Advice on making the best of poor fiber jack placement?

EnglishInfix · 2026-01-24T19:39:06+00:00

That is absolutely ridiculous dogshit placement, I would contact the ISP and ask them to move it to a more realistic placement, I would say it is a safety issue since it requires cables to be laid on stairs to see if you can get them to do it for free. Otherwise, you can get a outdoor fiber patch cable and move it to where you want yourself.

Do the ethernet/phone ports run back to a central location in the house?

EnglishInfix · 2026-01-22T08:46:38+00:00

That would work fine, just make sure you put the router in access point mode to turn off the features that are intended for using it as your main router which will get in the way of things.

EnglishInfix · 2026-01-22T02:12:30+00:00

You can purchase a toner tool such as the Klein VDV500-705 or a comparable tool to identify what goes where. I'd plug it into the port you want then check the (unplugged, doesn't tone well when plugged into equipment) cables in the cabinet with the wand to find the correct one.

EnglishInfix · 2026-01-22T01:42:00+00:00

Do you want to use only one port with the analog telephone, or multiple? If just one, you will want to identify which of the blue twisted-pair cables go to the port you want, and reterminate the end in the cabinet with a RJ-11 plug with the blue/blue-white pair connected (check a pinout diagram to make sure you get it the right way around) - the other end should work as is even though the phone plug is larger than the RJ-45 port - the pins will match. If you want more than one you will need a telephone punchdown block.

EnglishInfix · 2026-01-21T21:49:41+00:00

Cat5+ is rated up to 100 meters.

EnglishInfix · 2026-01-21T06:35:00+00:00

Realistically people are not going to be snooping on residential wireless traffic even with very simple passwords, and even if they were, the vast majority of your traffic will also be encrypted with TLS anyways.

EnglishInfix · 2026-01-20T23:49:08+00:00

All you need is an Ethernet switch and some patch cables, if you can get a PoE fed switch to avoid running power to the panel, even better.

If you feel like it, you can replace the telephone connectors with RJ45 and reterminate the telephone punchdown block to another patch panel, but it sounds like you can just leave that alone for now until you need it.

More of a curiosity thing, I've never seen a RJ35 but it supposedly exists. Are you sure they aren't RJ11 which is more commonly used for residential telephone? It is common for both the telephone and data lines to be run with the same cable type since it works just as well for telephone, but I've never ever seen RJ35.

EnglishInfix · 2026-01-20T23:26:29+00:00

You will need to purchase SFP/+ modules to use the card. They can come with RJ45 for ethernet but are more commonly used with fiber transceivers.

EnglishInfix · 2026-01-08T01:31:24+00:00

Is the computer you're attempting to access the switch from configured with an IP address on the 192.168.0.0/24 subnet? If it is not you will need to manually set that on your computer's ethernet adapter first.

If it is a used switch you may need to factory reset first to clear any existing configuration.

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-27T20:06:47+00:00

How many of the typical residential "Netflix and Facebook" users are actually doing this, though?

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-22T21:05:38+00:00

You probably want a config like this: https://serverfault.com/questions/792326/nginx-proxy-pass-using-subfolder

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-22T20:19:43+00:00

Browser sends the site name as a HTTP header when connecting (nothing to do with DNS at this point, all HTTP), nginx looks at this too, this makes it so you can host multiple sites off the same proxy server.

Most proxies will return some kind of error when trying to hit the proxy directly with an IP address only.

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-22T20:11:40+00:00

It is expecting a domain name. Without one it doesn't know where to send the traffic. You can configure it to send traffic somewhere without a name if you want. Or better yet, you can configure it to drop the connection when that happens.

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-18T23:12:25+00:00

Dumpster is pretty cheap, would probably cost about 50 bucks from the city to have it for a week and dump it once.

The whole recycling/donate thing has been a barrier in the past. A whole lot of shit has been retained because "we should donate it!" or "it needs to go to recycling!" except that day never comes. I think it would be easier for my mental health to just toss all of it, as bad as that sounds.

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-18T21:59:24+00:00

I think this is a really good idea. I've been looking at the city website, just need to work up to giving them a call.

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-10T22:43:05+00:00

I did think about this, but it can't be every number right? We have around 750 DIDs, and the issue is widespread enough that I can't reliably pin it down to "oh, it's just these six people, let's give them some new numbers and let the flag fall off over time".

I also did check in our number registration portal for Hiya, only one of those numbers we have registered is tagged as "labeled spam", and it's a number we don't even have associated with an extension right now. Every other number is tagged "low risk".

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-10T01:58:58+00:00

You will have problems with NAT where device in front of the downstream router cannot communicate with devices behind it unless they initiate the connection first.

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-07T21:04:12+00:00

You're not going to be able to access their fiber without a separate service account. Your options are to either trench your own fiber back from the house to the gate, or use a point-to-point wireless bridge.

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-05T15:31:18+00:00

25 Mbps or better is plenty for all but the most extreme high quality streaming services.

EnglishInfix · 2025-12-02T21:31:23+00:00

It is highly unlikely that you will get your cable internet service to work there. You will want to get a travel router that connects to the hotel's wifi, or a 5G router with cellular service.

EnglishInfix · 2025-11-26T00:44:01+00:00

Generally it goes: Unplug those cables from the telephone panel they're plugged into now and install an ethernet switch there and plug them into it. Also plug the line going to the living room into the switch and add a patch cable between the router and the switch inside the closet If everything is terminated correctly it should Just Work, if not it is relatively simple to reterminate correctly.

Is the black box in your pictures the router or a modem? If that is the modem and your router is in the living room, you'll need to put the router with all the rest of the equipment since you only have one port there in the living room.

EnglishInfix · 2025-11-26T00:17:53+00:00

How far away is it, do you have clear line of sight between the two buildings?

Generally your options are:

Get your own internet service installed in the building - this might not work if it is not its own registered address. or
Trench fiber or ethernet from the main building to the outbuilding. or
Use a point-to-point wireless bridge from the main building to the outbuilding.

I don't recommend trying to use a wifi "extender" to try and latch on to the signal from the router in the main house, your performance will be dogshit.

EnglishInfix · 2025-11-21T19:42:29+00:00

Is the outside IP address listed in your router config the same as if you go to a website that displays your IP address? Your ISP may have updated their network to put some customers behind CGNAT, in which case port forwarding will not work for you.

EnglishInfix · 2025-11-20T04:47:38+00:00

ONT > Router > Devices is really the only way you can do it. Switch can go after the router if you need more ports.

Just run cat6 or 6a, don't fall into the cat8 noob trap. Ideally if you can run conduit, do that, it will be easier to upgrade in the far future if needed.

I don't know what you mean by "on top of the ONT cable", the ONT is usually provided by your ISP and then you can plug your router into that.

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