I've been looking around for awhile on ways to do this and haven't found anything that quite explained it very good. So now I'm here and hoping you can help me. I have plenty of pictures so hopefully that helps.
Well, I'm doing this for my dad. He wants to see if I can do it since I did most of our past networking. That was just small things and I have no idea where to start with this. We bought the house and re-did most of it, while the walls were open the technician said, "Why don't you put in some cat5e? It's pretty cheap and you'll have it there if you ever want it." My dad said, "Yeah, Sure." So that's that, we've got cat5e jacks all over the house now with basically no use. We've been using wireless but it's just not cutting it. Mind you, we have an el cheapo router so it kind of sucked to begin with. It'd be nice to have the option of wired for our desktop computers, even though we'll probably be upgrading our router soon. Now onto the pictures
Scratch that, time to wait for the pictures to upload on Flickr. Mean while maybe you can help with why it's taking so long. I run the speedtest at speedtest.net and get about 1.5mb/s download and 400kbps upload. Why don't these speeds reflect my actual download and upload which is about 200kbps download and 56k upload... (Sometime later we're ready for the pictures now )
We'll start out where I am at now, right now we've got a Westell Model 2200 DSL modem.

That runs into a D-link WBR 1310/Buffalo Airstation WHR-G545 (Which ever feels like working that day) then to the computer.
Now if I take that DSL modem is there any way to connect it to this:

That is linked to a number of wall jacks through out the house, they all are labeled: (pictures included a random few I could find)




If there's an easy way or even a hard to do it tell me in the most detail you can. I'll give you a little more info on stuff they may help you help me.
I believe this is the set up for all our phones, we have a pager system so you can talk to one another on house phones.

Almost everything is labeled, the stuff that isn't probably isn't meant to be used. These are just some examples.


This is the whole little set up including phone, cable, and the the cat5e we're trying to get some use out of.

The tech guy left a bunch of short ethernet cables here I guessing are supposed to be used if we ever want to do it.

I've been thinking about it now for a little bit and came up with what I think might be the solution, please offer insight on this situation.
I'm thinking, have a phone line connect to my current DSL modem from there have a router/switch/hub (We'd have to buy more I guess, and if we do what do you suggest?) then connect all the ports from the router/hub/switch to the what ever it is called that has the connections running through out my house.
So here's a simple illustration
Phone jack > Modem > hub/switch/router > Thing on wall
I fell confident that I've given enough information to figure out the problem. If not here's a little more, and if it's not enough just ask I'll be checking this daily.
Made by

and I guess the thing was bought from here:

Thanks for all your help guys

Buy a switch and plug an ethernet cable from your router to the new switch, then connect the live ports on the patch panel to the switch. Looks like you'd probably want a 12+ port switch.

Somebody went a little crazy w/ the cheese whizz...

A switch is definitely want you want to start w/. What you can also do to improve your wifi signal is purchase a couple access point of the same manafacturer (linksys, etc) and tie them all together. From there, you will be able to roam from ap to ap always maintaining the best signal strength.

And you are right about the order. You're DSL will plug into the phone line, then the DSL modem will plug into your router/firewall box, from there your router/firewall will plug into the switch. The switch then connects to the patch panel and waalaa... You're house is now network w/ the cat5e.

Good Luck!

Might want to add a surge suppressor to that power outlet box on your telecomm wall.

Thanks for all the responses, I've pretty much got it now and will probably be getting a switch soon. One more question though. Is there anyway to pull a phone like out from down there, like right off that board where everything is?

You can easily run phone over RJ45. Several different ways to do it. At the end of the day, RJ11 (4 copper wires) is just a few wires different than RJ45 (8 copper wires). I've seen people crimp short extension cables where one end is RJ45 and the other is RJ11.

Make sure you label the heck out of the ports on both end. POTS phone lines run voltage through them and you could potentially damage a NIC if it was connected to a phone outlet.

I guess I should of provided a little more information.
I meant put a line in right down there so I could hook my modem up to it
Or do I just use what's already there?