Ethernet sockets upstairs, how to get working?

iampetesmith

Do you know if this is something that was fitted in the house when it was built? Some new builds have them now, but depending on the age of the house then it could be something a previous owner fitted and then never terminated the cables anywhere. If it was fitted in a new build, then you could probably ask the developer or do some Googling to see where the builders would terminate those cables.

If you have one of these network sockets in every room, then they were probably intended to go into a switch as there won't be enough sockets on the router. When I cabled my house like this, I set it up the same way as an office. Each socket goes to a patch panel in the cupboard under the stairs, then they all connect to a switch. Mine looks like this:



The black set of sockets is the patch panel and this is where they would all normally go, but you'd have found this if you had one because of the size of it. If you can't trace where the other ends go, then my guess is that it was never terminated at the other end so the cables go nowhere.

scottishblondie

The most likely place for them to terminate is near to your master phone socket - if the installer has any common sense!  I'm guessing you would have noticed a bunch of cables hanging out of the wall, so most likely they're going to a wall plate with multiple ethernet sockets on it.  Could also be hiding at the back of a cupboard - under the stairs maybe?

Swasterix

scottishblondie said:

The most likely place for them to terminate is near to your master phone socket - if the installer has any common sense!

That really depends. If there’s 1 or 2 cables, then yes. If however you have 20-30 cables throughout the house, probably not. 

scottishblondie

Swasterix said:

scottishblondie said:

The most likely place for them to terminate is near to your master phone socket - if the installer has any common sense!

That really depends. If there’s 1 or 2 cables, then yes. If however you have 20-30 cables throughout the house, probably not. 

OP has only mentioned 2.  If they had 20-30 then it seems likely they would have noticed the giant patch panel somewhere.
We had our last house fully cabled and terminated all cables (12 or so) in the cupboard at the front door alongside the telephone socket, then fitted all the network equipment in there.