Internet is a very important utility. In a house, you will be required to have internet services. In apartments, internet is not required, but generally suggested. In the unit, there will be a communications closet. This closet will have all of your RJ45 lines from the termination point, to the patch panel. From the patch panel, the connections will plug into the switch. All switches must have at least 1 POE (Power Over Ethernet) port which will be required for the Wifi Access Point. This will allow the access point to acquire power over the RJ45 lines as long as they are plugged into a POE port. To make it simpler for the tenant, all POE lines will have a yellow ethernet cable. This will allow you to know that you should not plug the yellow lines in any of the regular switch ports.
There are a few reasons why Internet is required. The first reason is for the locking system that is in place. The locking system will connect with a database to recognize any RFID cards. If you were to lose your card, you would have to gain a new one. Doing this will prompt me to disable your lost card. This will prevent a bad actor from gaining access to your residence. However, there must be an internet connection. The second reason for the in-ground radiant heating system. This system will receive data to identify when is snows, and heat the sidewalk/driveways to 54°F. This will melt the snow and ice, and make for a clear pathway. If you live in a house, you are responsible for managing the sidewalk. By having an internet connection, you are able to use the Internet to run the system. Last, you would need it for communications. If there are any instances where there is a need for communications, you would likely receive an email. While you can use your phone’s internet connection for the email access, you will not be able to use the phone’s internet connection for the other resources.
Internet is provided by one or two companies. The first one is Xfinity (Comcast). They will provide cable internet services which is not my preference, but still an option for almost every tenant. If you are receiving Section-8, you are likely able to qualify for Internet Essentials. There are a few conditions, but if you are accepted, you must use their router/modem. In which regard, you would plug the switch into the router, and the coaxial will plug into the WAN jack which will identify that coaxial jack as the internet connection. This is important as you would have at least 2 coaxial jacks in the communications closet which is for the television service. You can choose to have OTA (Over the Air) television, and use Xfinity for internet.
The second option is FiOS. FiOS will support connections ups to 2GBPS. Obviously, if you have a 1GBPS router, you would be wasting your money getting 2GBPS. However, they have 1GBPS connections, and if you ever acquire a commercial network server, or router with at least 2.5GBPS, then 2GBPS will make sense. The switch in the communications closet will be 10GBPS switches, so the bottleneck will not be my hardware. You are able to plug the network server, or router directly into the RJ45-WAN port. You would not need a modem as you would with Xfinity.