TL;DR
I can't find the "On-Q" panel to activate the houses ethernet ports. I think it may have been removed from the area in my picture. I'm wondering if that sounds plain wrong or if it is possible.
Long version:
I have been helping my boss set up his home office. I noticed there are Cat5e ports built-in to the wall in several places throughout the house. I don't have any experience with using a built-in system like this but I have basic networking knowledge.
There is a cupboard in the office (pictured below) with 8 ethernet ports and an inactive coax outlet. I tried connecting a cable from the router to one of these and then went around the ones in the house and found it gave internet to one of the other ports across the room. Then I tried a few more and it seems each of these 8 correspond to another in the house somewhere.
So, when the guy from their ISP (Mediacom) came to fix their internet today I was asking him if there was a way I could activate them all with the modem and he said he used to work construction and when they install those they all go to a "On Q" panel, and you can change something on there to say which is the "master" port, where you can plugin in your modem to activate them all.
The guy we talked to said it's usually in the laundry room or the master bedroom or master bedroom closet. We have looked all over the house and can't seem to find it.
The only thing I can think of is maybe the previous owners had it installed and they took the switch with them when they left. There are some "sticky pads" left above the cat5e ports where a switch might have been mounted.
If this is the case. What's our best option? Buy a new switch and plug it in to one of these in the cupboard that links up to the modem?
2 Answers
It's dead obvious you've found the location you're looking for. Here's how we know:
All of the house's in-wall Ethernet ports terminate at this cabinet. That clearly identifies it as an equipment cabinet.
If there were a second cabinet, there would be a cable running from this cabinet to the second one. But there's no such cable. That means this is the only cabinet. (It would be highly unusual for even a large house to have more than one network equipment cabinet, but if it did, they'd be connected with Cat5 or maybe fiber optic cable.)
As for what to do next, that depends on your new modem's available ports and the number of outlets you need connected. If your modem has enough switch ports built-in, you can use short patch cables to patch them to the various ports feeding the in-wall outlets. However, if you need more ports, then simply buy a small switch, patch all of the outlets to it, then run one patch cable from the switch to the modem.
Less relevant side note: The cable guy shouldn't have referred to your network cabinet as an "On-Q panel." On-Q is a specific family of home technology and structured wiring products. It is by no means ubiquitous enough to justify referring to it by name when talking about an equipment cabinet in the generic sense.
1It's is unlikely that there is a "On Q" panel or any other locations that you missed, and this location is your Main Distribution Frame location. Usually you would have a modem here with an up-link (WAN) connection to the provider of the internet service and judging by the picture the previous was probably a cable provider. From that modem you would usually have a router connected to a switch to give you enough ethernet ports and patch cable to each of the jacks in your distribution to make all of wall plates live. If you have a router that has enough switch ports built in to accommodate the jacks that you want to make live, then you won't need an additional switch.
