there is only a cable TV outlet.

I will definitely keep the healthy coax cable that runs properly within the walls of my house.  I plan to remove all the coax cables that have been sloppily run on the outside of the building.

Analog telephone cabling:

Old-school analog telephone wiring ("POTS") almost always consists of four-conductor cables, and my house has plenty of it.  Most of it looks to be from 50 to 70 years old.   It all leads from the basement telecom panel where some of it seems to terminate at the main telephone terminal block.  It looks like a ball of spaghetti.  In the US, this cable is usually in a gray or putty colored jacket with four solid copper conductors: red, green, black, and yellow.

The POTS cabling in my house is stapled along baseboards and poked through walls and ceilings, terminating at ancient 4-pin surface mount jacks in the bedrooms. Given its ugliness and considering that I can't imagine how it could be used in the future, I will be removing it and its associated jacks.

Modern CAT5 Cabling?  Kind of...

Happily, my house wiring isn't all obsolete.  There is a bundle of CAT5 cables that the prior owner added about 20 years ago.  But that CAT5 isn't wired for Ethernet.

I guess 20 years ago people still liked analog phones - so all of the CAT5 is configured for a single-line analog telephone system, with RJ11 telephone jacks placed around the building. 

All of the CAT5 seems to lead to the basement telecom panel, where the all of the blue wires are joined together, and where all the white/blue wires are joined together. From there, they are connected to the telephone company's telephone terminal block.

There must be some "splitting" along the way, because there seem to be eight RJ11 jacks and only six CAT5 cables. Hm.

I hope to repurpose all of the CAT5 for Ethernet, and convert all the RJ11 jacks to "RJ45" Ethernet.

4-Conductor Alarm Cabling

A house alarm was added in the late 1990s, and consists of numerous wired sensors and Ademco control panels.  The cables are POTS-style 4-conductor solid core with red/green/yellow/black conductors.  I have no plans to use these cables, but since they look good and have been neatly installed, I will leave them inside the walls for potential future use.

Doorbell Wiring

There is a simple 2-wire doorbell system, maybe from the 1970s.  I would like to change this to a modern IP-camera type of doorbell.  I need to figure out what my options are.

Next Time....

Next  I plan to assess the CAT5 cables, now used for a single analog phone line, to see if they are suitable for conversion to Ethernet.  Stay tuned.
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