As with the Electric Room, and Water Room, this could look intimidating to a layman. This will explain why no one should go into any of these rooms unless they know what they are doing. The communications room will handle LAN?/WAN?/Internet, telephone, and television. Since there are multiple ethernet jacks throughout the house, it will stand to reason that there are a number of lines that would run to the communications room. In addition, there is wifi? access points which will also run to the communications room.
Network/Internet
Each patch panel can hold 48 lines, and will fit in a 1U rack mount. This house will easily have 2 patch panels. From each patch panel, there will be a line to connect to the 2 switches that will need to connect to the network server. In addition, there will be space for servers, and shelves for other systems such as NAS?, and eventual purchase of a media server, and a backup server. There will be a surveillance system since there will be cameras throughout the property. There are also 5 ethernet lines that runs from the TV-LAN to the switch. This is for the OTA? DVR?s which will be detailed in more detail below. Each ethernet jack in the house will run to the patch panel. Each patch panel will run to the appropriate switch. From each switch to the network server which will replace the conventional router. The server will have 2 onboard NIC (Network Interface Connection) to the ISP?s. There will be an add-on card that would contain 4 NICs. These NICs will be the LAN, whereas the onboard NICs will be the WAN. This will allow for every connection to be available, and service will run.
Telephone
Verizon no longer offer POTS?. Instead, SIP? will be required to provide for any home telephone service including faxing, and the connections for the elevator call boxes. There is also cellular phone services which does not rely on the house’s capabilities, but still an option nonetheless. For telephone, there will be a need for ATA?s Since most if not all supported fax machines does not support FOIP?, an ATA will be required for connecting the fax machine to the LAN.
Television
There will be a rooftop antenna. This antenna will provide for all of the OTA television signals, but the line will run to communications room, and split into 4 TV LAN connections. Each TV LAN can offer connectivity to an OTA DVR?, and those DVRs will also connect to the network LAN which will allow any supported platform to watch television without the need to run legacy coaxial lines throughout the house in hopes that they will be placed where someone may want a TV to plug into. Since the TV signals can run over the LAN, anywhere there is an ethernet jack, there is a television connection.