So our apartment building all has a white box on top of our doors installed by AT&T. Anyone know what the hell it does? I asked the guy who installed it, he said it’s for Internet. Kinda suspicious why would they installed one in front of each door, is it for low income? Any information would be appreciated, thanks so much

 

 

So our apartment building all has a white box on top of our doors installed by AT&T. Anyone know what the hell it does? I asked the guy who installed it, he said it’s for Internet. Kinda suspicious why would they installed one in front of each door, is it for low income? Any information would be appreciated, thanks so much

Hi,

Take a picture of it and post it here. It could be their cable converter box, converting from fibre to coax for example.

 

View attachment 150616

Very funny

 

Hi,

Take a picture of it and post it here. It could be their cable converter box, converting from fibre to coax for example.

Sounds good. I will definitely post once I get off from work. Thank you

 

 

Hi,

Take a picture of it and post it here. It could be their cable converter box, converting from fibre to coax for example.

Posted.

 

Have you asked the building manager?

It's possible that they had internet infrastructure installed for every apartment (just like they have -- or at least traditionally had -- telephone service wired to every apartment) so that tenets could get internet without having to have someone come in and damage walls to run wire that becomes an undocumented mishmash over time. The individual boxes might be so that individual tenets can subscribe/unsubscribe and be billed accordingly.

If the building manager doesn't know, then you should get on them and stay on them to find out -- there's no reason that anyone should be installing something like this in the building without their knowledge.

 

Pop the cover off and take a picture of what's inside. Post the picture here if you don't recognize what's inside. If there are markings, including markings on chips, try to make them clearly visible in the pictures.

 

It does not look suspicious. It looks like a simple access/tap box. It is perfectly reasonable to have these installed in the common areas. Yes, of course, the owner/manager/business office must have given consent. But, yeah, ask and look.

 

Pop the cover off and take a picture of what's inside. Post the picture here if you don't recognize what's inside. If there are markings, including markings on chips, try to make them clearly visible in the pictures.

I will try to, thanks

 

Have you asked the building manager?

It's possible that they had internet infrastructure installed for every apartment (just like they have -- or at least traditionally had -- telephone service wired to every apartment) so that tenets could get internet without having to have someone come in and damage walls to run wire that becomes an undocumented mishmash over time. The individual boxes might be so that individual tenets can subscribe/unsubscribe and be billed accordingly.

If the building manager doesn't know, then you should get on them and stay on them to find out -- there's no reason that anyone should be installing something like this in the building without their knowledge.

Yeah I don’t know they should at least put out flyers or what not to let us know what they wrrr doing. They do with everything else

 

Yeah I don’t know they should at least put out flyers or what not to let us know what they wrrr doing. They do with everything else

You would probably find that there are lots of things that happen around the building that you aren't notified about. Depending on the size/age of the building, there's probably stuff happening more days than not.

 

So our apartment building all has a white box on top of our doors installed by AT&T. Anyone know what the hell it does? I asked the guy who installed it, he said it’s for Internet.

My guess is that it's a WiFi repeater.

 

Playing "Angel's Advocate" (opposite of devil's advocate) it could be a hub for some smoke / fire detection system. Nonetheless, I think you have the right to know if it's something that could be spying on you. I doubt it is, as usually such spy devices are better hidden. But then again, sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight.

 

My guess is that it's a WiFi repeater.

At first I thought, nahhh, not on every door, but you could be right. I remember that we had to have repeaters (or something similar) in every basement room at one place where I worked so that people had cell phone connectivity.

 

My guess is that it's a WiFi repeater.

I wouldn't expect to see a repeater above every door. It COULD be. But typical apartment construction is where one unit has a specific floor plan and the adjacent unit has the mirrored floor plan with typically the majority of the plumbing in a common location. So that would precipitate the need to have an apartment door just some few feet away from the next, then a large gap to the next door. So if there's one of these units directly above EVERY door and the doors are in half the cases adjacent then I'd suspect it's not a repeater. One repeater should be sufficient for two apartments. Besides, wouldn't it be the occupant's responsibility to set up a router/cable service in their home?

The hotel I stayed in last winter had three repeaters in the hall. One at either end and one in the middle, and there were 16 rooms to a floor. Three repeaters for 16 units? One repeater over every door? I'm tending to think that's not the case.

 

Instead of a WiFi repeater it could be a WiFi transmitter for each apartment so they each can have a private network.

 

it could be a WiFi transmitter for each apartment

Luxury apartments?

 

Luxury apartments?

No.
If there's no building WiFi and the apartment dweller wants WiFi that he pays for.