Well to start, I started a new job recently and they were having me look at their network infrastructure and there is new hardware in three separate locations. One room is down the hall from my office which has a netgear wireless firewall switch but there is no wireless card in it. Then on the ports it breaks off to i dont have a clue where. We thought to our offices but there are two sets of offices, So under this netgear switch is a 3com network switch that has a bunch of ports like 15 or 25 something ports on it and i believe its a 10/100 switch and the netgear switch is also a 10/100. So the next room or location has a few more switches and its a 25 switch by 3coms again and ill post pictures below of everything in the order of rooms skipping the first room of course since there isnt much. Also there is a wireless router by the 3com 25 port in the second location. So lets move to the third location, that is just mumbo jumbo, wires everywhere, and there is some Cisco hardware with a huge connector attached to it with ethernet also but the ethernet wires are spliced and put into jumbers and breaker boxes for wires. Like the old phones id say. I just need some help identifying what the last room is. We want to contact Comcast about stripping all of TDI's bullsh*t and starting over from the ground up. The connections here are slow as anything so im guessing everything is DSL and they said recently they were upgraded to a new T1 line which means nothing to me and everything is just everywhere. So if anyone could just help with anything that'd be really appreciating.
Sharpies are so underrated. Everything should be labeled and have a 3 ring binder in the com room explaining everything. Hack job. Figure it out and label everything with a report and legend = job security :) This will be a good lesson in line tracing.
Since its really the only identifiable thing I can see from the pictures, the Cisco box is a Integrated Access Device iad2432-24fxs, itll be for your phone system likely.
The large connector is an RJ-24 connection, which is basically a 25 line phone connection (normally), it has T1/E1 ports (next to the RJ-21) and 2 10/100BASE-T ports (next to the T1/E1) and a couple others.
Wow i am just amazed that anyone was able to identify any of that hardware. I did find out it was part of the old phone system still in place. The company needs their phones so nothing i can do like right now.
Well sir, that is actually what me and the boss were talking about doing :p its all too old anyways and we get a max download speed of like 3Mbps on a good day. Its DSL so the speed changes all the time throughout the day. We wont be going the tradition way of doing phones either. What i want to do is the cheaper way of setting up a VOIP system but i dont have an idea how but ill learn. Stripping this building of all its cat5 ethernet cables should be fun and having new lines put in place and ones that lead to my office where i could put a rackmount case and put everything we need there where its less dusty.
You can run gigabit on cat5. its better if it is 5e but it will work if you need to save some cash. I don't know shit about voip so GL with that. Maybe make a thread about it like a story kinda thing.
Wow...... Looks like FUN! If you have the budget to strip all that crap out, do it. Make sure you use at least cat6. Cat5e will do fine with gigabit but cat6 will last longer as speeds increase. Cat6 isn't that much more expensive. Considering all the dirt around it appears you might be in a warehouse or industrial setting? If so, you may want to consider STP instead of UTP even if it is more expensive. Large electrical equipment, (giant Electric Heaters hanging from the ceiling) can cause some bad interference on unshielded pairs.
If you don't yet have a Fox & Hound yet, your situation justifies it. This will be a life saver if you need to find out what cable goes where. Good luck Bro!
Make sure you get a good bit of planning in there. its amazing the functions you find old equipment doing that people forgot about but were actually needed.
I imagine your VOIP idea wouldn't be to difficult to implement, I don't know much about it, but as far as im aware you really only need three parts, a provider, a box on your end like asterisk and phones. Obviously theres more to it than that, but at least its simpler than that mess you currently have xD
Replacing the cables would be a good idea, but not so much if the cables are fine as they are (no faults or interference) and your company will never use more bandwidth over the next 5-10 years.
Btw clearer pictures of the other devices and identifying marks would make them easier to ID if your still looking to see what they are.